Kid for a Day

The internet in our condo complex has been down since Saturday night, which is when I started this post. So, let's get caught up, shall we?

I woke up early Saturday morning, parted my hair to the left, put it in a bun, and applied a pile of the appropriate stage makeup. It wasn’t until I was buying bobby pins at the Katy Mills Wal- Mart that I looked up at the Security TV and realized that I was out in Southwest- American Suburbia wearing Whore Makeup and ultra-glittery rhinestone earrings. At eight-thirty in the morning. Oops.

My 10am private lesson was a dancer in the Junior Company; when she saw me the first words out of her mouth were “Um, do you have a show or something?” I told her about the extensive sick/injured list and that I jumping in for Skater’s Waltz. “Are you Elle?” “No, I’m Andrea…. and I’m doing Gabby’s grande allegro part, too. I’ll be in Elle’s costume, though.”

Digressing a moment: There’s something I’ve always loved about being in the ballet studio on a Saturday morning. I think it’s one of the most familiar things in a dancer’s life—that’s where many of us started dancing, in those Saturday morning ballet classes. And from kindergarten on up until—well, now—Saturday morning was spent either taking a class, rehearsing, or teaching.

I made it downtown in under forty minutes (without breaking too many speed limits, go me). We rounded up the Company, huddled on a patio space (it was an outdoor performance) and marked through the ballet. The kiddos also marked through several of the other pieces to work around the missing people. And then, it was showtime.

Quote of the day, from the director: "It's a slippery surface, so be careful in your tap shoes. If you fall down, what should you do?" [everyone responds "Get back up!"] "That's right, keep smiling, keep going, cry when you get offstage." Hee! Awesome.

My ballet was last, so I got to watch the rest of the show while I warmed up. The Mini Company was lined up next to the stage shivering (their costume was sleeveless), so I whispered that they should "do some plies and eleves so your muscles won't be too cold." I looked over a second later and saw all four of them standing in their lineup, doing plie-straighten-eleve-lower in perfect sync. In their little gold dresses. It was unbelievably cute.

I have never seen my ballet performed before. They did a performance of it a few weeks ago, but I had rehearsal (what, you're surprised?). Saturday I finally got to see it, but from inside the action....and it was pretty awesome ifidosaysomyself. Nobody went down during the ballet, it was really fun, I managed to not screw up my own choreography, and my kiddos looked absolutely beautiful. I'm so proud of them.

I've got more to say but duty calls-- I got a nice chunk of choreography done this morning, and it's time to go set it into motion.