Fourth Dance Recital

Rose finished her fourth year of ballet over the weekend with the end-of-year dance recital.  She loved it and danced beautifully.

About a month ago, there was Parent Observation Day in her dance class, and my mom, my mother-in-law, Clothilde, Mirin and I all sat in to watch (along with a few other parents).  The girls did their pointing exercises, and warm-ups, and then tried to show off their dance routine.

Mirin and I ended up in an unfortunate suppressed laughing fit watching the girls mill around the room, pretend to be football players, run the wrong way, and generally flop around while the teacher reminded them to point their feet and smile.  Mirin almost fell off of his chair when they had gone through the routine for the third time, and the teacher said, "Very good, girls, that was better!"

"If that's better," he managed to choke out in a whisper, "what was it like before?"

We both tried so hard not to laugh, as laughing at a little girls' dance class is one of those things....but it was like the biggus dickus scene from Monty Python.  Something about trying at all costs to NOT laugh, and it didn't even look like a dance in most parts.

"They need Viola Swamp," Mirin proclaimed, in between suppressed fits of laughter, while the little girls were jumping in circles, making faces and doing funny arm motions, and ignoring the teacher and the music.

Rose was rightfully annoyed at us for "cackling" during her class (we actually didn't cackle - that was an exaggeration).

Shortly after that, her dance teacher went on "vacation", and they got a very strict substitute teacher that whipped the class into shape (I think they were a tough group of little girls to work with - very distracted and giggly).  So they got "The Swamp" after all, and the dance was beautiful at the recital.