Two steps forward, one step back.

Yesterday my Mom and I spent an afternoon at the spa, ate ice cream, and later on that evening I found out Rick Santorum quit politics. It was a good day.

This morning I found out that Senator Wendy Davis filibustered for ten hours to stop a bill that would have been harmful for Texas women– and then the Supreme Court struck down the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act. It was a great day for America! …

… until Texas executed the 500th prisoner since they reinstated the death penalty. Yes, Texas, the same state whose imaginary “concern for life” required a ten-hour filibuster just to keep the government out of women’s panties.  I’m a little bit embarrassed by my state right now. Go home, Texas; you’re drunk.

All in all, it was a very historic day.

* * *

Also, Mother and Craig and I went to the Kemah boardwalk for the afternoon and fed stingrays and petted sharks. It was a good day.

 

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Asides: So this is what it feels like to be done with recital

The recital is over. The second show was tonight, and it was wonderful. My students danced their little hearts out! I am a happy and proud dance teacher.

During our drive home, the moon loomed so closely one could count the craters. Craig made a delicious dinner for Mama and me; then he and I sat out on the porch and enjoyed the sky.

It was a really good day.

 

***

 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep very, very late tomorrow.

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Notes from recital (day one)

First off: Mama Butterfly is here! Craig picked her up, and they arrived at the apartment just after I got back from teaching my last class. We all had a big, delicious dinner and got caught up and looked at old photos Mama brought. 🙂

***

Dress rehearsal for Show #1 was this morning (the recital is split into two performances, with the youngest kids dancing in the first and the older kids dancing in the second). We started around nine-thirty and ended at quarter to two. Most of that time was spent rehearsing the intermediate and advanced ballet dances and the advanced lyrical dance (those three levels are performing both shows). All my little primary classes did a great job, their dances went off without a hitch, and there were no disasters.

(…and now that I think about it, maybe it went a little *too* well. I know a bad dress rehearsal can make for a great show; but I also know it works the other way too. Uh oh.)

Anyway, one of the advanced students assists with a primary class. That class happened to be dancing right after the two upper-level ballets, and they had to wait backstage for a long time. But in that time (and they were back there a good 20, 30 minutes) they sat still and watched the “big dancers” with rapt attention. They barely made a peep, save for a few excited whispers of “There’s Miss Suzy!” when they saw their helper dancing in the front row. It was very sweet.

One of my primary classes closes the show with their tap routine. They have a cute dance and brightly colored costumes, and I think it will be a nice end to the show.

We’re leaving in an hour for the performance (which is way out in the country, in a town I didn’t know existed until a few months ago), then tomorrow we’ll do it all again for Show #2!

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Insanity Season Update

Howdy!

We’re halfway through the last week of classes and my first week of Godspell JR rehearsals. I’m a special kind of tired right now, but it’s all good (plus La Bayadere was playing on the radio when I drove home from work; and that would make any day awesome).
Rehearsals are going great so far! I rehearse with the kids for two hours in the morning. When we made the rehearsal schedule, I allowed my first the first two rehearsals to teach the first dance number (“O, Bless the Lord, My Soul”); figuring we would start another number around the end of the week. Instead, I ended up setting the entire number in my first hour and a half on Monday. I was really impressed with the young actors and how fast they learned! Many of the kids aren’t trained in dance, but were able to pick up the movement very well.
On Tuesday we reviewed the number and I tweaked the choreography in a few places; then I started to teach them another big dance number (“Light of the World”). We finished it today. I will not rehearse with them tomorrow, and on Friday we’ll review and clean the first two numbers. 🙂

Classes are wrapping up, and the students are ready for the recital. We teachers are already preparing for next season (which starts in August) and starting to plan next season’s competition pieces. The studio will be doing Alice in Wonderland for their production next year, which I am very excited about (my old studio did Alice years ago, and I had a blast with it).

I have two days of classes left to teach, and when I get home from my last day of classes my mother will be waiting for me. I can’t wait!

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Insanity season

I’ve been trying to write a blog post for an entire WEEK now, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and write it out. Here is the short version of Things I Wanted To Tell The Internet About:

1. The dance recital is in two weeks a week and four days. Since most of my classes only meet once a week, I’m down to the last two “practices” for each of my Primary and Level One classes. There’s lots of cleaning and polishing going on. Some of the dances look really nice, and some of the dances…well, let’s say we’ve got a lot to do in our last two classes.

2. My mother is coming to visit in a week and THREE days, meaning, I also have a lot of house-cleaning to do in the next week and a half (not that the place is a mess, but I want it to be super-nice for Mama Butterfly).

3. I’m choreographing for ‘Godspell Jr’ this summer with a local youth theater as part of their “summer camp” program. I had a meeting with the director and music director last evening so we could talk about what numbers I would choreograph and hash out a rehearsal schedule/game plan. Rehearsals start on Monday, so I’m going to start working on choreography today (right after I hit “publish,” in fact). It’ll be nice to getsomething stuck in my head that isn’t recital music.

4. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary yesterday. It was very special and lovely. I’m so thankful to have such a great husband and marriage.

Time to get choreographin’!

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