Mickayla Lindberg spent most of her youth laced up in skates. In high school, she earned the U.S. Figure Skating Association’s most challenging freestyle certification at the Duluth Figure Skating Club. It took hours of practicing in the cold rink, but all that time earned her a gig as an ensemble skater for Disney on Ice.
Traveling with the show is the performing skater’s equivalent to being in the Olympics. It’s immensely competitive, glamorous and in the top tier of the industry.
“Part of what’s great about working in a Disney production is being able to play characters I’ve loved since I was a kid,” Lindberg said. “This is my first time in an actual major show … When I heard the news that I had made the show, I was so incredibly happy.”
The current Disney on Ice show, called “Passport to Adventure,” takes viewers on a meandering tour of some of Disney’s greatest hits. Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck, Donald’s girlfriend Daisy Duck and Goofy grab their suitcases as they “travel” around the rink on a thinly veiled but much appreciated hook to sing all your favorite songs.
You get Peter Pan in London, Simba and Mufasa in Africa, and Ariel in an undisclosed location somewhere under the ocean. Like everything Disney, the colors and music are bright and cheerful and the characters show their emotions in nonstop expressive gestures that even the kids in the nosebleed seats can see.
The tour lasts for just less than a year — from the time the skaters began practice at the Disney facility in Florida this summer to their last show in mid-2014. Life on the road suits Lindberg just fine, and she said she’s lucky to skate without a “head” — the Styrofoam masks that cover the faces of anthropomorphic characters like Mickey Mouse.
Disney has been performing their “on Ice” series since the early ’80s, with “Passport to Adventure” being only one of many iterations of the show. The show’s staying power isn’t a mystery to Lindberg.
“On skates, you can move in ways that aren’t possible,” Lindberg said. “It’s that gliding and floating that help make the show so magical.”
Lindberg is not completely sure what she’ll do after this Disney on Ice tour ends. She has plans to become a dental hygienist, but before she’s set on that path, there’s still one more role she’d like to pursue on ice: playing the role of a Disney princess.
“It’s what every girl dreams,” she said.
What: Disney on Ice Presents “Passport to Adventure”
Where: The Xcel Center, 199 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul
When: Times vary, Thursday–Sunday
Cost: $18-71
