Zara's 2016 Dance Recital

This past Saturday, Zara had her dance recital. She attended a kindergarten jazz class at a large dance studio in Marietta and they have a huge multi-night dance recital for all their students. They typically pick a theme which several of their dances revolve around and this year's theme was Aladdin. Zara's class were birds after Iago. 

All done up and heading to the performing arts center. Zara LOVES getting to wear make-up and can't wait until she's old enough to wear it all the time.

The costume is pretty silly but Zara thinks it's fun. But those feathers keep falling off. I'm finding them everywhere. 

Zara absolutely loves performing and being on stage. I was worried that she'd have stage fright or anxiety but none whatsoever. She eats it up.

Zara has done dance for two years now and really loved it, but I've decided to not sign her up for next year. The dance studio is a good 20 minute drive away and it is a challenge corralling three kids there and back for 45 minutes every week. And while the recital is a lot of fun it is also a big expense on top of her monthly tuition. I'd love to sign her up for dance again but maybe in another year or so. There's a performing arts studio closer to our house that does theater and dance combined and I think that might be a better fit for her. In the meantime, she's doing gymnastics and swim lessons this summer and I'm going to look into piano lessons too.

 Zara insisted on taking a photograph of me and David too.

Zara's Dance Recital

I'm about 5 months behind in posting these pictures from Zara's dance recital last may at the Ferst Auditorium at Georgia Tech. Zara was enrolled in Fairytale Ballet for 3-5 year olds at Rhythm Dance Center. She loved her class and her teacher, Miss Anna. Their end of the year dance was (shockingly) based on Frozen. Zara loved performing and was incredibly excited for us to come see her. 

My sister-in-law watched Adelaide so David and I could enjoy Zara's dance recital together. I bought Zara some roses for after her performance which she loved.

This year, I enrolled Zara in a jazz class because they didn't have a kindergarten ballet class and I didn't want her to repeat the same ballet class again. She loves to dance and enjoys it so much. I'm so glad we were able to find a good dance studio which a variety of classes for all ages. I think she'll want to return to ballet next year, but I did want her to experience some other forms of dance.

Zara the Ballerina

This blog has been sorely neglected over the last year and I feel a need to catch up, if only as a repository for my memories and recollection. Expect to see a lot more posts in the coming days/weeks.

First up, ballet for Zara. 

I've wanted to sign Zara up for dance lessons for awhile but kept putting it off. This is a girl who checks out ballet videos from the library and watches them for fun. Seriously. She's watched the Royal Ballet's "Sleeping Beauty" ballet about a dozen times. 

What I didn't realize was that most dance studios function on a school calendar system. Basically, you sign up for a class which runs from August through May. You can't just drop in and out as I expected you could do. (Some allow this, like the dance classes at the YMCA, but the more professional studios do not.) 

Since school starts at the beginning of August here, my window of opportunity for getting Zara into a spot in a dance class was starting to dwindle. I finally decided that I didn't want to wait any longer despite my reservations. I started Googling dance studios within a 15 miles radius of us. There were a lot of options but none that had what I was looking for. I wanted a place that could provide a fun, child-friendly environment with teachers who were experienced at working with children but that could also--depending on if we both stay in the Atlanta area and Zara wants to continue dancing--provide more rigorous training in the future. It seemed that the studios either focused on little children but offered nothing for more advanced dancers, necessitating a switch to a different dance studio later on, or offered intensive training that would not be a good fit for a novice beginner. 

Finally, I asked for recommendations from the women at the my church and several recommended Rhythm Dance Center who's claim to fame is being the training ground of Melanie Moore, the winner of the 8th season of "So You Think You Can Dance." 

It's a really fun, vibrant place with specialized classes for pre-k/kindergarten kids but plenty of more advanced options in all different styles. They have a tap/ballet combo class, jazz, hip hop, or a Fairytale Ballet class for 3-5 year olds. Naturally, I signed Zara up for the ballet class, once a week, on Tuesday afternoons.

On the first day of class, Zara did not want to go (even though she excitedly talking about it the whole drive there) and I had to wrestle her into her new purchased ballet clothes and shoes and literally drag her into the studio. 

But afterwards, she was quite happy. She really enjoyed her class and her teacher--Anna--is fabulous.

She was so excited she even fell asleep on the car ride home.

Before her most recent lesson, Zara told me I had to take some photos and then ran happily into her class all by herself. I hope this turns out well. I think Zara will make a beautiful ballerina.