BY KAREN BOSSICK

Get in the “Holiday Spirit with Music and Dance” tonight at a free performance by dancers with Footlight Dance Centre and youth musicians with the Sun Valley Music Festival Music Institute.

The show will start at 7 p.m. tonight—Saturday, Dec. 13—at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theater at the Community Campus in Hailey.

Dancers and musicians will perform together for the third consecutive year.

“Both programs are excited to bring the two arts disciplines together to perform for our third year,” said Mackenzie King, director of Footlight Dance. “For the dancers, we usually perform to pre-recorded music as live musicians are an expense we cannot afford to add onto our production costs. Likewise, the musicians rarely get the opportunity to play for dance.

“The experience brings challenges and rewards for both as they learn to pay closer attention to details from the conductor in regard to tempo, and the dancers must listen to the subtle differences of the final version from recorded to live.”

The production will include Footlight’s Intermediate Tap Class performing to a holiday classic choreographed by Robyn Fox. Also, the newly added Teen Jazz Class, choreographed by Director, Mackenzie King.

The evening will conclude with a familiar “Nutcracker” medley.

Twelve 12 Footlight dancers from Footlight’s Intermediate 3/4, Junior Company level will perform a piece choreographed by Hilarie Neely. They attend Wood River High School and Middle School, as well as Sun Valley Community School.

The musicians are part of the Sun Valley Music Festival’s Sinfonia Pops Orchestra. They attend WRHS, WRMS and Syringa Mountain School.