Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good morning, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I'm your host Lee up here. And as per usual, we're going to start this episode off the same way we start every episode off with a moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time, and the fact that you spend it with us truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note, tenor hit him with the intro.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Oh, she caught me, loves you or listened to the next any morning show.
Speaker 0 00:00:29 All right. And we're back. Okay. We have a fun guest today because she does something that I'm actually very interested in and my little sister does as well. So I have tons of good questions for, as you guys know, I don't introduce my guests. I let them do that themselves. So on that note, can you please tell everybody at home who you are and what you're about?
Speaker 3 00:00:45 Yes. Good morning. Um, my name is Melinda Richter and I am the owner of why ma'am dance company. As you can see, you know, on my sweater, I decided to wear some swag today.
Speaker 0 00:00:57 No, I like it. So what kind of dance are we talking about here?
Speaker 3 00:01:01 So we start at the age of two. Can we go up to adults? So we do jazz tap, hip hop, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, you name it. We do it. That's awesome.
Speaker 0 00:01:12 And so you guys are located where
Speaker 3 00:01:14 We are, uh, located in Greg quar. Uh, we're at 2 62 Greg voir drive. I always say if you were born, raised here we're right next door to the old bowling alley. But as the years go on, many people don't know bowling alley, so
Speaker 0 00:01:28 That's hilarious. Okay. So now you were saying the age ranges, so like, is this every day, how do people sign up? Like what the classes look like?
Speaker 3 00:01:37 So our program runs from September till June. So we start in September and we train all year. So we'd like everyone to sign up in September. We do accept, uh, late registrations up until November, but then in December we shut it down because we have to order costumes for in recital. Right. Um, and then in January we start learning our year-end recital dance. And then in, uh, June week I'll head to Canto and do a big, big themed year end show. So,
Speaker 0 00:02:02 Yeah. So how did you get into this?
Speaker 3 00:02:04 Like, um, you know, I feel like I've always been just a creative person, artistic person. I started off actually doing gymnastics at north porch mastics um, and I was on their competitive program and we had a dance teacher come to teach us dance. And I was like, oh, I think I like this better. Right. So, um, you know, my mom made sure I finished a year because we are firm believers. And if you start something, you finish something. So after I finished my year from NASA an I then switched over to dance and I was eight years old and I've been dancing ever since. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:38 So what kind of dance did you start off at? Ballet tap
Speaker 3 00:02:40 Jazz. Mostly jazz and hip hop. Yeah. And then as I decided I wanted to do dance a bit more competitively than I started taking everything and just being at the studio six, seven days a week. And I'm still there six, seven days.
Speaker 0 00:02:53 Awesome. Wow. So when you were doing all of this at that young, did you have a feeling that this was something that you wanted to transition to as a career? Or were you just doing it for the love of dance and then it just happened to be, well, you know what, I'm going to start my own studio.
Speaker 3 00:03:08 Yeah. I think it started out as just like a love for dance. And then as you know, I got older, it was just something that I really enjoyed. And, you know, my parents always told myself and my brother that like, we want to make sure whatever you do in life that you wake up and you go to a job that you're happy ad. It doesn't matter how much money you make. You just really need to enjoy what you're doing because life's so short. So yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 0 00:03:32 Very neat. Yeah. No, my younger sister dances and, uh, she tapped dances still to this day. Yeah. Yeah. And she, um, got she's she's a teacher. So she went up the ranks and stuff and uh, yeah, she still teaches, uh, well, prior to her diagnosis with cancer, but now since she beat her, I think she's teaching again, teaches at a studio down in Calgary. She loves it. Yeah. And like when she was a teenager, she decided one year, instead of coming back to Fort McMurry to work for the summer, she got a government grant and went and taught, tap dancing in south America.
Speaker 4 00:04:09 I didn't know that, but I thought that was more as a, I didn't want to work here thing.
Speaker 0 00:04:13 It was combination. Yeah. A little bit of both. A little bit of both. That's right. So yeah, it's one of those things growing up, like, because my sister was dancing and I had friends who, um, were in dancing guys and girls, like, I used to go to their recitals all the time at piano and love it. And I always thought it was like, super cool with like, when you talk to them, the opportunities that arise like afterwards in regards to professionally.
Speaker 3 00:04:36 Yeah. And you know, like I, as soon as I graduated, I, I moved to Vancouver for a year. I danced for a year and then I moved. I didn't really like the Vancouver weather very much. Um, and then I moved to, I relocated to Toronto for a bit to go to school and I ended up actually going to film school because I thought like, well, if I can't make it as like a professional dancer dancing and like videos, I should get, you know, I should do something else. And so I did go to film school for a year and I have, uh, a film arts, uh, and a diploma. So I did that and I worked on my TV show for a bit. But even when I was working on the TV show, I was like sitting, you know, cars have to be really quiet on set. And you're the director, producer camera person. You're just sitting there and you're like, be quiet, don't move. And I just always felt like I was just sitting still too much for me. And I was like, I put in my headphones and just like, listen to music. I'd be like, no, I still feel like I should be dancing. So
Speaker 0 00:05:28 What show? I know, sorry. You were about to ask. I
Speaker 4 00:05:32 Had a totally different question. Oh,
Speaker 0 00:05:34 About the weather. Okay. Let's go with Towner's question first because
Speaker 4 00:05:37 Yeah. What, what, why don't you like Vancouver's weather? Cause like, I love Fort McMurray, but like I would love Fort McMurray with Vancouver weather.
Speaker 3 00:05:44 Yeah. I felt like it was just all for me. Weather really affects my mood. And as somebody who is just very creative and always has to be like bubbly for my job and things like that, I just felt like when you wake up and it's like cloudy, it's raining. It just kind of gets to you eventually. And I mean, when it's beautiful in Vancouver, it's beautiful. Like, but it just wasn't for me, I love to go visit. I mean, we went there this November for a dance convention and it was raining too. And I was like, welcome, Mrs. Yup.
Speaker 4 00:06:12 I'll take him. I'll take reign over minus 40 plus winters. Nope.
Speaker 3 00:06:17 No, I think it's, I like the balance here.
Speaker 0 00:06:19 Yup. I, uh, I've been blessed my whole life going to Vancouver. It would always be sunny. Like I never understood what people were talking about. Like it might rain here and there, but like for the most part, like a vacation it'd be sunny. And I went there right before COVID and I was there for like a week and a half. Oh man. And it was gray, low ceiling. And I didn't want like, and I'm a, I'm an upbeat guy. And like, by the end of the trip, I was like, yeah, I'll sleep in until like 11. Like my whole mood just slowed down and was, I don't want to say negative cause it wasn't negative, but it wasn't the vibe I was normally accustomed to. So I understand exactly what you're saying. I'll take minus 40 for a week or two with like bright skies over having to deal with that cloud cover
Speaker 4 00:07:05 This. It doesn't matter how bright the skies are. If when you go outside for more than three minutes, you can't move.
Speaker 0 00:07:11 Yeah. But you can look outside your window. So yeah. So now my question, what show are you on? What's your,
Speaker 3 00:07:17 I actually got a job working on a TV show called Blackstone. It was on a PTM. I was a producer training on it. So I worked, uh, directly behind the director for two seasons.
Speaker 0 00:07:29 That's a neat opportunity. Yeah. That's really interesting.
Speaker 3 00:07:32 I got the job right out of film school. So that kind of worked out and then just transitioned into, into that and just decided, you know, halfway I was, you know, that, I don't know if this was 100% what I wanted to do anymore though. It is something, you know, if you know dance ever works out or anything, I want to switch it up. I do have that to fall back on.
Speaker 0 00:07:52 Yeah. That's really interesting. Now in regards to dance, how many, I'm assuming young adults, like you might be, you might have some adults that dance with you as well. How many? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:08:01 So we have, we have one adult tap class and those ladies that come are like committed. They never missed their class. They're always there. So there's about, I think between eight to 10 of them that come every Monday, every Monday night yet. And they're actually in our year in recital. So that's exciting. We did have like a drop-in, um, hip hop class. And I find that it's like really popular in the beginning of the season. Everybody comes out, but then as like winter comes and things happen, then it slowly dies out. So we don't offer that anymore, but maybe we'll do like a pop-up class, like come do a hip hop class. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:08:33 So with this recital, how has COVID effected that? Like I had, I had to have to assume some of it was virtual, but this year you're going to be,
Speaker 3 00:08:41 Yeah, this year we're at Canno. So last year, uh, we kind of pivoted all year. We went from, you know, dancing in the studio to dancing on zoom, uh, to being back in the studio to then saying you can't dance inside, but you can dance outside. So we literally took cement blocks, rearranged our parking lot. And I went to home hardware and we bought like these wood panels. Someone was like, Ms. Blender. You're like the bill gates of wood here. But like the kids just pinned dance on the concrete. This meant, you know, parking lot. So we got individual wood and we had them dancing outside. We had three different studios. We kind of like renamed them to like west side story, you know, like we just kind of gave them full funky names. And then we did that for about three to four days and then they shut us down again until this we couldn't even outside.
Speaker 3 00:09:31 And so that was like at the beginning of may. And so we were like, oh, like we were like, we were still planning on doing like a virtual recital. And then right at the end of may, they opened it back up to you could dance outside again. So we clipped quickly, went back for three days, dancing outside. And then we took everybody to McDonald island and we filmed under the canopy and we filmed a virtual show and then we aired it, live for people to click on and watch. So that was, that was really nice. And I, I felt like it was just so rewarding for the kids because we went all season in this like limbo. And I think it was hard for kids, you know, and teachers to like stay motivated when you're on zoom. It kind of loses a bit of like the love of it. But ending off in the virtual recital, ending off with kids coming, and then we just got them all t-shirts and you know, we had our banners up and people are giving their kids flowers. It just felt like we did it accomplish something. So this year, um, so far so good knock on wood. Um, we'll be at Canno, so cool in a regular show format. I'm assuming everyone want to still be masked in the audience. Um, and things like that.
Speaker 0 00:10:38 Winter what's taking place
Speaker 3 00:10:40 June 3rd and fourth. And this year our recital theme is friends. Wow. So every dance is after an episode, like the one with the monkey and it's about Marcel or the one with the wedding dresses where like, you know, they're all sitting on the couch in the wedding dresses. So every dance is an episode, essentially.
Speaker 0 00:10:59 That's awesome. And thank goodness for Netflix and like people binge-watching, I feel friends has really had a resurgence. That's interesting. Now I don't even want to ask this question. I already know the answer. I know Tanner, like he's smiling. I can see it from over there. You mentioned that you're born and raised in Fort McMurray. So we always ask people who were born and raised in Fort McMurray, like myself and Tanner, what high school they went to? What high school
Speaker 3 00:11:22 Did you go to comps in high school?
Speaker 4 00:11:25 He's just hates when he has to, uh, admit that he didn't go to the best school.
Speaker 0 00:11:30 I went to father mark. A
Speaker 3 00:11:32 Lot of successful people that,
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:11:36 What I'm trying to say. He, he doesn't like to see it. Yeah. He loves to live in his little uptown world. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:11:43 Yeah. Well, Hey, listen. We're not going to say where the studio is, but it's not uptown.
Speaker 4 00:11:46 Yeah. But you still an uptown girl living in an uptown world over there.
Speaker 0 00:11:52 Uh, God, I knew it was coming so you're born and raised in Fort McMurray. That's awesome. So what was that like for you?
Speaker 3 00:11:59 Um, you know, I think it was for me. I had a great childhood. I'm actually, I grew up in John bay, which is an hour and 15 minutes outside of McMurray. That's where my dad's from. And that's where, um, I grew up, I went to kindergarten grade one and then I was homeschooled in grade two. And then a grade three. I came to town and lived with my aunt and cousin during the week. And then when I was in grade six, my mom moved to town with us full time. And then eventually my dad moved to town. So always growing up in the wood, Buffalo region and my parents, they still live in Java. That's their main residence right now. Um, and that's yeah, that's our home. Yeah. But growing up in here, you know, you've seen a lot of change. I've always felt safe, living in McMurry.
Speaker 3 00:12:43 Um, I loved growing up here. I think McMurray gave myself so many opportunities with just the jobs that my parents were able to have. I don't think I would have been able to do the things in life that I got to do. If my parents didn't have great jobs, to be able to send their kids to, you know, any dance camp they wanted any summer intensive, you know, go to cities like Vancouver and Toronto and live and support their children so that they can live out their dreams. So I feel like for me, McMorris, McMurry has always just been a place that, you know, everything is possible.
Speaker 0 00:13:15 Oh, I love it. Listen. Great. Ending to that. And a good transition into Tanner segment called the maxi minute. Oh, the maxi minute. It's going to ask you this questions. I don't know what they are. I feel like I'm on. No, you're, you're not like this has been
Speaker 4 00:13:28 No, the definition of, of Mac city minute. Is that in Fort McMurray? Whenever somebody is like, yeah, give me a minute. There never give you 60 seconds. They take as long as they need. So it's the Fort McMurry version.
Speaker 3 00:13:41 No time,
Speaker 0 00:13:43 No time crunch. So anyways, I wish you nothing, but the best of luck Tanner hit it with the Mac CD minute.
Speaker 4 00:13:48 All righty. Question number one. What is your favorite story you've gotten to tell through dance?
Speaker 3 00:13:55 Oh, actually this season, actually I have a lot, I have a lot, but this season, um, I've decided to create a piece about the, uh, children of residential school. So, um, I have 10 dancers that are doing it. We each have individual old school, school desks, um, and we've called the dance on marked and it has, um, just a really slow somber song with, um, Steven Harper's apology over it. And it's a pretty, you know, it's an intense piece. And for me, when I told the kids what we were gonna do, I said, the moment that we enter this room to learn this number and to practice it, we are to honor. And remember those children that never came home. So we get to perform the piece at competition this year. And I think it's going to really make a huge impact, especially with everything that's happened in finding all the children. So, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:14:50 Cool. Question number two. What is one form of dance you think anybody would enjoy?
Speaker 3 00:14:56 Oh, just like hip hop. Anyone can do a group. Anyone can do a good hip hop crew, so,
Speaker 0 00:15:02 Oh, good
Speaker 4 00:15:04 Question. Number three. What is your favorite part of teaching dancing? The same community. You got to learn it in
Speaker 3 00:15:11 That's easy. Uh, I think as a dance teacher, what's the best part of my job is I can teach kids from when they started to and I'll see them until they graduate and long after that. So I think that's the best part. It's that year after year I get to continually be in their lives. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:15:26 Question number four. What is one story of teaching children? How to dance that stands out to you?
Speaker 3 00:15:35 Oh,
Speaker 0 00:15:37 Head-scratcher
Speaker 3 00:15:39 No one story of teaching. It's, you know, um, at the end of every class, I always say I'm wonderful. And they repeat after me. I love myself. I'm beautiful and I am a dancer. And so we start that at two and we stay that till the day they graduate. And I actually have a girl who's who works with me now that I grew up teaching. And I didn't realize that she actually got that tattooed on herself. She's such a reminder, like every day, like just to say those things to you. So I think just something as simple as how we end the class has, has stuck with our students.
Speaker 0 00:16:11 Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 4 00:16:13 And your final question, what is the biggest thing you missed in your time? Living away from Fort McMurray?
Speaker 3 00:16:20 My family, my family.
Speaker 4 00:16:24 And those have been your five questions.
Speaker 0 00:16:26 So we had a guest on here a little while ago and Tanner was asking and it's, it's a good question. When you went to comp, what was the, where did you go to eat your own lunch?
Speaker 3 00:16:36 Uh, I in the cafeteria, like coffin, really good cafeteria food, like the Caesar salad and the specials. And then eventually once I got my car, then I sometimes we'd go to like booster juice or classic QS pizza.
Speaker 4 00:16:49 You didn't do the can college.
Speaker 3 00:16:53 Yeah. We never really walked over there a whole lot. We always just stayed. I mean, my mum and dad always packed my lunch too, so I always had lots, but yeah, I thought our crafter had excellent food.
Speaker 4 00:17:01 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't know that bell rang and I was just out that door. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:06 I, uh, I know no shade on Campbell college. Like I ate at their cafeteria when I went to school there. And then as an adult, if I was working there doing stuff, I'd eat at the cafeteria, but like I never thought it was like mind blowing food.
Speaker 4 00:17:22 It was when you were 16, had $5 and would really enjoy a snack right now.
Speaker 0 00:17:28 There's enough where you a lot, like, that's another question once again, didn't go to comp w so you were allowed just like roam Canto college.
Speaker 4 00:17:36 So we were, but the kids of comp today aren't actually allowed because they moved to seven to eight and they don't want the seven eights roaming into Kiana or outside the school
Speaker 3 00:17:47 Because sometimes go at grade nine. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:17:49 Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. You could go to comp, you could go to Kiana. You could go to any school. They didn't like it because a lot of kids had skip class and then sit in like the lobby of the piano college and just skip class. But every once in a while a security guard would just go through and be like, how old are you? And he'd be like, yeah. And you'd be like 18. And you'd be like, go back and be like, I'm 15.
Speaker 3 00:18:13 I never skipped class. So I don't know.
Speaker 4 00:18:15 Yeah. Me either
Speaker 0 00:18:18 Me, either mom and dad,
Speaker 4 00:18:20 This was just what I heard from like, well, I was in my science class. I love that though.
Speaker 0 00:18:25 That's hilarious. So you've been doing this for awhile now and for it when we were in, it sounds like you have no need and, or want to stop dancing. No.
Speaker 3 00:18:31 Well, I really, I really enjoy what I do. You know? I think a lot of people wake up every day and go do jobs and that maybe they don't enjoy as much, but every day I wake up and get to do something I love. And, you know, time really flies when you get, when you do that.
Speaker 4 00:18:45 Yeah. What about ULI? Do you wake up and go to a drug? You don't like, oh, I love my job.
Speaker 0 00:18:49 I love my job set for day. I slept in a little bit. My kid have the cutest kid in the world. This is a, yeah. So I, the alarm went off and he came in and he's like, Hey dad, data, your alarm went off. And I said, okay. I was like, I just need two more minutes. He said, okay, dad, no problem. And then he went and did his own little morning routine. And then like, I woke up five minutes before we're supposed to leave and I'm supposed to drop him to school. I go, what the heck? I was like, Keegan, what happened there? He's like, dad, you obviously needed to sleep and I didn't want to bother you. So I figured I'll just be very quiet and let you get that extra rest you needed. I'm like, oh my gosh. Well that's sweet. But like we got to go.
Speaker 0 00:19:27 Yeah, no, I think dance is cool. And I've seen a lot of people who are really passionate about it. It gets them out of their, some negative places in their lives. I love what you're saying at the end. That's beautiful. I want you to write that down before you leave. So yeah, I can start saying something cool like that. That's I think it's very impactful and I love watching dance and it's a skill set that like, everybody can do it, but not everybody can do it well. So when you like foster that like teaching behind it, I think it's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:19:56 Everybody can dance. Well, Elliot, you don't need, you just got a dance to dance. Well, it doesn't have to be coordinated or planned out. You just dance and you feel good and that's good dancing. There you go.
Speaker 0 00:20:09 So listen, before we cut you loose. Cause I know we've hit the 20 minutes or we're right at it. Um, everybody gets to shameless, shout out or plug before, uh, they go shout out shameless, shout out or plug. So you got the lights, the camera and the mic.
Speaker 4 00:20:22 You can say whatever you want. We want, we have one guy shout out his car. So,
Speaker 3 00:20:27 Well then I'm just going to shout out to all my dancers at lime M dance.
Speaker 0 00:20:31 There we go. There we go. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for coming. Anytime you want to come back, please come again. Any of your students, teachers want to come on the show to promote anything you guys have going on. Awesome. More than free to come. And, uh, one before you leave, how can people get in contact the dance studio if they want to register themselves or their kids?
Speaker 3 00:20:49 We won't open up registration until may. Um, but you can always go on our website, www dot YMM dance company at CA and there is a link there to email us.
Speaker 0 00:21:00 Awesome. Awesome. Well, anyways, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, the rest of the world, and that's been an episode of the maxi morning show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Do appreciate it. Hopefully you're having a great day and we'll see you tomorrow. Face
Speaker 1 00:21:12 Just dies. That dis another Mac city warning show Dawn.
Speaker 5 00:21:29 Yeah. Talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
