Dancerama, a Queen’s club raising money for cystic fibrosis research, is now including more acts in their once-dance-only recital, “Raising the Barre for Cystic Fibrosis.”

Started in 2014, Dancerama—inspired by the similarly-named Shinerama—puts on an annual dance recital and donates the proceeds to Cystic Fibrosis Canada. This year it will be held on Feb. 7 at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

Club Co-Chair Chloe Hampson (Comm ’20) talked to The Journal about this year’s recital and her involvement in Dancerama.

“We have marketing, we have operations, we have sponsorship, and then we have a fundraising committee. So what [Co-Chair Abby Ostrander (LifeSci ’20)] and I do is, basically, we oversee those committees and we do some fundraisers and have an end-of-the-year recital.”

The club’s fundraisers run throughout first semester and are geared to raise money to fund the second-semester recital. These initiatives, Hampson said, are small-scale and range in their themes and set-up—often taking place as the traditional line-skip ticket sale.

When she got involved in her second year, Hampson was the fundraising executive. Now, in her fourth year, she’s still working with Dancerama. Even though she says dance isn’t her passion, she’s committed to the cause.

Raising money for this disease is something she cares deeply about, because it hits close to home.

“My brother […] has cystic fibrosis, but he’s okay,” Hampson said in an interview with The Journal. “[I’m] raising awareness for the disease because a lot people don’t know about it. I like opening people’s eyes to it. I think that’s my favourite part about it.”

Being so close to it, she knows how important the funding is for cystic fibrosis research to improve.

“It’s really, really, really promising. So I think that’s probably why I worked so hard, I’m trying so hard to raise money because the more money that they do have, the quicker they’ll be able to make those impacts and hopefully find some sort of cure,” she said. “It’s just something that is really, really close to me. And they’re making huge strides.”

The recital this year will feature many genres of dance, including ballet and tap, along with some contemporary and solo performers. Also taking the stage will be the following Queen’s groups: Momentum Vocal, Queen’s Mambo, Queen’s Dance Team, and QSALSA.  

Kingston School of Dance, Dance Fitazette, Danceforce Studios, and Melbourne Avenue Dance will also take part in the action.

It’s evolved since it started years ago as a dance recital alone.

“It was typically just a dance recital, but it’s grown since then. We do have more a cappella groups coming this year, [like] EngChoir,” Hampson said.

While there’s lots to keep the audience entertained, Dancerama’s team isn’t forgetting their cause.

There will be a speaker at the recital to talk to the crowd about cystic fibrosis and how it affects people.

“I really think that obviously, the main reason that we are hosting the show is to raise money for [cystic fibrosis] research. But I think a big part of it is, fibrosis is one of those diseases that a lot of people have heard of, but they don’t really know what it is because it only affects less than 5,000 people [in Canada].”

The executives’ hopes are to educate and entertain, but first and foremost, to raise money for research. 

Typically they’re able to raise $3,000 for Cystic Fibrosis Canada. Hampson says, “We’re not a huge group, but we do what we can anyway.”