Page 101 - Vacation Country Travel Guide

Canada’s oldest casino, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall puts on quite
the show to sweep visitors back to a bygone era and experience the lively
entertainment of years past. While gearing up to celebrate the 100th Anniversary
of the Gold Rush in 1998, Dawson City contacted Terrie Turai to step in and help
ramp up the dynamism of the musical and dance extravaganza. Terrie had worked
with the show’s producers previously in Toronto, and they asked if she could
arrive in just one week to choreograph and perform in the entire production. The
project was a huge success, and now Terrie produces and choreographs three
new shows each season. She works with an incredibly talented cast of singers,
dancers and musicians from across Canada who perform their wildly entertaining SEE VIDEO
shows every night from May to September. Each of the three period-style shows
is different in character; the first is Gold Rush era can-can, the second is geared
to the 1920s to 40s and the midnight show is cabaret style.

Terrie maintained a dance studio in Brampton, Ontario for many years,
traveling between Dawson City and Brampton for the summer and winter seasons
until 2006, when she relocated to Dawson full time. She formed Dynamite Stage
Productions that year so she could bid on the Diamond Tooth Gertie’s show to
produce it. After taking off a few years to raise her son, Terrie has been back in
the thick of it since 2012. Back a bit in time, in the second year of her theatre arts
program, Terrie responded to a “cattle call” that landed her in a major musical and
launched her theatre career performing in musicals around the world. With her
two-month old son Tristan in tow, Terrie also travelled to Reisa, Germany in 2008
to choreograph Team Canada at the World Tap Dance Championships.
Striving always to make the Diamond Tooth Gertie’s shows bigger and better,
Terrie says she has loved every minute and has been lucky to have so many
performers return year after year. Some of the show members have even moved
to Dawson and live there year round now. SEE VIDEO

The sassy and sultry Gertie in the Travel Guide video is Holly McCourt. She
is “Swing Gertie” two nights a week and a dancer along with the Gold Rush Gals
three nights a week. She will return this summer in the same roles. Be sure to
catch them and indulge in some great gambling as well at 1001 Fourth Avenue
in downtown Dawson City.

photos by: Alistair Maitland
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