YOU could say Deirdre Tarrant’s dancers are well into character for her dance studio’s annual production.
So much so that Tarrant calls her dancers Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Scarecrow, and so on, even when they aren’t in costume.
Dorothy is played by Sophia Dutch. She’s 17, but plaited and ensconced in a blue gingham frock, she looks barely more than a girl. It’s appropriate, she reckons.
“Everyone always tells me I look younger than I am. A few years ago when I was 15 a friend’s mum said: ‘Oh, so you go to the intermediate round the corner?’ And I said: ‘No, I go to high school’. So dressing up with plaits in my hair and this dress on is kind of ironic, really.”
She laughs when asked how similar she is to Dorothy.
“She’s very innocent. Not that I’m not innocent,” she says. “Maybe I am. But she’s quite naive.”
Sophia is interrupted by The Scarecrow, Sarah Collins, 16.
“She believes in the best in everyone.”
Sophia: “But then, I try to see the best in everyone, so I guess in that respect, I’m like Dorothy. She’s quite spontaneous, actually. Like, she meets these scarecrows and lions and things and she goes off with them.”
Sarah: “Are you like that?”
“I’m all for spontaneous decisions,” says Sophia. “But I haven’t met any lions and scarecrows.”
These two are quite a pair. They finish each other’s sentences and pretty much interview each other. If that’s anything to go by, the cohesion of the dance should be tight.
Because the dance they’re doing is a classic children’s story there is extra pressure. Especially for Sarah, who watched the DVD repeatedly at her grandma’s house when she was little.
“It was my favourite. The person on the DVD who played the scarecrow was really good – it’s intimidating to live up to that.”
The girls often sing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the dressing room, and Sophia has had to try and do her year 13 NCEA exams with Follow the Yellow Brick Road stuck in her head. So if knowing the music well has anything to do with it, Sarah should cope with the pressure just fine.
Etudes & The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Opera House, December 19.