Winslow dance studio adapts with video recital at Skowhegan drive-in

Members of Winslow’s Stage Presence for Dancers grace an outdoor stage in a parking lot on Thursday in preparation for upcoming video recitals at the Skowhegan Drive-In Theatre. Photo courtesy of Winslow’s Stage Presence for Dancers

The parking lot turned stage outside of Winslow’s Stage Presence for Dancers may look a bit odd, but what isn’t in 2020?

Stage Presence for Dancers owner Heather Vigue-Beaster adapted her plans many times during the coronavirus pandemic, from a complete shutdown, to Zoom classes for a few months, and more recently hosting classes at 80% capacity.

“I’ve learned to have ideas in my head on how I would handle certain situations, and kind of wait until we get closer to make final decisions because everything has been changing on the daily,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to plan ahead too far.”

But now the studio’s 20th anniversary recital, which was initially scheduled for April, can finally happen in an innovative way. The show will go on.

The 165 dancers, ages 3-77 from Stage Presence for Dancers, will showcase their talents in a pre-recorded video recital to be shown at the Skowhegan Drive-In Theatre on Thursday, Aug. 20, at 8 p.m.

“We were kind of forced into, ‘What are we doing to do now?'” Vigue-Beaster said. “We had the option of saying, ‘Forget it all,’ and walk away, or we could try and make something out of it.”

Upon first contact, the theater was willing to do it. More than 230 car tickets have been sold for the show, which will last a few hours in total. Vigue-Beaster estimates more than 1,000 people will attend the recital showing.

Vigue-Beaster and her team created an outdoor stage at the studio’s parking lot this week. They provided smaller shows for dancers and their families, all of which were filmed.

The studio also set up a photo shoot station for the dancers and their families for the truncated shows.

The final day of filming took place Thursday and Vigue-Beaster will edit it all together. It will be showed on a wide shot, so all the dancers can be seen at all times.

“I have cried for so many different reasons over these past few days,” Vigue-Beaster said, “for the sadness of things not being able to be what they ‘should have been,’ but also for the pride I’ve felt of what we were able to accomplish, for the never-say-die attitude of what we were going to do to get here.”