Rapunzel and Flynn from the Disney on Ice Treasure Trove show.
Rapunzel and Flynn from the Disney on Ice Treasure Trove show.
Princesses, pirouettes and prancing. Eli Orzessek gets a sneak preview of this weekend's Disney on Ice show in Auckland.
Walking into Vector Arena for the Disney On Ice warm up practice, I can barely recognise the stadium I've been to many times.
Instead of a stage, there's an ice rink. A huge fairytale castle looms over at the back and the whole place smells like hot buttered popcorn. It's all very magical, minus the audience, in its incomplete state.
The skaters aren't in costume, but they're doing some very impressive leaps and twirls - made even more impressive by the fact that on the night, they do those same tricks while wearing over-the-top costumes.
Imagine being five and you can see why so many little kids would have a meltdown over this. Not a bad meltdown, but pixie dust and slushies, watched Frozen too many times, 'is this real life' kind of meltdown.
I'm here to talk to Josh Uster, one of the skaters in the show. He's a fresh-faced, All-American type who was inspired to start skating at age 11, after watching the 1994 Olympics.
"I think everyone fell in love with skating in the 90s, with Nancy (Kerrigan) and Tonya (Harding)," he says, "I saw it and I just took to it."
He skated competitively until the age of 18, when he gave it up to go to college. After running into a friend who was on his way to Australia and New Zealand for Disney on Ice, Uster put his name forward and was picked up by Disney the next day.
"I basically ran away and joined the circus," he says.
He's since gone on to play Ryan in High School Musical, Aladdin, Woody the cowboy from Toy Story and a "variety of princes".
Performers are away for most of the year, which has its challenges. Being away from family can be hard, but the cast and crew become like a surrogate family on the road.
I ask about behind the scenes drama and it doesn't seem like there's been anything on a Nancy and Tonya type level ... this is Disney after all. However, there have been some former Olympic stars in the cast, including American pair skating champ Natasha Kuchiki.
"I skated with her for two years and every day I'd come into work and it never really got old," he says, looking starstruck.
This weekend's show, Dare to Dream, is a mix of classic Disney tales and newer stories. There's Cinderella and Snow White, as well as Tangled and the Princess and the Frog.
Cinderalla and the Prince from Disney on Ice.
Josh plays the Grand Duke, the king's right-hand man in the Cinderella segment, but his favourite part of the show is Tangled.
"We have a great aerial act where her hair is hanging from the ceiling in the form of a silk, they go up 25 metres above the ice and do this neat aerial circus type act - but in skates."
With the sound of scraping skates behind us, the cold rising from the ice and the way this guy keeps saying he's "blessed", I'm feeling infected by this Disney magic. Is this show for everyone, I wonder.
Princess Tiana from Disney on Ice.
"It's really a show for everybody, I think Disney in general is a show for everybody," he says. "There's a mix of older generation, newer generation and it's a lot of fun."
Apparently a lot of adults want to go and indulge their inner child and I think I might too.
