Dance Recital

Friday night was Brooke's dress rehearsal for dance. We took the above pictures then. I was hesitant to even post them up in cyperspace world - the makeup kinda bothers us and JonBenet Ramsey comes to mind. But its part of her costume and for the stage and all that... So, we go with it. I think she is just as beautiful, or even moreso, without all the blue eyeshadow and blush. Anyways, then Saturday night was her actual recital where we got to do it all over again. Unfortunately as laid back and easy going it went Friday night, Saturday was everything but. Don't get me wrong. The girls did great! It was the facility! There was a last minute venue change and the staff at the new location were extremely UNaccomodating, even going so far as to threaten to lock the doors 30 min before the recital started. There was a lot less seating and the "hall monitor" (aka - Nazi Room Monitor) was extremely rude and it led to a lot of stress on the parents and audience members. It was ridiculous. But, I digress.. (can you tell I'm still reeling?)

The girls did great! Brooke loved every minute of it! After her first dance (during just the dress rehearsal) she came back and said, "I wanna do it again!!!" Uh-oh.. I think we're in trouble. But, in all seriousness, she did fantastic. She, pretty much knew all her ballet routine without even needing to look at the teacher off to the side. The whole recital was about 2.5 hrs, but it was cute and entertaining with all those little ones and cute costumes and such. And Brooke was so excited to have all her family there to watch her "dance on stage!"

Here's some pics from the big night...

Their first performance was Tap

This next picture was taken "backstage" (aka - the bandhall) in between performances with her and Trinity. I also thought they did really well waiting patiently backstage in between performances. Unfortunately, due to the limited seating, they had to stay backstage the whole time instead of coming out and being able to watch any of the other dancers. So they all did really well, keeping themselves entertained with colors and snacks and iPods. ;) There were 44 dances. Brooke's class was number 20 and 38, so there was a lot of waiting on her part.

I was really nervous about taking Brenna and trying to get her to sit still for 2-3 hrs! I brought a whole bag of quiet toys and sneaky snacks (yea, cuz you couldn't have food or drink in there either..at all) to try to keep her occupied. And we had several family members who were willing to go walking outside with her if needed (as long as they could get back in, Room Nazi!). But surprisingly, she was absolutely mesmerized almost the entire time! She LOVED watching the dancers and the music and all the sparkly costumes and outfits. I couldn't believe how great (read: still) she was the whole entire time! Only towards the very very end (the last 20 minutes or so) did she want to kinda move around. And even then, she was content moving around from lap to lap. This was how she looked pretty much the entire recital (the first 2 hrs anyway)....

Their next performance was ballet, which Brooke (and all the girls really) did exceptionally well on. They knew that ballet routine well!

Here's a short video of their ballet performance..

For some reason, the blog cuts off the side of the video post, so if you want to see the full version, here's the link to it on YouTube.

And finally, here's a picture of the finale where they all come back out for a final bow with her teacher. A lot of kids left, so this isn't her whole class by any means (they have the largest class of all I do believe with 16 kids), but we stayed till the end! Remember, she was 38 out of 44, so after her last dance, it was only another 15 minutes or so till the end.

We were so proud of how well she did with everything and how beautiful she looked (despite the gaudy makeup :P ). But, I'm also kinda glad its over...well, until next year anyway. ;)