Dance superstar comes home for holidays
Mortensen to appear in The Nutcracker at Jubilee Auditorium Dec. 22-23
Just call him Edmonton’s Wayne Gretzky of the dance world.
“Jeff Mortensen moves and leaps around the stage with wonderful grace and athletic ability,” said Darka Tarnawsky, the Ukrainian Shumka Dancers executive director and owner of Bottom Line Productions arts marketing company.
“He is known around the world for the different characters he plays in dance and for his stage presence and charm. He’s as good in his field as Gretzky was in his.”
Mortensen, who will appear in Shumka’s Ukrainian folk ballet The Nutcracker at the Jubilee Auditorium Dec. 22-23, has danced and toured in many countries, including China and Ukraine.
“He has also toured the U.S. with famed opera singer Andrea Bocelli; appeared with the Cirque du Soleil circus company and many millions saw him compete in the television show So You Think You Can Dance Canada,” Tarnawsky said.
Mortensen is in town and I called him on Friday to quickly pirouette through his career, starting with his former home in the Yellowbird community in south Edmonton.
“There was nothing but farmer’s fields there when I was growing up,” said Mortensen, 30. “I was very energetic and tried every sport. Aged five, I had found myself in gymnastics.”
It was his aunt who later coaxed him into Ukrainian dancing and he says he “persevered” to learn steps from all regions of Ukraine before helping with enrichment classes and creating dances with friends.
“Teasing and bullying always comes with such activities while at school,” he said. “But I’m very glad I stuck with it.”
Mortensen successfully auditioned for Shumka’s school and before he left high school, he toured the United States with Bocelli on the singer’s Home for the Holidays show.
In 2007, he auditioned for Cirque du Soleil and won himself a role as one of the main characters in the Beatles LOVE show in Las Vegas.
A year and many tours later, he auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance Canada, but was cut just before the show aired.
The dancer was advised to take ballet, ballroom and hip-hop lessons and try again.
“I trained with specialists in Vancouver,” Mortensen said. “There was huge pressure. For about three months, we danced every single day with no day off. We often rehearsed 12 to 16 hours a day.”
It paid off. He won his way onto the show and placed third.
Mortensen went on to take acting lessons, moved to Los Angeles and made many contacts in the film and television industry.
“I’ve been very lucky to work with and learn from Kenny Ortega for the last four years,” said Mortensen, whose stage, film and television credits are as long as his leaps. (He appeared in the movie Mirror Mirror featuring Julia Roberts.)
“Kenny is a dancer-choreographer who has directed such movies as Michael Jackson’s This is It, and choreographed hits such as Dirty Dancing and St. Elmo’s Fire.”
The now Vancouver-based dancer has just spent 18 months working on a show in Japan and is developing a similar show in Canada that will include a fusion of dancing styles with other senses such as smell and taste.
“But right now I’m excited about being back in Edmonton, where I am always made to feel welcome.
“I’ll find out if I can help in any way, take a walk in Hawrelak Park, and seek out a Mexican restaurant I found in the Ice District.”
MOVE OVER MOM
Ten-year-old Olive Lukaszuk hopes her dancing career will last longer than that of her mother, CTV Morning News anchor Stacey Brotzel.
“I danced one year only, in Grade 6,” Brotzel said. “I would forget the steps and where I was supposed to be on stage. My first year was my last year.”
Olive successfully auditioned for Shumka recently and will dance in upcoming Christmas performances.
“When I saw the Shumka dancers in the Nutcracker, I wanted to be in it,” Olive said. “Now I am and feel my dreams have come true. I think Shumka’s dances are really elegant.”
Olive’s dad Thomas Lukaszuk, former Progressive Conservative cabinet member and deputy premier, said in childhood he wanted to be a folk dancer.
“But the jumps wrecked my hair,” he quipped.
Brotzel said Olive began taking Polish dance lessons at the age of three. After all, her dad is of Polish descent.
“This year we put her into a Shumka summer camp and she just loved it,” Brotzel said. “So we decided to move her.”
Says Olive: “My Shumka teachers are nice and correct me when I am doing something wrong. It helps make me a better dancer.”