Genny Sermonia: Dancing With Gratitude And Perseverance

When I think about my interview with Genny, I find myself thinking about how gratitude is a very prevalent part of her life. Genny expressed many times throughout the interview how grateful she is for her family and how they have played and continue to play a role in her success in life and career. A couple years back Genny experienced a professional dancers dream and worst nightmare. She got a dream job dancing in the national tour of Marry Poppins and then while during one of the performances, she felt what she describes as a really bad charlie horse and thought to herself it’s nothing and kept dancing. Moments later she tried to “walk it off” only to discover that she could barely walk. She had torn her ACL. It was then that Genny was faced with a heartbreaking decision. To continue on with the cast and heal on the road or go home and recover there. She chose to go home, to recover with the support of her friends and family. She was told it would take a couple of months to heal and had high hope of returning to the cast. It ended up taking a year and a half for a full recovery and she was unable to rejoin her cast. She attributes this time to discovering other facets of her creativity and strengthening her acting and vocal skill set. It was also during this time discovered her passion for film and television and she now knows this time, although painful, was a gift. She is very aware of the support her family and friends gave her through this time and reminds herself to never take them for granted.

by Chelsea Johnson | Cue to Cue

A little about Genny:

Genny began her training with the Canadian Dance Company and Performing Dance Arts, and has since trained all across Canada and the United States. She attended the prestigious Music Theatre Performance Program at Sheridan College where she fine-tuned her dance abilities and gained strengths in both acting and singing. She completed the program with honours and was the chosen recipient of the E. McFaddin Award for her commitment to dance as a passion and an industry. Genny has been fortunate enough to grace the stages of many legendary theatres across North America, including both the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Selected credits include Connie in A Chorus Line, Molly (cover-Performed) in Peter and The Starcatcher, Liat in South Pacific, Waitress in Elf, Mary Poppins (US National Tour), As You Like It, Sweet Charity, West Side Story, The Wedding Singer, Miss Saigon, and Cyrano De Bergerac. In addition, she was the original Choreographer for the Canadian Musical The Barbeque King, created by Mark Brownell & Steve Thomas which was performed at Theatre Sheridan, The Toronto Fringe Festival, and Globus Theatre. Genny is also no stranger to the Film & TV scene, playing the role of Cashmere in the feature film Full Out which was nominated at the 2016 Canadian Screen Awards for Best Youth Fiction. She has also made a recurring appearance on Degrassi: The Next Generation, PBS Kids’ Odd Squad, CW’s Beauty and the Beast, The L.A. Complex, Hellcats, other shows such as Warehouse 13, Really Me, Forensic Factor, and the feature film Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts, as well as many short films, and commercials. Although you will mainly see Genny in the spotlight or in front of the camera, you may also find her as a guest teacher, dance adjudicator, and choreographer. The passion she finds in fearless art inspires her to create works of her own, and she truly believes that art feeds the soul what reality cannot.