End of the Year

This photo is of my oldest daughter (the short one without the pink face) backstage at her first dance recital. She was the littlest butterfly in a production of Little Red Riding Hood that a local ballet studio put on. I had signed her up for ballet knowing we were opening The Dance Barn because I wanted her to have a chance to take dance from someone else before she started taking from me. Ironically, I wound up teaching her class for the other studio the entire second semester.

Anyhow, the production was excellent, and it really got me thinking about how I want to structure the end of year performance next year. It will be our first one, of course, and so it will set the stage (so to speak) for future productions. Do I want to do a standard recital where each class does a different dance and they are unrelated in theme? Do I want to create some sort of story show (a well-known fairy tale, for instance) where the more advanced students have lead roles and the younger classes are, say, forest animals? Do I have the students pay for their own costumes that I order and then keep them, or front the cost of costuming myself, make them, and then keep them for future productions?

While I certainly have ideas about what I don't want to do, narrowing down what I DO want will be more challenging. I want to create a recital that gives the students plenty of performing time but isn't boring for the adults to sit through. I want to make dances that are interesting for people to watch.

I'm glad I have a year to plan this thing!

Social Dance Night (and an apology)

Our Social Dance Night has been an outstanding success so far. We've had 15 or 16 people both nights and word is just beginning to spread. We are so thrilled with this turnout and are looking forward to building the event.

This picture is from our second class, and I have blurred faces (except for Mr T) because I haven't gotten everyone's permission yet. Anyone whose face appears here has given me the go ahead. I believe in this photo they are practicing an underarm turn in rhumba. Remember folks, it's never too late to join us on Thursday nights from 7-10 pm!

And finally, an apology for my slacker posting of late. I was so good for the first month, but we have been terribly busy (good stuff!) and it's easy to go to sleep at night instead of posting more photos of our amazing studio. But I will attempt to be more regular about posting again.

Stay tuned!

Dance Camp

The theme of this week's dance camp is "Exploring Dance." While this one is a homeschooling camp, we will be running it again as a summer camp in July. Each day, the students get a brief history lesson in a particular style of dance, and then take a class in that style. So far we've done ballet, jazz, and modern. These photos are from the jazz class.


Tomorrow we do tap, and Friday is ballroom, which Mr T and I will teach together. It's been a blast planning this camp, and the kids seem to be having a good time. I will be interested to ask them at the end which styles they liked best and why. I am finding that music and speed make more of an impression than actual dance steps. So something upbeat to music they like is more fun even if the steps aren't exciting. But a fabulous combination to music they don't like doesn't hold their attention.


Just look at those faces! I couldn't ask for more enthusiastic students!

The First Week

Totally unrelated photo again of my two older daughters, who begged me to take a series of them in dance poses "for the studio." This would be arabesque.

The first week of being open went really well, I think. Classes were fun, and we are still taking registrations so we may pick up a few new students this week. But the unexpectedly exciting day of the week was Thursday, when 16 people showed up to our Social Dance Night! (I promise to post photos soon, but they are on my sister's camera.) Mr T is such a great teacher (I hadn't watched him teach a group class in six years, and he's really come into his own as an instructor) and everyone who came said they enjoyed it and would come back. Several people said they had friends who were interested as well!

This week I am running a Homeschool Dance Camp. I didn't think I had enough students to run both age groups, so I combined them, but then I think I picked up a fe new students today, and so we may have eight in that class. I just went over the curriculum, and I am quite excited to teach this week. The students will get a class in a different style of dance each day, starting with a brief history and some photos to give them a fuller vision of the style. We're doing ballet, jazz, modern, tap, and ballroom, in that order. A dance sampler, if you will. I think it's going to be a blast.