Local girls contributing to The Next Step

March 12, 2014 · 0 Comments

By Bill Rea
The Next Step is back for its season on Family Channel, featuring some very talented young people, including two teens from Bolton.
Victoria Baldesarra is back in the role of Michelle while Logan Fabbro is Amanda.
The Next Step is a dance-filled drama that follows the young lives of a group of elite dancers, and the pressures they face, dealing with the demands of holding their places in the dance troupe and their standing with each other.
Baldesarra said her character came on as one of the new girls during the first season, and started off by showing up a number of the dancers already there. But she had been accepted by the end of the season.
She added a lot is going to happen in the coming season. “I feel that Michelle goes through a lot,” she said, especially emotionally when it comes to boys.
“It’s a lot for her,” she added. “At the end of season 2, she finally finds who she is, both as a person and a dancer.”
Fabbro said Amanda was a troubled character in the first season, although she worked very hard. But things seem to improve for her in the coming season as well. “I think she finds out who she really is,” Fabbro said.
Both girls are 15-years-old, attending Grade 10 at St. Michael Catholic Secondary School in Bolton.
Baldesarra said she got involved with the production about two years ago, when her instructor at Joanne Chapman School of Dance suggested she go for an audition. She did a demo video with some of the cast members, then re-auditioned in the spring of 2012.
Fabbro also did her audition about two years ago, after having trained at Art and Soul Dance Company in Kleinburg.
She has been dancing since she was three, when her mother put her into baby ballet. “I just loved it so much,” she said.
Balancing the demands of an acting career with school can be tricky, but both girls said they are able to cope and maintain high marks at the same time, both averaging in the 80s.
Baldesarra said she had to miss a couple of days school during the first season, and almost all of September shooting the second season. And then there is travel to promote the show.
Fabbro said she found the pace hard too. She admitted when she’s not dancing, “I study for school.”
And even in the midst of all this activity, both are looking to the future.
“I can definitely see myself going to university two years from now,” Baldesarra said. “Dancing and acting will always be there on the side, as Plan B.”
Fabbro expressed an interest in someday studying law.
“Dancing and acting will always be with me,” she added. “”It’s not something I can get rid of. It’s something I love to do.”
The Next Step airs regularly Fridays at 7:30 p.m.