Local dancers to recreate Parisian café at Valley Performing Arts Center

WASILLA — Reading the list of what’s on offer Saturday at the Chateau Le Vin performance, it’s kind of hard to imagine it all fitting under one roof:

• Wine tasting

• Gourmet food

• Dance performances

• Singing

“It’s going to probably be a very unique theatrical production that involves numerous alternative dance forms and highlights numerous local businesses and artists,” Amy Tucker said.

Tucker hopes the event will be the first in an annual series of similar events.

She said the lobby of Valley Performing Arts will be decorated like a French café circa 1912, and the stage performances, divided into two acts with two scenes each, will continue along that theme.

Tucker heads up Gaia Tribal Belly Dance Troupe, but don’t go thinking that what you’re going to see is strictly belly dancing. She said Chateau Le Vin will feature “everything from ribbon turners to can-can dancers to hoopers to vocalists, modern dance.”

For her day job, Tucker teaches at Palmer Junior Middle School where she also has started a dance club.

If you’re wondering if you’ve seen her perform before, you probably have. Gaia Tribal performs at the Alaska State Fair every year. They’ve performed in Palmer and at Sophia’s Café Neo, as well as at the Bombay Indian Restaurant when it was in business.

The vocal performances come courtesy of Cantora Arctica, which is producing the event in partnership with Gaia Tribal. The gourmet side of the event will be served up by Turkey Red, Nonessentials, Moosebites and Speciality Imports.

As for the dancers, in addition to Gaia Tribal, performers include Gypsy Horizon, Layaly, Denali Dames, Spin Gypsy, Aurora Borealis Dancers, Kimber Carter and Racin, plus two youth dancers from Tucker’s Palmer Junior Middle School dance club.

And while Gaia Tribal and Cantora Arctica are renting the space from VPA, the theater group has been very helpful, Tucker said, allowing them use of props and providing hands to work the lights and sound.

“This does involve so many in the community I think it will be fantastic,” Tucker said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.