Even before she made her initial bow on earth, Stella Blu McFall was letting her mom know a star was about to be born.
Stella's dad, John McFall, is artistic director of the Atlanta Ballet and in 2004, when his wife Paige was pregnant with Stella, he was working on a premiere set to Indigo Girls songs. Paige McFall, herself a former dance star, recalls her daughter kicking like a Rockette in her belly to the music.
Now 7, Stella hasn't stopped dancing and singing and acting. After performing as a bee in Atlanta Ballet's "Cinderella" and as the young Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty," she's preparing for her biggest role yet. She portrays a character not coincidentally named Stella by Twyla Tharp in the famed choreographer's "The Princess in the Goblin," receiving its world premiere Friday at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Stella is one of two little sisters of Princess Irene (Alessa Rogers), who rescues town children kidnapped by Goblin baddies when her father the King (John Welker) is too busy enjoying the spoils of a royal to pay attention. Stella and her fictional sister(Flannery Bogost) appear in 10 of the dance's 12 scenes and are considered principal characters. (Clearly inspired by the young dancer, Tharp named the sister character Blu.)
When she's asked about her sizable part, Stella McFall, with sparkling blue eyes and the mischievous grin of one who's just been told a joke she can't repeat, at first responds like, well, a 7-year-old.
Is she excited?
"Yes."
Is she nervous?
"No."
When she was cast, she didn't know much about Tharp, the influential Tony- and Emmy-winning choreographer who has transformed American dance over the course of a nearly five decade career. But she's gotten a crash course. "It's been really nice," Stella said, with relative expansiveness, "and really hard work."
True, that: The Montessori In Town second grader has been dancing intensely since summer, building up to twice-daily rehearsals this week that even the adult cast finds demanding.
Her parents are proud of how dedicated Stella has been preparing for the seven performances. But they are even more jazzed about what she's getting offstage from the exposure to Tharp and the dance troupe.
"Of course, I was thrilled for Stella because she has such a passion for performing," said Paige McFall, 42, who danced for BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, and Miami City Ballet during a 14-year professional career. "I was happy more for the experience with Twyla, because Twyla’s input or shape on Stella’s life could be priceless in so many ways."
John McFall, 65, jokes that Stella and little sis Tallulah, 4, have been "growing up in a trunk in a dance studio," learning a lot through observing and just plain osmosis. But Paige started giving Stella an arts primer even earlier, playing Mozart and Stravinsky on her stomach when her daughter was still in the womb. And when she was crawling, John would bring home dance DVDs that he would watch with her.
Not long after Stella started walking, at around 1 year, he and his little girl were dancing the parts played by Erik Bruhn and Carla Fracci in American Ballet Theatre's 1969 "Giselle." Except, tellingly, Stella preferred being called "Carla" to "Giselle."
Fittingly, she has responded like a professional to the challenges of preparing for a Tharp premiere. "Twyla changes things constantly, and Stella gets corrections, and she just flows with it," Paige McFall noted. "She says, ‘That's not what we do now; we do this.' There's no whining; she completely understands that."
Even after rehearsals, the always-singing, always-dancing performer will come home, put her ballet slippers back on, cue up the Schubert and dance "The Princess and the Goblin." "She knows everyone's part," her mom said matter of factly.
But in other respects she's still very much their little girl. Stella is crazy about the family pets, rescue dogs Freddie and Rocco, loves laughing to the pratfalls of "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Funniest Pets & People," enjoys reading books about mermaids and scary stories, is into science and making art.
The ballet artistic director said he and Stella's mom are not trying to cast their dynamo in a dance career, even though both of them started young and feel a life at the barre shaped who they are.
Growing up in Kansas City, Mo., 11-year-old John McFall accompanied his Russian mother, hungry to speak in her native tongue, to meet Tatiana Dokoudovska, a veteran of several Russian ballet companies who was setting up a ballet department at the University of Missouri's Conservatory of Music. Dokoudovska was rehearsing "Swan Lake," and her son recalled being "completely captivated. I knew from that moment that was something I was going to do."
Paige McFall, who began dancing at 5, had her commitment moment at age 10 when she performed with Seattle's First Chamber Dance Company on a two-week "Nutcracker" tour across Washington. "I thought it was the best thing ever," she recalled.
Still, they said the best thing for Stella is what Stella wants. "Frankly that's her choice," John McFall said. "We're there to assist but mostly we're there to listen."
This could change, but right now here's what Stella Blu McFall says she'd like to do when she grows up: "I want to own a doggie day care center."
Dance preview
“Twyla Tharp's The Princess and the Goblin”
Performed by Atlanta Ballet. 8 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; 8 p.m. Feb. 17-18; 2 p.m. Feb. 19. $20-$120. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway. 1-800-982-2787, www.atlantaballet.com.
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