{"id":4121,"date":"2009-11-10T12:21:45","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T20:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/for-this-disney-on-ice-skater-her-job-is-a-complete-joy\/"},"modified":"2016-10-22T21:55:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T04:55:42","slug":"for-this-disney-on-ice-skater-her-job-is-a-complete-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/life\/for-this-disney-on-ice-skater-her-job-is-a-complete-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"For this Disney on Ice skater, her job is a complete joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a long way from Nashville, Tenn. to the ShoWare Center in Kent, but it\u2019s just the beginning for Soniah Spence, who will take the ice as part of Disney On Ice\u2019s \u201cWorlds of Fantasy\u201d show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started this year in June,\u201d Spence said of the 30-city tour in phone interview Thursday. \u201cBasically, every week we go to a new city.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far she has seen the East Coast and now the Pacific Northwest and when the show finishes its run in the States, she is headed to Australia.<\/p>\n

On the ice, Spence plays the role of Iridessa, the light fairy as part of \u201cPixie Hollow,\u201d the second half of the show, a friend of Tinker Bell\u2019s whose power is manipulating light.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role is to help her find her talent,\u201d Spence said, adding that in the end, it is about Tinker Bell accepting herself for who she is and helping bring on spring.<\/p>\n

But Spence, 21, didn\u2019t start out a fairy. Inspired by Michelle Kwan, she began skating at the age of 11 and skated competitively for 10 years, racking up four first-place finishes and a handful of second-, third- and fourth-place awards in her career.<\/p>\n

But in 2008, Spence packed up her competitive skates and postponed her studies at Tennessee State University and applied for Disney\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

Spence said she started to lose the drive that led her into competitive skating and it just became too much pressure and too much work, taking the fun out of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you start skating, everybody thinks you\u2019re going to be in the Olympics,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But she still loved to skate and loved to perform, making her current gig almost perfect.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, I have an awesome job,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spence said the best part of her job is being able to see kids\u2019 faces light up as they take the ice.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Disney on Ice show opens with a performance base from the move \u201cCars,\u201d with life-size, talking cars on the ice. According to a press release, the cars are not skaters, but customized animatronics that are designed to look as though they drive right on to the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids love it,\u201d Spence said. \u201cThey don\u2019t expect to see full-sized cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the ice transitions into \u201cLion King\u201d and \u201cLittle Mermaid\u201d segments before the big \u201cPixie Hollow\u201d segment that closes the whole show.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s really colorful and dramatic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPixie Hollow\u201d is based on a new Disney movie that tell the story of Tinker Bell before she meets Peter Pan.<\/p>\n

Spence said she has been a fan of Disney movies for her entire life and said her grandmother used to send every move that came out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAladdin would be my favorite,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Spence said while she loves performing, her favorite aspect of the tour is the relationships she has built with the rest of the cast and crew, who spend almost all of their time together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best friends now are the people I\u2019ve been with for the past year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Spence said she plans to go back to school when all of this is over, but for now she is just enjoying her time on the ice, without having to worry about a competition and enjoys putting on a good show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really great for the kids,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody finds something they really like.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

DISNEY ON ICE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 WHEN & WHERE: Nov. 11-15 at the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n

\u2022 TIMES: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11-13; 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14; and 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Nov. 15.<\/p>\n

\u2022 TICKETS: $65 for floor\/rinkside seats, $40 for VIP and $24, $18 and $16 for the rest of the seats. Everyone ages 2 and older must have a ticket.<\/p>\n

Fans can buy two tickets for the price of one (except for front row and VIP seats) on opening night Nov. 11.<\/p>\n

\u2022 BUY THEM: On the Web, go to ShoWare Center’s Web site<\/a>. Or call 253-856-6999 or visit the arena box office at 625 W. James Street. The box office hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n

\u2022 MORE INFO: disney.go.com\/disneyonice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a long way from Nashville, Tenn. to the ShoWare Center in Kent, but it\u2019s just the beginning for Soniah Spence, who will take the ice as part of Disney On Ice\u2019s \u201cWorlds of Fantasy\u201d show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":4122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4121"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}