My Summer Recap, Part 1

Oh my, I have been enjoying my summer to much. That's pretty amazing, considering the fact that I haven't done much! Here's the summer recap:

My summer pretty much started when Recital ended. I did a two week dance intensive at a Ballet School that is about an hour from my home.

As soon as that ended, I started taking summer classes in the same school in the 6 week session. I go four days a week, two hours per class.

On Tuesdays, I leave ballet before pointe class so that I can drive 45 minutes back to my normal Dance Studio to assist a Pre-School class.

On Thursdays, as soon as Ballet is over, we head down to my normal studio so I can take Jazz. Taking Jazz during the summer is a lot of fun! There are only 3 levels for Jazz during the summer; Beginner (Jazz 1-2), Intermediate (Jazz 3-4), and Advanced (Jazz 5-6).  I'm in Advanced Jazz, which has been a lot of fun, because of the broad range of ages. We have girls who are going into Jazz for the first time, girls who are repeating Jazz 5, girls who are going into Jazz 6 (like me), girls who are repeating Jazz 6, and some girls who have graduated from highschool who are getting in some last minute practice before they leave for college. It has been so much fun, because they are small classes (usually only 1 of each age). We also have been doing lot of fun combinations in classes. Every week we've done something new. We have done every style of Jazz, from Call Me Maybe, to Le Jazz Hot, to Beauty in the Breakdown. I mean, that's covering Pop Jazz, Musical Theater Jazz, and Lyrical Jazz all in three weeks. We've also done some Contemporary, and I think maybe Hip Hop (which I missed).

I have one more week of Ballet, Jazz, and Creative Movement, and then... COMPANY!!!! We start learning or company pieces, and I am very excited about it. Here are the rumors\clues that I have picked up on:

Ballet: It's kind of a contemporaryish piece that's very dark and creepy. We are some sort of warriors, WITH STICKS. I am so pumped about this piece.

Jazz: We are doing two pieces actually, a Large group, and a small group.
Large Group: I have no idea, I don't think the teacher knows what she wants to do yet.
Small Group: It's a remake of something that has been done before, and it's to a Michael Buble song. I am not sure how many girls will get to be in this one, but I really hope I will, because I love Lyrical Jazz.

Modern: I know nothing about the concept of the piece, but I do know that the director isn't choreographing it this year. The other modern teacher is, and she does really beautiful choreography.



So that's my summer of dance stuff, I will tell you about a few of the fun things I've done that aren't dance related. Soon. I promise.

I'm Back Home

 I apologize for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks. We had recital, and then all of a sudden, time slipped away from me. Recital was amazing. That's pretty much all that I have to say about it. I think I danced well, we all had a great time, I made some new friends. Doesn't get much better.  If you are wondering which girl in the picture is me, I'm the one in the upper left corner who's hairpiece doesn't match most of the other girls.

Anyways, two days after recital, I started Summer Intensive at a ballet school about an hour away. I went 6 hours a day,  5 days a week, for 2 weeks. That just finished, and now the rest of my summer looks like this:

I go to the ballet school 2 hours a day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Then on Tuesdays I drive from Ballet School back to my normal studio to assist Creative Movement. Then after ballet school on Thursdays I drive back to my normal studio to take Jazz. I have that schedule for the next 6 weeks. Then, the next week, we have our week-long Company Repetoire Camp, to start learning our Company numbers. Then we have company rehearsal twice a week for the next like 3 weeks. Then we get a one week break, then classes start again in the fall.

Well, I got to come back to my studio to assist Creative Movement for the first time since before recital. I missed my studio terribly while I was at intensive at the ballet school. I walked inside my studio's building, and sat down, and the director came over to me and said "Jasmine, would you mind grabbing a broom and sweeping the studio for me?" and my immediate thought was "Yep, I'm back home!" I love my studio, the teachers, the students, everything really.

I saw a quote on a plate once that said "Friends are the Family we choose ourselves." And for me, my whole studio is the family I chose myself. :)

A Bad Dress Rehearsal Makes a Great Performance...

^If that's true, we will have a stellar performance tonight! In case you didn't get it from that last sentence, dress rehearsal really stank. At least, some of the dances did... So here's what happened.

We had Jazz first, and our teacher was pretty dissapointed with us, I hope that I do better tonight. It's so dark, and you literally can't see ANYTHING during that dance. I just felt all the wobbly and off...

Tap was about as bad as it gets. Our teacher wasn't there, we NEEDED her there. It's just not really possible for us to be able to block this 20+ person dance on our own. We were all so concerned about our blocking that the rythymns were totally off...

Pointe was pretty good I think. I thought it was good, and our teacher said it was good. The spacing is pretty easy, and I thought that I did the choreography very nicely.

Ballet was also good, I stumbled a little bit on a part where we are in tendu derriere and then we fondue and bring our leg into a parallel passe and extend it back out into an arabesque, right out of a double pirouette. Nothing difficult really...

The Duet was nice, but I don't have much to say about it.

Lastly, was modern. I thought we did awesome. We were on the music, and all together, and just awesome in general. :)


As it was dress rehearsal, I'm going to show you pictures of some of the costumes used in the show:

Creative Movement Ages 3-5

Mice

Tap Intro 2

More Mice!

Creative Movement Ages 6-7

Announcing the ball

PreBallet

Hugarian Princesses

Ballet 1

Royal Procession

Cinderella's Stepmother

Ballet 5

Girls at the Ball

Cinderella's Rags

Modern 1&4

Bippity Boppity Boo

Creative Drama

Cooks

Tap Intro 1

Maids

Tap 1

Horses

Creative Movement Ages 5-6

Fairy God Mother's Little Helpers

Modern 2

Flower Girls at the Wedding

Ballet 2

Spanish Princesses

Those are just a few of the many costumes used in our show!

The 12 Days of Recital- Day 12

Wow. I can't believe that today is the LAST day to practice! We have our show TOMORROW!

So yesterday, we just took our cast picture. That means full makeup and hair with costume. I bet the pictures came out pretty cute though. :) It was really fun. We were all trying to get the entire cast in the picture, and there are a lot of people. I mean, there's Cinderella, Prince Charming, King, Queen, Stepsisters, Stepmother, Duke, Jester, Deer, Bluebird, two mice, Fairy God Mother, and 6 princesses. That's 20 people. We were all having a little to much fun posing, and when we got to the actual pictures, it was easy to give a natural smile because we were all laughing. :)

Well today is what I believe is the craziest part of the show. DRESS REHEARSAL. For those of you who don't know what dress rehearsal is, it's when everything goes wrong right before the show! I love dress rehearsal though, because you have your costume, the stage, the music, EVERYTHING. But there's no audience, so it's a chance to dance your heart out without being afraid of failure. It really is a wonderful thing. Then after you finish your dance, the teachers come get mad at you and your class for what you did wrong... it's all part of the business.

Now that I've finally gotten my mom to understand how our driving schedule works, I think we're set.  See, we were trying to figure out how to make it as easy as possible for my family, and my neighbor\best friend's family (We'll call the mom Mrs. S). They have 3 kids who dance. They are ages 5 (A), 8 (M), and 13 (Audrey). So basically, Mrs. S is taking me and A to rehearsal at 2:30 because I have to be there for Creative Movement, and so does she. Then my mom is picking M and Audrey up at taking them to rehearsal at 4:00, because my mom needs to be there at 4:00 (she's working quick changes). And then my friend's mom is taking A home as soon as she's done. And then my mom is taking me, Audrey, and M home at the end of the rehearsal. WOW, crazy.

So anywho, I'll let you know how that goes....