Dancer's Life

My Recital Story

My recital was with Graceful Expressions in Cary, North Carolina. You can visit their website: gracefuldance.com if you'd like to find out more about them! :D

Anyway, we did "The Sleeping Beauty" which I was cast as "Blue Bird" in. Unfortunately, I did not have the original music or choreography. It was more petite allegro with a couple pirouettes, but very pretty. We do four different shows, and have four different casts, one for each show. Except we had the same prince, Devin Sweet, whom we hired because the only boys we have are very little and wouldn't be able to do partnering and the grand allegro.

My recital went very well, except for a minor glitch. Our prince was about to go on stage for the first time of the show, going on and doing some pantomime, when the music cuts off. Plus, the teachers had put the little girls on stage, the curtain was down, early so everyone backstage had to motion them off stage, very frantically may I add. Anyway, the music resumed where it was so our lovely prince had to improv a little bit. But he did an excellent job!!

The stage floors are not good for dancing on, especially in pointe shoes, so Lilac and I had to put in a lot of rosin so we wouldn't fall. At one point during our solos both Lilac, my good friend Hannah, and I wobbled on our pointe shoes, but you couldn't tell because we played it off as if nothing had happened. I was also the only "Blue Bird" who did the solo en pointe.

The Company also had a dance, our 5 minute, pure technique ballet. I had recital in the 10:00 am show, Company at the end of the 12:30 and 5:30 shows. I had to stay during the 3:30 though because if i went home, I'd have to turn right back around to get to the theater.

Mrs. Kathryn named the piece, "Into the Garden" and we wore black leotards, black lace skirts, and pretty little flower head pieces. It went fairly well, though my toes were numb for the first cast and by the time it was over I had been in pointe shoes, that were a bit too small, from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm.

The second cast also did an amazing job! But at the end we had to say goodbye to Madison, the senior. Everyone in Company cried, and we gave her a poster the entire studio has signed, and a scrapbook with notes from her fellow dancers.

Our prince, Devin Sweet, also taught a class the day before recital, which I attended, and he did a marvelous job! I was absolutely in love with his teaching! Especially the music he used for anything off the barre; instrumental Disney music! We did a minege to Supercalifrajalisticexpialidocious, that I loved! All the combinations we had were absolutely incredible!

So, all in all, and minus technical difficulties (because the staff at the theater are horrible at the stuff in all honesty), everything went perfectly!!!