End-of-Year Dance Recital

This past school year, Bunny, James, and Mariposa took a Ballet II class and Gemma took a Creative Movement class with the local dance hall.  Laurel Valley School of Dance Arts is an AWESOME non-profit studio for local kids in rural Washington County, and I've said it before: We are so lucky to have an amazing dance studio just a short distance from our country home!

The director, Jill, put together an amazing ballet using ALL the students from the whole school, from 4-year-olds in Creative Movement to 60+-year-olds in adult tap.  The ballet was set to "Appalachian Spring" which is a famous ballet on its own, but Jill re-did all the choreography to fit the different ages and disciplines.  That creation took up the first half of the recital.  The second half was individual and small-group performances, like this one I found on YouTube of a Pointe ballet student (Amy).  (Maybe someday I will post something on YouTube….)  The result was a recital that was simply fantastic!!!

Of course…when you have an all-classes ballet, that requires a lot of practice.  A lot of EXTRA practice.  So the 2nd week of June brought extra rehearsals on Monday and Wednesday nights along with the normal class on Tuesday night and photos on Thursday night.  Yes, four straight evenings of dance.  With 6 kids to wrangle.  Did I mention that Marcus was on a business trip the WHOLE week????  :oP

But we made it through, with help of course.  And simple meals like crock-pot casseroles and pizzas.  And in the end, it was all worth it.  Here are some pictures from photo day:

The actual recital day was Saturday, with practice in the morning and the performance in the evening.  Here are pictures from the practice:

Creative Movement (Gemma 2nd from left)

Ballet II (others were on stage as well)
Bunny is in the middle of the right group, and Mariposa is
in the left group.  I think James is on the right as well, but
I can't enlarge the photo while I'm in Editor mode so I'm
really just guessing.

Here's James.  Yup, looks like he was on the right.

Posa is a natural.

The theme of the ballet was "goodbye to Alyssa."
Alyssa has been a student and a helper for years, but her
family (my good friend Rosina!!!) moved to Vancouver
which is too far to commute.  :o(  We'll miss you Alyssa!!