Dancin' the Day Away!

This past Saturday was the big day! We began the recital marathon day at 9:15 a.m. in the dressing room! All of the Pre-Company girls' names were on stars on the dressing room door when we arrived. Joy reserved a locker in there for her costumes and all the last minute primping began! She moved her star to her locker. Here she is in her ballet costume (as a hunter).



As you look at these pictures, please know that this makeup is ONLY for recital day...even on picture day we didn't do this much makeup. Since they want the girls to have a uniform look, they actually tell us certain colors of makeup and ask us to make it heavy so the girls will stand out on stage. It's always a shock to see my little girl in this much makeup. She absolutely hates eye liner though and vows to never wear it when she's older! We'll see. :) They also all had to wear their hair parted to the same side with low buns, very slicked back (with lots and lots of gel, hairspray and bobby pins)! Here's Joy and Devyn stretching....notice the handcuffs between them! I asked Devyn if her mom and dad knew she had handcuffs in the dressing room. She said her dad told her she could bring the handcuffs in....if she left her attitude in the car! :) I was really hoping that there was no malfunction in the handcuffs.....I could just envision them dancing the Sleeping Beauty ballet handcuffed together (and Devyn is the studio owner's daughter)! Yikes! :)





What is with girls wanting to pick each other up? This is Joy holding Katie Beth! They were all doing this!



Joy and Julian....(her partner in doing "the bump" in Shake Your Groove Thing).



Anyway, there were three recitals: 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 7:00 p.m. In the first two, Joy (and the entire Pre-Company) danced only in the ballet play, Sleeping Beauty. In the 7:00 p.m. recital, they danced in the play as well as their other two numbers....jazz and tap. The recitals were divided up into halves with the ballet play of Sleeping Beauty in the middle. They were hunters in the play and had guns as props to do their ballet dance. (Joy will show this to you on her blog probably on her next post). Here's Joy, Christina and Katie Beth before their first performance in the play.



In the first half of the recital, the girls danced (jazz dance) to Shake Your Groove Thing. They had the same basic costume. For this one, they had the hats and boots.



Three of the disco divas....Katie Beth, Christina and Joy...



In the second half, they danced (tap dance) to Love Shack. For this one, they had on capri tights with the same dress and a sash around the buns in their hair.

This is one of my favorite pictures. This is Joy and a little girl named Zoe. Joy met her during dance rehearsals. She is in one of the preschool dance classes and they hit it off right away...Joy fell in love with her! Joy looked for her arrival that night and met her with a teddy bear which Zoe loved! Just look at that face and that precious pink costume they wore!



After all the shows (at about 10:15 p.m.), Joy went out to see some of the folks that came to support her. Here she is with her taekwondo instructor (Vicki), and Joy's lady friend (Wendy) from taekwondo class with her two sons (Ikie and Caleb). It was so nice of them to come! Also our friends, Lori and Molly Grace came to watch, but had already left by the time we were done backstage.



With Colt (who took off work to be there):



With Grandmama and Pop (my mom and dad):



With PawPaw (Jason's dad):



And with Jason and me (I look tired and I was):



Striking a pose aftwerwards by the balcony:



With Christina (their assistant in class and also the one that played Aurora in the Sleeping Beauty play):



I've tried and tried to get a video on here of one their dances and it just won't upload. It may be too big. If I can figure it out or get it to work (translation.....if one of my kids can figure it out for me), I'll put the video on another post.

Now we're taking a break from dance for the summer. Classes won't resume again until mid August. But actually Joy never stops dancing. She dances across rooms and doesn't even realize it. She dances when she hears music in stores. I guess that really does give true meaning to dancin' the day away! :)