Dance Scene
Cinderella with a contemporary twist

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

From left, Lydia Pusateri is the fairy godmother, Tatiana Wilson is Cinderella, McKena Miyashiro is the pumpkin and Kiana Lum is the mouse in "Cinderella: A Not So Traditional Story." Carl Hefner "Cinderella: A Not So Traditional Story" 7 p.m. today; 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday Kaimuki High School Performing Arts Center $25 adults, $22 children for today's show; $20 adults, $17 children Saturday 735-8641 Note: Creations In Catering will be selling a selection of Pacific Rim dishes at each show. Tickets that include food are $33 for adults and $27 for children today; $28 adults, $22 children Saturday.

Well, first of all, there's the "ewwwww'" factor.

"'Cinderella' is a very romantic story," says The Movement Center staffer Grace Bell, who will direct 290 of the performing arts school's students ages 5 to 15 in her reworked stage version of the fairytale this weekend. "And when little children play Cinderella, it's like, 'Ewwwww, I have to touch a boy?' So we decided to take the romance out of it. And the only way to do that is really to rework the whole story."

But while writing, Bell also decided to make a few other changes to the story in order to distance The Movement Center's production of "Cinderella: A Not So Traditional Story" from other versions being staged around town this year.

Oh, you'll still find a lot of the kid-tested, mother-approved elements that have made the story of the orphaned teenager who becomes a princess a favorite for the ages. A wicked stepmother and her evil daughters. A prince. Even a fairy godmother continues to cast spells in Bell's version.

The twists, you ask?

Try a prince who is now 10 years old to Cinderella's 17 and a spoiled brat to boot, four evil stepsisters to contend with instead of two, and a fairy godmother who casts spells about as well as Britney Spears sings. And we haven't even mentioned Tony yet.

Let's start with the stepsisters — Verimina, Imbecilia, Nerda and Milicia. Care to take a wild guess at each sister's most obvious personality trait?

"Only Cinderella's stepmother and Verimina are mean to her," says Bell, dispelling the notion that more stepsisters could mean only more trouble for our scrappy heroine. "The other three are so engrossed with their own problems, they don't even know they're being mean."

A larger presence in Bell's "Cinderella" is the prince, out on a quest to earn a friendship after his father states the impossibility of purchasing one for the spoiled child.

"Cinderella teaches him how to be a friend, and teaches him what it means to be a friend," says Bell.

There's a large ball Cinderella attends in this version, too, but "she can't leave the party at midnight because her fairy godmother could only manage her magic till 10," says Bell.

And Tony?

"He's the eternal optimist who's always trying to get Cinderella to see beyond her circumstances and cheering her up when she's down," Bell says of the best-friend character she created and comically named after motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

By the way, there's no glass slipper and Cinderella gets to her happy ending mostly on the strength of her own smarts, Bell says.

Sounds suspiciously like this Cinderella story has morphed from one of a teenage girl getting by with a little help from her fairy godmother and a handsome prince to one of a sister who's definitely trying to do it for herself.

"Young girls, especially today, need to know that they need to look outside their circumstances and not be a victim of their circumstances," explains The Movement Center executive director Lisa Tuttle. "They need to learn to stand up for themselves and demand that they be treated with respect."

Still, packed with everything from singing to acting to several different styles of dance courtesy of The Movement Center's students, "Cinderella: A Not So Traditional Story" comes off as anything but heavy-handed.

"The story that Grace has written is very funny," says Tuttle. "It's a lot like the cartoons that are popular now like 'Shrek,' where they appeal to kids on one level, and grownups on a whole different level. Plus, it's always fun to see a different take on things."