Published: July 06, 2009 10:46 am      

All She Wants to do is Dance...

What once began as little more than an after-school activity for Greenville native Katy Schaff has now yielded a national tour with Disney.

“My mom wanted me to do an after-school activity, so we went around and looked at karate and soccer — I just wanted to brush my hair and put on make up — and we finally found dance,” said Schaff of her time spent at the Academy of Dance, Music and Theatre (AODMT). “I took a summer camp when I was 5 and started that school year and I’ve had a passion for it ever since then. Miss Jackie was my very first teacher, and to this day she’s the first person I go to for advice about dance.”

Dancing has opened many doors for 20-year-old Schaff. In fact, she’s already begun touring nationally with Disney’s High School Musical Summer Celebration tour, the only live touring production to feature hit songs and dance moves from all three High School Musical movies. Before the tour ends, Schaff will have visited Canada, Mexico and most major cities throughout the U.S., including Hawaii.

Schaff left the AODMT — after receiving extensive training from Jackie Ramon — her freshman year at Greenville High School to attend Cindy Mangum’s School of Dance in Allen.

“I wanted more performance opportunities,” she said. “Cindy’s had a way bigger studio with about 60 girls in the company, whereas Greenville had like 12, so it could afford me more opportunities as far as competitions went.”

Schaff studied dance at Cindy’s until graduating from GHS, which required a lot of time on the highway to and from the studio.

“When I couldn’t drive it, my mom was driving me,” said Schaff. “I was doing homework in the car on the way there and back.”

Schaff traveled to Allen four nights a week as well as every Saturday morning.

“That was so hard my senior year,” she said. “It was near impossible to get there by 9 a.m.”

After graduating, Schaff attended the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) in Edmond, where she remained for three semesters before dance found it’s way back into her life.

She started off as a dance major her freshman year, even joining the Kaleidoscope Dance Company, but quickly changed her major to public relations, though she still took dance classes.

“I figured when I applied for dance jobs they wouldn’t really look at my diploma,” said Schaff. “Dance is about your abilities, not what’s written on paper.”

While at UCO, Cierra Ramon, one of Schaff’s friends from Greenville who was attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, told her about the Disney College Program.

“She saw some flyers up around the campus and went and tried out for it,” said Schaff. “The next week they were at my school. After doing my phone interview the woman told me that I could try out to be a character performer the coming weekend but I had a performance with the Oklahoma Philharmonics so I had to drive to Austin the following weekend for the very last audition they offered.”

The auditions for the Disney College Program was unlike any of Schaff’s previous auditions.

“It was a lot of pantomiming,” she said. “They had to make sure your movements could read well under pounds of fur. I’d never done any pantomiming or anything, so it was different, but it was also fun.”

Schaff didn’t get the results of her audition for almost a month. When she realized she’d been accepted, around Thanksgiving, she couldn’t believe it.

Schaff had already registered for the semester before receiving her letter, so after withdrawing from her classes she made her way to Florida to be a cast member at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando.

“It was definitely a chance of a lifetime,” she said. “It was so much work, but it was amazing. I made so many friends there. I now know someone from almost every state. I’d never been to Disney World before and I can’t believe how much fun it was.”

While Schaff definitely enjoyed her experiences in Florida, she was slightly disappointed that dance didn’t play a more prominent role.

“I didn’t use as much dance as they led me to believe, and even that taught me a lesson because your job is not always going to what they say it’s going to be,” she said. “I would take classes at a local dance studio whenever I could. I had to keep my body in shape; so even though I was tired from work, I had to make time for dance.”

While working in Florida Schaff saw a flyer posted in the tunnel at Magic Kingdom. Disney was searching for performers for its High School Musical Summer Celebration national tour.

“That was the first professional audition I’d ever been to,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. After I found out I’d made it, I had a week to prepare before rehearsals started. I haven’t really slowed down since I got that call.”

Schaff is part of the ensemble and is also an understudy for the High School Musical characters Kelsi and Sharpay.

“It’s 75 minutes of non-stop dancing and singing,” said Schaff. “We’re the only tour throughout the U.S. that has the original choreography and songs from the movies. I’m loving it. The cast has become like my second family.”

There’s talk of the tour going international, but nothing has been confirmed. When the tour is completed in October, Schaff plans on continuing her streak and auditioning for other spots, but if nothing comes out of those she plans on going back to UCO to finish her degree in January.

“I’m definitely not planning on this being my last touring gig,” she said. “I want to keep working in the dance industry as long as I can. Dance is really my only interest.”

Schaff has learned so much from her experiences, even those that didn’t work out quite as she had intended.

“At Disney I was a little discouraged because I wasn’t getting to dance as much and be in the parades like they promised, but if I hadn’t gone there and stuck with it I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do the High School Musical Summer Celebration tour,” she said. “You just never know what doors will be opened.”

While Schaff enjoys dance more than anything else, that does not negate the fact that it requires a lot of hard work and long hours.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything, though,” said Schaff. “Dance has taught me so much about dedication and has made me who I am today.”