Nutcracker 2017: Makeup team!

As  mentioned in my previous Nutcracker post, I was on the makeup team for the Nutcracker this year. I work with a lovely group of ladies, led by our wonderful lead makeup artist, Elize. She worked with the artistic staff to come up with all of the specialty makeups, and then trained us on what to do. I had a blast, learned some makeup tips...and now we are preparing for the next Loudoun Ballet performance - Alice in Wonderland in May!

Anyway, back to Nutcracker. As we discovered at the first dress rehearsal, our girls that were split between reindeer and tea dragon had a VERY fast costume and makeup change during Act 2. In 3 of the shows, we had 3 dancers to do this change on; in two of the shows, only one dancer (pictured below). So, we formed a pit crew to help with both the costume and makeup, and like a well oiled machine (after the first couple tries, lol) we got them changed in plenty of time for all shows! It helps when you have such amazing people working together.

A couple of the other moms were great about taking photos while we were doing our thing - I didn't even know these were being taken, but it was so great when they sent them to me!

I didn't just do the kids' makeup - I was also able to help apply makeup to the adult dancers (all in the party scene in Act 1).  On the right, I'm doing my friend Debbie's eye shadow.

And after applying makeup to the dancers, I was able to get a few of them to pose for me. This was my first experience ever with putting makeup on gentlemen...it's very different putting foundation on when there's stubble under your foundation sponge! But the guys were all really great about it, even handling eyeliner (which they are NOT used to).

While most of the makeups I did were the younger dancers and adults, I was able to do the coffee princess eye shadow (very dramatic!) in the last performance, so I felt like I'd graduated to the big leagues with that one!

And here I am with my fabulous makeup ladies (Mary, Elize, Lisa, Heather, myself) and Elize's daughter who was her model for so many of the designs as they were being created!

Can't wait to see what we put together for Alice in Wonderland - it's going to be so fun!

Getting ready for Enchanted

This year, Natalie added even more dance than she's done previously by auditioning for (and joining) the new Loudoun Ballet Performing Arts Company as a junior apprentice! This was a big change from the way in which the previous ballet company was run, where dancers had to be 13 to join. It's been great experience for Natalie and her friends, even if taking up a ton of our time!

The ballet company had previously put on 3 shows/year, but the only one Natalie had been able to participate in was the Nutcracker. Being a junior apprentice meant that Natalie would be in the fall show - an original show choreographed by the company's artistic director. The show was called "Deep in the Forest", and the junior apprentices were in an opening number called "Enchanted".

The girls had many rehearsals for their first ever company performance, and we had a number of new things to prepare for. One was...curly hair! We've only ever done the classic "ballet bun" for ballet performances before, but the girls were supposed to have curly hair for this performance. As Natalie's hair is like mine, and will not hold curls done with a curling iron, I had to figure out what to do. I'd heard good things about these flexible curling rods, so we gave them a try.

The first time, Natalie slept in them overnight, and we used no product. Not a bad result!

 

Then I tried adding mousse and hairspray - that left the curls a bit crunchier than we both liked. Before the final performances, we hit on the right combo of wrapping the ends, a touch of mousse, and sleeping in them overnight. The result? Beautiful curls that held up all day!

Hair - check! Next up - costume. Natalie's group wore these gorgeous white Grecian-style dresses, which I had fun helping some of the other moms sew those pink flowers onto. 

Hair - check! Costume - check! Next up: makeup and dress rehearsal. The first dress rehearsal was run at the studio; I couldn't be there, but I got Natalie prepped before hand and a friend sent me these pictures. These girls are too cute!

Hair - check! Costume - check! Makeup - check! Next up: stage rehearsal! The week before the show, we had stage and dress rehearsals at the venue.

Then it was just about time! There were two performances of the show, and at that point both Natalie and I had the drill down pat. Natalie even started excelling at doing her own mascara, which works for me!

I figured out how to do her hair (in addition to curling it, these flowers and ribbons had to be added - without messing up the curls!). My friend grabbed this photo (without me knowing) of me doing Natalie's hair :)

And finally, here she is on performance weekend! You wouldn't know it, since she was such a trooper, but the photo on the right is from her final performance on Sunday when she was running a not-insignificant fever. Poor girl was sick for two days afterwards (it was quite the flu!), but she powered through and went on stage. 

 

The girls loved being a part of a non-Nutcracker ballet, and it was great to see them on stage. While I didn't do the stage photography for the show, I did bring my camera and took a TON of photos of the girls backstage...those are in the next post!