Best thing from final week of dance class

One of the very fun things our dance studio does at the end of the semester is below. During the last week or so of classes, at the end of the class, they pull all of the students who are in class at the moment (so could be up to 5 classes at once) into the big studio and have them do their recital piece for each other. That's pretty usual for studios (LSB did the same)...but what CBA does that I love is that after watching each other, they then all take turns "dancing" each others dances!

The main group stays in the front to guide, while everyone else tries to dance along after watching. So you get an older tap group trying to do a much younger class's ballet piece... or in this case, older jazz dancers trying to do Henry's class's tap piece. I love this video clip so much - the older dancers all watching Henry to learn tap from him! And he's just doing his thing. All the feels!

And I find this especially relevant with the hubbub last week over comments made on GMA about "boys being embarrassed to take ballet". Dance, any sort of dance, is just as much of a sport as any other physical activity, and it should be recognized as such! I'm proud of my dancer, and this video shows that.

Contemporary on the floor

After Natalie's summer dance classes were over (they have a 6 week session prior to the 3 week intensive that she is currently 2/3 of the way through), Charlottesville Ballet sent us parents whose daughters were in the summer contemporary class a video of one of the floor routines they were working on. It's a bit repetitive, as they were really practicing getting the motions correct going both left and right across the floor. So, I cut it down to show just the movement, as I thought it was really love especially with the music.

As I said, Natalie has spent the past two weeks in a 7 hour a day dance intensive, and I know at the show this Friday they're going to show us multiple pieces, including a contemporary, that they've learned. I'm really looking forward to seeing it!

Cinderella: On Stage

In my previous post I shared photos of Natalie and her friends backstage at Cinderella; this post are my favorite photos I took of her on stage during the dress rehearsal.

Leaping elves and fairies!

Now is when the elves warn Cinderella that midnight is approaching...

And at the end of the ballet, I captured these more close-up shots of my girl. Her placement on stage was perfect! (I was trying to stay out of the way as I took my shots)

What a beautiful finale to a beautiful show!

Backstage at Cinderella

Natalie's first big performance with Charlottesville Ballet was in March 2019. She had auditioned for a role in January, and got one of the 40 spots that over 70 girls auditioned for! We were so proud of her, especially for being new to the school.

They performed Cinderella, which was choreographed by the head of the Southwest Ballet Company (including using his costumes and some of his male dancers for a few roles). The girls worked very hard for 3 months, as did the company members, and then gave two performances in Charlottesville and two the following weekend in Lynchburg. I volunteered backstage both weekends, which let me get a lot of fun backstage photos of the girls!

The Charlottesville performance was at the Paramount Theater on the Downtown Mall. We had about 24 girls plus a couple of parents wedged into this small dressing room for the show, but they did great!

They were excited by the mirrors lining the room in which they could get ready.

 

One of the coolest things at the Paramount is that through the backstage hallways, people who have taken part in performances have signed the walls. It's so cool to walk through and experience! Even cooler, is at only 11 years old, Natalie's name is now there!

 

In escorting them to/from the stage, I was able to grab a couple of photos with my phone from the sidelines.

 

You'll see Natalie appear in the video below with her fairy friend in blue.

Like I said, the following weekend we headed down to Lynchburg for two performances there. Natalie and I stayed in a lovely hotel on Friday night, after dress rehearsal, and had plenty of time on Saturday morning before we had to arrive at the theater to go for a nice walk! There's a beautiful walking path over the river, and it turns out there was a St Patrick's Day 5K that we inadvertently took part in.

I have a lot of photos from Lynchburg that I took from the sidelines but they didn't all come out that well; this is a collage of the 3 I took that I liked the most.

I did take a bunch of photos with my actual camera during dress rehearsal in Charlottesville; I have gotten those edited and will next post my favorite stage photos of my girl!