Hannah's Bad: hamming it up at the spring dance recital

Hannah's spring dance recital was the same day as HonFest so after a little rest, I slicked her hair into a bun, packed her costume, shoes, and snack into her backpack, and let Grammy walk her to the church around the corner where her school holds their performances. Eric followed shortly after, and Amy and I were right behind him after a trip to the grocery store to grab some last minute flowers.

The theme was light and dark so each class did two dances, one to something very saccharine and one to something with a little more edge (in some cases, a little too much edge...). Hannah's class danced ballet to Twinkle, Twinkle wearing the tutu she's pictured in below, and then in the second act they traded their tutus for jazz pants and their ballet slippers for tap shoes and danced to Michael Jackson's Bad. It. Was. Awesome. Hands down one of the most entertaining performances I have ever seen, and yeah, yeah, I know, I'm partial, but seriously, it was so cute. I can't wait for the video so I can try to clip out her scene and upload it everywhere.

The best part was at the very end when each class comes out one at a time to take a bow. Hannah aced this part. She bowed by tucking her chin to her chest and rolling her spine down a little rather than by folding at the hips, and she did it over and over and over again. She kept bowing and smiling this huge smile long after the rest of her class had stopped, and she kept it up even as the next class was filing out in front of her class. Then she poked her head between the shoulders of the girls who ended up in front of her and continued to bow! We were cracking up laughing. How did she get to be such a ham??

There's no flash allowed during the performance and although the stage is very well lit, all the pictures that Eric took during the performance are blurry. We hung around after the show and managed to talk Hannah into putting on her tutu again and posing on the stage for a few shots. She wasn't thrilled about it as you can tell from the forced smile, but she humored us.

Since Eric was manning the camera, I took advantage of the opportunity to be in a picture--the first picture of me and both kids! 

Eric declined his chance to be in a pic, so did my mom, and Amy tried to as well, but I managed to talk her into it.

We're taking the summer off but my guess is that she'll want to start dancing again in the fall, and I'm in favor of it because in addition to the obvious reason of wanting her to be happy and do the things she enjoys, I think that getting comfortable in front of a crowd at such a young age is a great experience and a huge confidence booster. Anyway we just inherited some leotards and tights so that'll cut down on our initial costs! All we'll have to do is stalk the consignment shops for new tap shoes and ballet slippers.....

Hannah's first dance recital

I didn't bother bringing my camera to Hannah's dance recital last weekend because of the no-flash rule. I figured that in a dark setting like that, no flash would yield blurry, un-postable pics. It wasn't as dark as I'd anticipated though, and fortunately, Sondra brought her iPad, which, even without a flash, managed to take some halfway decent shots. I'm not a big fan of Apple ever since owning one of their laptops in the years after college and fighting with it the entire time, but one thing I covet about those products is their cameras....

The Holiday Diversion program included dances to The Nutcracker, Christmas songs like Rudolph and Frosty, and some other random songs with ballet, tap, and modern dance routines. Hannah's class played the part of the mice in The Nutcracker and had a tap dance-off with another class who played soldiers. The kids were beyond adorable. Most of them had no clue what they were doing, and it was the cutest thing ever. Hannah came out and spent more time trying to pick us out of the audience than dancing. I felt bad because in spite of the fact that we were front and center, she didn't see us until she came out at the end for her bow. I spent the rest of the performance wrought with anxiety over the possibility of her thinking that we weren't there watching.

As far as I could tell, she didn't have any stage fright. Below is a pic of when they first came out and found their tape. They stared at each other for a while until their teacher stood up and helped guide them through their tap moves.

Hannah is front and center in this one so you should be able to pick her out. I think they were supposed to scurry through the soldiers...

She was in a better position for photographing when she came out for her bow. Look how cute they are in their little mouse costumes! Their teacher is a one-woman show. She makes all the costumes, runs the studio, teaches all the classes, choreographs all the dance moves, organizes the whole performance, etc.....

This next pic was taken shortly after she spotted us in the audience. She's mouthing the words "mom," "dad," and "grammy" and waving. (She hadn't yet discovered my dad and Sondra sitting on the other side of me.)

Shannon made this perfect little bouquet for me to give to Hannah after the show. She added blue thistle both for texture and because it's Hannah's favorite color.

After the performance the whole audience hovered around waiting for the dancers to get out of their costumes and come out. I'm not thrilled with how that whole scene went down. Fortunately my mom was standing up near the backstage door and caught Hannah as she came out. I was standing back a bit, trying not to crowd the door. I figured I'd see her backstage mom and would beeline to the front then, but her and a few other girls came out without their backstage mom, and they're so short that they just stood there all bewildered by the crowd of strange faces. I felt guilty about not being closer for days and vow to handle that differently should there be a next time. In the meantime, grammy saved the day and scooped her up.

I gave her a big hug and her bouquet, and Sondra snapped some more pictures.

Then we walked back to the house (the recital was right around the corner), and Hannah hung out with pappy and grandma Sondra for a few minutes while I whipped up some dinner and then hurried her off to bed.

We ordered a DVD so if anyone is interested in seeing her brief little mouse dance, stop by in about 6 weeks.

Hannah adds dancing to her fall schedule

Brace yourself for some very bad ballet class pics! I haven't taken my camera to class, just my phone, and there are no parents in the dance studio so when I try to get action shots, I have to take them while peering through the glass in the door...I would normally NEVER do that, and if I did, I wouldn't share, but in this case, they're the best I'm going to get and I REALLY want to share.

I researched various dance classes in the area off and on for a few months but wanted to wait until Hannah was settled into school before determining if she'd be able to handle an extracurricular activity. She kept asking to to take ballet, so I signed her up for a trial class on the first Wednesday of this month.

I chose Baltimore School of Dance, and although I have nothing to compare it to, I'm really happy that we picked this one. In addition to the convenience of being able to walk to and from the studio, the teacher is professional while still being really sweet and fun with the kids. Fun is a big priority for her, especially with kids this young. The class is called Creative Movement and is for kids 3 to 5 years old. They dance ballet at the beginning, then they read a story or sing a song and then put on a costume that pertains to that story or song and do some more dancing, and then after that, they trade their ballet slippers for tap shoes and spend the rest of the class learning tap techniques.

This first pic is from the tap section of the trial class. She was so smitten with the class that we ordered her a leotard immediately.

 

They read a hysterical book in this trial class called Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance and then put on monster costumes. The only reason I know that she read this and that it was funny is because the next day we were reading books online and randomly came across that one. This was her monster costume.

 Knowing that I'd failed to get any good pics at that first class, I took a pic of her on our walk home.

Her leotard didn't arrive in time for her second class, which she was very upset about, but she got over it pretty quickly and had a great time. They did something pertaining to Goldilocks and the Three Bears in this class, and I think this was a Goldilocks costume, but it's impossible to get any information out of Hannah so who knows.

She had her leotard for her third class, but we arrived late so she put it on and raced into class before I could get a picture. As a result, I hovered at the door with my phone, trying to zoom (hello pixelation!) and photograph through glass again....sigh. Every time I peeked in at her, she was dancing around and staring at herself in the mirror with a big smile on her face (even when the other kids in the class were sitting down). The novelty wore off pretty quickly though. When she came out for her tap shoes she complained that the leotard was uncomfortable and insisted I tear out the tag. I did, but she was still eager to take it off after class. The leotard and tights is the number one reason that I quit ballet after only one year, so I get it. I just hope it isn't a deal breaker for her. I mean, I don't care if she becomes a famous dancer or anything, but I think it's a good activity for the time being and would like her to stick with it for a bit. I like that is physical, requiring movement, but that it's also an art form. It's the perfect well-rounded activity when you have to choose just one extracurricular .

I think I heard her teacher say that they were fireflies in this third class...I overheard another parent say "mud fairy" and am thinking that one makes more sense.  

Her first dance recital, the Holiday Diversion, will be on December 15. I'm freaking out about having to apply stage make-up to a 3-year-old and will be phoning Aunt Laura for advice on that one, but I'm otherwise really excited for her. I think that getting comfortable performing at such a young age will serve her well when she has to give presentations at school or interview for jobs or anything else requiring a performance. Hopefully she'll get used to her leotard quickly!