THUNDER BAY – A Long Time beloved local dance troupe celebrated its 35th anniversary with a reunion on Saturday.
The North McIntyre Can Can Dancers and their friends, family and supporters, travelled in from near and far this weekend to get together and remember the years they spent together performing all over the region.
“We started off with 12 original dancers and some of course have left and went on to other things, but we added more dancers through time and it was contagious. And, I think we were new, new to Thunder Bay having something like can can dancers,” said Diane Warpula, group founder.
“And we still to this day we get together as friends and we spend the whole evening sharing stories and laughter and everything about our career. We just are so grateful that we were able to represent this community centre and be a part of the City of Thunder Bay and bring happiness to others.”
The group was originally formed as part of a fundraising event for the community centre to buy a new dishwasher according to Warpula who said that the region wasn’t satisfied with just one performance.
“We were surprised. We figured we'd be a one night stand and we go down in the annals of the history of the community centre as the dishwasher queens never anticipating that it would go beyond that,” she said.
“But, from that night on, we started getting requests to dance and we danced in Thunder Bay, Northwestern Ontario, Duluth. It just grew beyond our wildest dreams. It was wonderful.”
A few of the returning members of the group gave a great show to those in attendance which was then followed by the gifting of awards to the group’s dance instructors and some of their biggest supporters.
Gail Salmon, one of the groups dance instructors said that the evening was truly something special.
“It's quite amazing. The mayor is here, I just see them arriving outside there. And so, lots of city involvement, she said. “It was nice to have a community come together and take part in all these events.”
In addition to the awards the group gave out, they were also surprised by the community centre who revealed a plaque, cementing the group’s position in the history of the area.
