Cool moves Jump! climbs aboard The Polar Express BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

If you find yourself paying special attention to the kids’ scenes in annual holiday productions such as A Christmas Carol or The Nutcracker, then you’ll love Scenes from The Polar Express, to be presented by the all-children’s dance company Jump! this Saturday. Not only is the entire piece performed by more than 35 kids from 4 to 18, but most of it has been choreographed by the young dancers who have taken part in The Polar Express over the past three years.

Founded in 1999 by dancer/choreographer/performance artist Paula Hunter, Jump!’s core company features 13 dancers between the ages of 8 and 18, and for Polar Express, there are many invited "guest performers," including the youngest dancers. Polar Express is presented in 15 scenes that tell the award-winning story by Providence writer Chris Van Allsburg of a boy who climbs aboard a mysterious train one Christmas Eve, along with many other pajamaed children. The train winds around mountains and through snowy woods, thick with wolves, to the North Pole.

There the children meet Santa, his elves, and his reindeer, and Santa chooses the boy to receive the first gift of Christmas. When asked what he would like for a present, the boy modestly requests a silver bell from the reindeer’s harness, and that’s what Santa hands him to put in his bathrobe pocket. Unfortunately, there’s a hole in his pocket, and he loses the bell on the trip home. But on Christmas morning he finds a small box under the tree with the bell inside and a note from S.C. Oddly, his parents can’t hear the bell, but he and his sister can and they treasure it. A modern tale, published in ’85, but with Van Allsburg’s timeless drawings, it has become an enduring holiday hit.

So when Hunter encouraged her young dancers to come up with original pieces, they pushed for their own holiday classic to vie with the familiar Nutcracker. Since most of Jump!’s dancers know the book and some even know the author or his children, The Polar Express was a natural fit.

"It’s really about faith," Hunter reflected, "about believing something. And it’s very age-appropriate for them to work with."

In this year’s production, there are three new numbers among the 75-minute dance: a "Welcome Parade" when the train reaches the North Pole, at the end of the first act; "Elf Games," in the middle of the second act; and a sister duet (Georgia Hoyler on violin and Margo Hoyler on point) called "Bell Dance" at the end of the show. For the parade, Jump!’s musical director David Brown found a particular Sousa work, King Cotton, performed by the Paul Washington Marching Band, and the kids did the rest: simple marching steps for the smallest dancers; more balletic steps for the older ones. Seen in rehearsal, this segment has bright green striped suitcases that are quickly replaced by ribbon-streamers and flags in the hands of the marchers.

The other new piece seen in rehearsal, Elf Games, grew out of the Jump! members’ desire to incorporate the younger children in a dance using childhood props and covering more of the stage at Hope High. Set to Margaret Tucker’s Sonos Handbell Ensemble’s Rustic Dance, it’s a charming mix of playground games and creative movement. Seven children lead off with jump ropes doubled and gently snapped like small lariats, then let out into a single rope and wriggled like snakes. Out through the line of dancers comes Julia Jacobson, jumping rope as she walks forward.

Next all 18 children blow bubbles, then the original seven return with hula hoops, again with Julia walking downstage spinning a hula hoop around her hips. A sequence with large rubber balls follows. And finally, the kids pair up for glides across the floor and back before forming a large circle and then flopping onto their backs, legs stretched with bent feet — "that makes it funnier," Hunter reminds them.

"Keep it nice and simple, direct, show us your faces," she also advises them. "Remember that you choreographed this, and I like it. I like it a lot!"

In an effort to mix up the musical sources for the dances — "I don’t want my kids to be homogenized by rock," says Hunter — one section is set to traditional Celtic; another to Pieces of Africa by the Kronos Quartet; another to a Mozart violin concerto; and another to La Cucaracha. The latter was suggested by one of the young dancers, and then they all wrote words to it, with the title "The Dancing Reindeer," fitting right into the rhythm. Young vocalist Tessa Ricci sings along with Jami Gilbane, who plays "the boy."

"I really wanted them to think about the creative possibilities of dance," Hunter explained, in recalling the origins of Jump! "Dance has too often been looked at like painting by numbers all the way into college, and in my college teaching, I was fighting students to get beyond that. From K through 12, it’s been a stifling environment for them.

"I wanted to change that and I was dying to make my mark in education," she continued. "This is a way of breaking out into the community and really doing something unique with dance for kids."

Scenes from The Polar Express will be performed on Saturday, December 6 at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Hope High School Auditorium, 324 Hope Street, Providence. Call (401) 331-4427.