Minneapolis Competition!

It was an intense weekend.  So intense that I'm finally recovering now from all the fretting and fixing and worrying and excitement and jumping around and awesomeness that are my dancers.  

Competition dance time as a teacher hasn't really gotten easier the last couple years.  I'm in my fourth year teaching at my dance studio, and every year when competition time rolls around, I get nervous.  I get nervous that the costumes will look odd or wrong or break.  I get nervous that someone will forget half of the dance in the middle of a big group routine.  I get nervous that no one will like the dances, and I won't be able to come back.

But this weekend, I really didn't have much to worry about.  I made sure everything looked good before they went onstage, pranced around to get them psyched up, and then watched from the sidelines...

while every single one did a great job. :)

My little pirate girls had overwhelming positive response from the judges in their comments, notably that the girls seemed to "genuinely enjoy the dance and have fun", which as a teacher is fantastic to hear.  It's tap- I hope they're having fun! 

My Singing in the Rain dance finally came completely together in this competition.  The costumes looked incredibly sharp (thanks SO MUCH to the amazing Mom that helped bedazzle all of them!!) and all 18 of my girls pulled together a rather difficult routine to get an "Outstanding" score and a 3rd place overall high score!  I'm really excited to see them truly own the attitude this coming weekend at our next competition.  There's so much sass in that group that I always have fun choreographing for them.  I may already have ideas for next year... :)

My duet girls did an amazing job as well- I'm still in awe at their skills.  Choreographing a non-tap number really stretched me this year, both artistically and as a teacher (try explaining a move when half the time you can't even do it yourself!).  Luckily, these girls trusted that I would figure something out and went with my crazy ideas, even when my ideas seemed to require much less gravity than normal. ;)  

Last, my Beyond the Sea ladies were absolutely snazzy onstage!

It blows my mind that last year at this time, these girls were dressed in wool, breeches, and suspenders as my rough and tumble Newsie gang.  This year, they've learned a difficult routine in high-heeled tap sheos requiring 100% ladylike sassy stage presence 100% of the time.  

... oh, wait, there they are. :)

We have one last big competition this weekend for scores and prizes, then in two weekends we'll be performing at UMD on the Marshall Performing Arts stage for our competition showing!  I'm excited for that- my dances will be performing on the stage that I once spent so much time and energy on as a chorus girl.  Really cool "full circle" kind of moment.

But enough of that.

Right now, it's time to recharge, amp up, and prep for one more weekend of competition craziness.

(Oh- and grading... and knitting... more about that later...)