The mother-and-son dance team has spent weeks practicing a routine that will be one of more than 20 performances at Saturday's "An Evening with the Stars Dance Spectacular 2008," a take-off on the popular, twice-weekly TV show "Dancing with the Stars," judged by Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli.

"When I can grab Jake, we practice," said Primmerman, principal at Cornville Elementary School. "We are doing it for fun. We are so pleased with the wonderful job in organizing this. I can't get over the energy, excitement and enthusiasm that they pass on to those of us who may have second thoughts about being on stage."

For Jake Primmerman, this show is an extension of his passion.

"This is just what I love to do," said Jake, who is not only performing with his mother, but is also dancing a hip-hop routine with teacher Pam Lattin as well as a solo Irish dance.

The Primmermans choreographed their soft-shoe to the tune of "Me and My Shadow."

A year in the making, the evening full of dance promises to offer the hoopla of the TV show, without the judging and with a local flavor all its own, according to producers Judith Gamage and Bonnie Chamberlain. Proceeds will go to the Skowhegan Free Public Library Capital Fund.

When Gamage and Chamberlain, members of the Library Renovation Committee, were asked to come up with some ideas to raise money, Gamage said the Skowhegan Opera House seemed like a venue likely to draw people and raise the most money.

"I thought of the TV (show) 'Dancing with the Stars' and pitched it to the committee," said Gamage, a fan of the show.

Gamage said some members were doubtful, wondering how to pull it together with only two dance instructors in town and asking, "Who would want to dance in front of the whole town?"

But Gamage persisted and, with Chamberlain, began to look into the merits of the plan. With encouragement from local dance instructors Bradley Adams at Bradley's School of Dance and Sally Jo Kingsbury Preble, who runs Top Hat School of Dance, they began to see the possibilities.

"Sally Jo encouraged us to see Waterville dance teachers, she gave us some names and that's where we started, from one dance instructor to another," Gamage said.

As each instructor and each amateur began to say yes, the show began to take shape, and a grand bonanza of dance will evolve from it on the Opera House stage beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Primmermans, a mother and son who have integrated dance into their lives, say this is another opportunity to enjoy what they've been doing for years.

Dancing consumes his life, said Jake, a Skowhegan Area High School senior who has been dancing since he was about 6, according to his mother, who remembers putting him on her feet to dance when he was little.

"Now he does the same thing for his nieces," she said.

Today, Jake takes dance classes five days a week, including tap, Irish, ballet, jazz and hip-hop. He is a student assistant for Adams, performs in numerous school plays, attends dance workshops out of state, participates in theater camp at Lakewood Theater in Madison and already is enrolled at the American Music and Dramatic Academy in New York City.

"I want to be a dancer, actor, singer," Jake Primmerman said. "Who knows what the future holds?"

His mother, meanwhile, has been taking adult tap classes from Adams for the past eight years.

Gamage outlined a two-hour program that includes professionals such as Adams, dancing with local stylist Mary Ellen Carpenter, and Scott Cyrway, a deputy sheriff in Winslow, dancing with his daughter Kimberly, who this past March was crowned Miss Maine International.

David and Betty Begin, dance instructors at the REM Center in Waterville, will split up and team with James and Veronica Wright for a rumba and a waltz, respectively. Veronica owns a hair salon and James is known for his work in TV advertisements for Central Maine Power Co. advocating not touching live wires "evah!"

Bruce Olson, professional dance instructor at Blue Wave Dancing in Waterville, will be doing a cha-cha with Skowhegan children's librarian Katherine LeBlanc.

It's not all about couples dancing, however, according to Gamage. She said emcee Duane Burbank of Skowhegan Fleuriste will introduce a program that includes rumbas and twists, cha-chas and jazz, tap and clogging, river dancing and fox trots, Charleston and jitterbugs, swings and waltzes. There will even be a Spanish flamenco dance and a Middle Eastern dance, along with some hip-hop and a b-boying routine by Jesse Patkus & the Self-Destruct Crew, a "phenomenal group of young men out of Augusta," Gamage said. "We're even having a red carpet to welcome the dancers and the general public."

There will be no judging, Gamage said: "We want everyone to come out of this feeling like a winner -- because they all are."