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Leigh Collins & her nightmare |
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Written by Paul Raymore
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Tuesday, 21 August 2007 |
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Local dancer Leigh Collins, a 16-year-old soon-to-be junior at Tahoe-Truckee High School who dreams of one day becoming a professional dancer, plays the role that ties the performance together — that of a young girl whose nightmare the audience gets to experience.
A member of Truckee’s InnerRhythms Dance Theatre company for three years, Collins just returned from an intensive summer dance camp with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City on Aug. 13 before jumping into her role in “A Midsummer Night-MARE.”
Leigh opens the performance with fellow InnerRhythms dancer Cheyenne Rosenfelt, 15, who dares her to eat what turns out to be a hallucinogenic flower...
 I knew that I was going to be in [A Midsummer Night-MARE] before I went off to Joffrey, so I knew that when I came home I’d need to be prepared to get right back into everything.
Joffrey was pretty intense; I would have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning and take the subway down to where I was dancing. And we’d have dance classes all day long, then once rehearsals started for the end of the year performance I lived and breathed dance.
A Midsummer Nightmare is about me and my friend Cheyenne, and we’re playing around and she tells me to eat a flower. And I eat the flower eventually so she would give me her styling head doll — this Barbie kind of thing — and I go into this kind of nightmare dream, and all these ghouls and goblins come out. That’s pretty much the dream.
I kind of lead everyone through the nightmare.
I’ve never really worked with people on stilts or anything like that, so it’s been a really cool opportunity to see the different areas of dance and what there is out there.
 There’s this girl who does hula hoops, her name is Elena Lev I think, and she’s the most flexible person I’ve ever seen in the world. She’s amazing. I’ve seen her once at another show, so it’s really cool to be working with her and everyone else.
I’m going to be dancing with the people who work on stilts. So they’re going to lift me up and all this stuff while they’re on stilts. So I’m pretty excited for that.
It’s pretty extravagant for nightmares. I get chased in my nightmares, but this is pretty intense.
[Christopher Childers] is a really cool person to work with. He’s really open to anything we suggest. And the way he moves is just so fluid; it’s just so cool to watch him work.
I think [the audience] is going to be pretty shocked. I’ve never seen anything like this happen in Tahoe. I think they’re going to be pretty amazed by all the stuff that’s going to happen.
I’ve never performed on the Shakespeare Festival stage, and it’s huge, so it should be a pretty cool experience.
Photos by Paul Raymore/Tahow World
Top to bottom: Leigh Collins at a rehearsal for "A Midsummer Night-MARE." Collins poses while Night-MARE director Christopher Childers (left) and performers Trey Knight and Chae Hill create a nightmarish backdrop.
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