Dance Recital DONE

The dance recital was yesterday. It is now, therefore, done. :) Here are some pictures I took at the dress rehearsal:

Princess Dance Camp at Art of Dance Academy

Do you have an aspiring ballerina at home, like I do?

Do not delay. Sign your small ballerina up for Princess Camp at the Art of Dance Academy while there are still spaces open! Art of Dance Academy puts on six sessions of princess dance camp every summer, and they are excrutiatingly popular. Why so popular? I'll tell you why.

The girls arrive dressed up as their favorite princesses. They do ballet, tap, jazz, pretend play, art, and music. At the end of the week, they put on a DARLING little show for the parents, in all the dance styles plus gymnastics! The energy in the studio during princess camp is amazing -- all these little girls butterflying around, chirping away in their tiny little girly voices, swooping around the dance floor, bouncing on the trampoline, tapping in their little black patent leather tap shoes. It is ADORABLE -- you can hear the dreams coming true.

This year the Art of Dance Academy sponsored our Homeschool Science Fair by donating one week of princess dance camp and a pair of ballet shoes. The lucky winner of the "Marie Curie Prize for Elegant Hypothesis" will be tappytapping away with the rest of the happy little girls this summer. Here she is; isn't she cute?

Have fun at princess camp Olivia! Who knows what Miss Monique has cooked up for this fantastic princess dance camp this year? I know Sadie will be there, sparkles and bows in place, ready to prance around and live out her fantasies for one magical week.

How to Make Princess Dolls

This should properly be titled, "How to Make Princess Dolls with 20 Children Under the Age of 7 Without Running Screaming into the Night."

And if anyone feels the need to remind me that I did run screaming into the night a few times, recall that at least I remembered my address and took my keys with me.

Materials:

A reasonable amount of plain muslin.
Pale colored thread.
A Sharpie!
Yarn for hair. We used a very silly, fluffy fun-fur type.
A sewing machine.
Some loverly pink organza.
Different loverly pink ribbons, 2 inches wide, cut about 15 inches long.
Jewels.
Googley eyes.
Non-permanent markers for the kids.
Tacky Glue. Small bottles the kids can manage.
Skinny ribbons, cut about 10 inches long.
Tiny bunches of pink roses on floral wire. We found 10 in a bunch for just a few dollars. Just cut apart the bunch and remove the floral tape and they'll be useable individually.

Making the Doll

1. Draw a template. The doll should be about 10-12 inches high, with a nice big
round head, and fairly thin, long arms and legs. Give yourself enough room to
turn and stuff the doll, but we don't want a fat baby ballerina here, we want a
nice long stringy ballerina. Our arms and legs were about an inch, an inch and a
half wide. It's nice to add a thumb sticking up and shape the foot so there's a
shoe.

2. Trace the template onto muslin with your Sharpie. It's good to sew one up and make sure you like it before you trace 20 of them.

3. Cut the dolls apart from each other. Don't worry about cutting too close to the sewing line -- just separate the dolls from each other. It's easier to sew if you have more room.

4. Set your sewing machine to a very small stitch length and sew around on the
Sharpie line. Leave a small hole for turning under one arm. About an inch and a
half will work.

5. Now trim the excess fabric down to very very close to the stitching line. Clip your curves, turn, and stuff

6. Finally, use a Sharpie to draw a leotard and shoes onto the doll. Do different necklines, different sleeve shapes and hems, etc, on the different dolls. Make the leotard one of those ones with legs that go halfway down to your knees.

Making the Hair

1. Make yourself a cardboard hair-winder. If you want short hair, the
cardboard hair-winder should be about 4 inches wide. For longer hair, go up to 6
inches.

2. Wind the hair around the hair-winder until you have a reasonable amount
of hair for a doll.

3. Slide the loop of hair off the cardboard and lay it on a scrap of
muslin. The more interesting and delightful your yarn is, the more irritating
and painful it will be to make the hair. Soft slippery fluffy hair is going to
give you a pain in your bum that feels like the bite of a horse.

4. Sew it down to the muslin, making sure that it doesn't spread out more
than a few inches. As you go down the hair, keep smooshing it under the pressure
foot, smooshing, and smooshing. The stitches you're sewing will separate the
bangs from the rest of the hair, so if you're making long hair, put your
stitches toward one end.

5. Turn the muslin-and-yarn wig over and trim the muslin down very close to
the stitching line.

6. Lay the wig on the doll and sew it on by hand. While you're doing your
handwork, you can stitch up the hole in the doll that you used to turn her and
stuff her. If you have any "gotcher armpit" jokes in you, now is the time to use
them.

7. Turn the doll upside down over a garbage can and clip open the loops of
hair. You're over a garbage can to stop the fluffs of hair from invading every
corner of your home. For this reason, take your scissors with you and go
outside, before you give her a good shake and then a nice haircut/trim to shape
up her hairdo.

8. After doing this hair, it's a good idea to clean out your sewing machine
a bit.

Making the Skirt

1. To make 21 skirts, I folded 1 yard of organza into thirds (12 inches
wide, 44 inches high) and cut the thirds into 7 pieces each (approximately
12 inches wide, 6 inches high). You could make them wider (more that 12 inches)
for more gather, or longer (more than 6 inches) if you have a longer doll.

2. Increase your stitch length all the way long and stitch down the top of
each skirt. Pull on the bobbin thread and gather the skirt up.

3. Cut your wide ribbon into pieces approximately 15 inches long. Fold the
center of the ribbon over the center of the skirt and sew into place so the
ribbon is wrapped over the gathered up part. I used a decorative stitch for this
-- hearts, flowers, you know the drill.

4. Now the skirt is done. If you're making more you can fancy it up with a
hem, or stitch the entire ribbon closed, or something, but if you're making a
lot, and you finish this part, give yourself a pat on the back and maybe a nice
big mug of rum. Or diet Coke.

Putting it All Together.

Now it's the kids' turn to take over. There are two ways to put this project together. I suggest the kit method for a smaller number of kids, the station method for a larger number.

The Kit Method

Into your large ziploc baggie goes 1 doll, 1 skirt, 2 googley eyes, a
handful of jewels, a skinny ribbon, and a rose. The child sits down at a table
with a communal marker bin.

1. First, she colors the face and leotard using markers. Non-permanent
markers are fine, because we're not going to be throwing this doll in the
washing machine, are we?

2. Next, she glues jewels onto the doll's body. Maybe emeralds around the
neckline. Maybe a giant sparkly heart right in the middle of the bodice.
Maybe diamonds in the hairline. A pearl on each shoe. Try not to glue
anything right around the waist where the skirt will tie on. Show the kids how
to do one dot of glue for each jewel, rather than splodging around a whole lot
of glue.

3. Tie on the skirt. Older children will be able to manage sticking jewels
onto the skirt too, but it's tricky, because the glue bleeds through the
organza.

4. Now tie the skinny ribbon around her neck in a bow, and clasp her hands
together and wrap the little rose around them, using the wire. If the child
doesn't want the hands clasped, you can just wrap the rose around one hand, like
a wrist corsage.

5. Allow glue under jewels to totally dry before the doll begins her career
as a toy.

The Station Method

1. The Marker Station. Give each child just the doll and have her sit down
at a table with a communal marker bin and color the leotard, shoes, and
face.

2. The Sparkle Station. Put the jewels and googley eyes out in trays and
have an adult (or two or three) standing by to administer the glue as directed
by each child who comes to the station. You do the glue, the kid arranges the
jewels, the eyes, as they desire.

3. The Skirt Station. Pick out a skirt and tie it on the doll.

4. The Finishing Station. Tie the skinny ribbon around her neck and wrap a
flower around her wrist.

Done! Let the pretending begin!

Thank you to Ahno who fought with that lousy muslin and that slippery pink hair, on and on into the night, and emerged triumphant. We prepped these projects for 20 children at ballet camp, and thanks to the cooperation of the teachers and volunteers, we had 20 happy children bouncing off with their own personal doll at the end of the day.

Sadie's Ballet Recital

Sometimes pink is enough to make you happy forever.

Sadie had her ballet recital. It was, possibly, the best day of her life thus far. She richly, deeply enjoyed every minute of it. She was not afraid to be on the big stage at the Roper Theater. In fact, she was thrilled to be out there, and wanted to go back and do it all over again the minute it was finished.

Her ballet school, the Art of Dance Academy, performed a show based on The Wizard of Oz. There were great moments and not so great moments, as I'm sure is true with any performance involving exclusively children. Sometimes the screw-ups are the most entertaining part of the show, right? No one can remember the perfectly executed numbers, but everyone remembers when little Billy dragged little Sally by the hair into her position before spinning her in a pirouette.

Sadie was a munchkin, along with the rest of the girls in her little class. They all wore variations of floofy pink tutus, with floofy pink feathery headdress things on their heads. They were pretty amazingly cute. Here they are on stage, doing their munchkin thing:



One of the awesome parts of the show, for us, was that Benny got to go up on the stage with the magician that was entertaining the crowd between set changes. He was the volunteer assistant from the audience. It was his job, I think, to distract us while the magician was doing magiciany things that changed a dove into a dog. Benny was spectacular -- he danced, he pontificated, he was completely charming. And happy. He got to hold the dove and pet the dog, and when he was doing his wild crazy dance, everyone was screaming with laughter and cheering for him. It was hilarious. He has no self-consciousness, no uncertainy, no embarrassment. Sometimes, that's a hindrance, but sometimes it's awesome.

Sadie's bravery was incredible that day too, fearless little showboater that she was. She stayed backstage with the backstage moms, all through the show after her part, behaving herself on her own -- watching videos and coloring with her friends. And she was a beautiful little ballerina.

This is not the sport that I would have chosen for her -- I've mentioned before about my hesitations regarding ballet. But she loves it so much, how can I argue? She's meant to wear pink floof.

The Ballet Dilemma

I will admit to certain prejudices concerning ballet. When I was a teenager, I had barn boots on my feet and horses on my mind. I neither understood nor appreciated the ballerina mindset. So now that I have this very pink, very glitter, very ballerina-obsessed girl child, can I swallow my preconceptions and put her in a leotard?

Sadie is three. She spent her Christmas vacation in Wisconsin doing this:



What's happening in this picture? That's Sadie, in the pink, and Sydney, her cousin, in the lavender. They're wearing their ballerina dress-up clothes, provided by Grammy, and they're dancing along with the videos of Sydney's mom (Sadie's Aunt Terri) doing her dance recitals when she was a teen. They did this for hours. Wearing gloriously impractical sparkly shoes and copying all the moves they saw the kids do on TV.

Since then, Sadie has spent so much time in her ballerina costume that the tulle actually wore off. For her birthday, she got several more princess/ballerina/dancing/fairy costumes, which are all her "ballerina clothes" and she wears them daily. Her favorite movies are "Barbie in The Twelve Dancing Prinesses" and "Barbie in The Nutcracker." Getting her out of her leotard produces a noise that makes you think she's being eviscerated.

Can I still argue that she doesn't really want to learn ballet?

In my mind, and I fully accept that I am ignorant and prejudiced, signing her up for ballet is as good as asking for her to be melancholy and body-obsessed. In my mind, and yes I remember that she is three and I am being neurotic, she takes ballet and she's off the road that leads her to be a senator, and astrophysicist, an admiral, a heart surgeon -- WHATEVER.

So, I went looking for a ballet school. Looking for a ballet school was like looking for a karate school. I wanted somewhere between serious and ridiculous. The ridiculous school is the one that turns out ballet students like McDonald's hamburgers. Where they only want to enroll students, collect fees, roll them through the recitals, and pass them on to more classes, even if their moves look like old ladies fighting off bees. Serious is where the children walk around looking like they're sucking in their stomachs, the teachers shriek, "What's wrong with you today!" and anyone whose hair comes out of her bun gets to scrub the bathroom.Okay, I'm exaggerating on both ends, maybe, but you get my point. I visited schools. I was uninfatuated.

Then I found Art of Dance Academy on the internet and learned that Miss Monique is the art director there. Miss Monique taught Benny's dance class when he was at Preschool for the Arts, over in Virginia Beach. I had a feeling that if I went and put Sadie in Miss Monique's hands, that nothing bad would happen to her. And after our school visit, I was convinced. The "Dance Discovery" class that Sadie has joined is so delightful! They do half ballet and half tap, and it is all very sweet, light, fun, positive, and dear.

I wanted a place where Sadie could put on "ballerina clothes" and prance around with other girls. Where she wouldn't be criticized but also wouldn't be ignored. I don't know whether she'll stick with ballet or whether this ballerina phase will be outgrown, but I do feel good taking her to the Art of Dance AcademyArt of Dance Academy -- after getting her first ballet shoes from Miss Monique, Sadie gave her a big hug and said, "We best friends." Nice! Sadie never hugs anyone but Dan. Here they are after Sadie's first class on Thursday -- I think it's a great connection!