The Little Match Girl

Nicole and Ellie's dance studio put on their winter production of "The Little Match Girl" in December. Wow! Lot's of extra practices and rehearsals to get them to, and they weren't even any of the principal dancers. I thought they did a great job, and really appreciated all the hard work of the director, Wendi, and all her teachers and other studio help. So much extra stuff for them, and right before Christmas. I wondered how the story would be portrayed, since it really is a sad story, but I thought it was done beautifully.

Nicole was a village girl, right at the beginning, and then was a part of the candle dance at the end of the show, after the little match girl has died and gone to heaven. The dance was lovely, as all the girls came in holding little battery powered candles with the stage and auditorium unlit, and that's all you could see, were the candles moving in unison. Then the lights came up and all the dancers were in white and the little match girl was there dancing with her mother that she'd been dreaming of. Ellie was a dove in an earlier dream scene.

I had to laugh. Nicole is very easily distracted, and even though she knows her dance, if something catches her eye, she keep sort-of doing what she's supposed to be, but you can tell she's distracted! She's done this same thing at both piano recitals she's been involved in...I guess we need to work on her focusing skills! Ellie got out there and was a bit overwhelmed by being on stage, so she did a couple plies(sp?) and a turn and other than that, pretty much stood there with a deer in the headlights look, and seemed to forget that her arms could, and were supposed to, move! But as you can see in the picture below, she wasn't the only one feeling overwhelmed!

Here are some pictures I managed to get of them....they sort-of worked despite the fact that my ISO was maxed, no flash, and I was sitting in the back!


*Nicole is front standing girl*



*Nicole is in there: in the back, just to the left of the girl in the black leotard!*

Next up early this summer: "The Lion King"!

Dancing Princess

Ellie is taking a dance class this year at DanceMakers Studios. She loves it! It will be fun to see what she can do later this year in her performances....watching 3 year olds dance is always good for some entertainment!

This past week the dancers were allowed to wear their Halloween costumes to class. My friend was there and took some cute pictures of the girls that I need to share! (**Thanks Christiana!**)