Dance Recital Season is Here!

Every spring since about eighth grade, May has been dance recital season. We used to pack the Biddeford City Theater watching our friends and family take the stage to show us how hard they had been working on turns and leaps and extensions. We would pour into the lobby at intermission for chocolate chip cookies and popcorn. The recitals were notoriously long, but it didn't keep us away. In fact, the entire community seemed to come out for them! I wasn't a dancer, I was a dance groupie. As I got older, my best friend Dina Burley became a very respected dance teacher and choreographer. I started going to the recitals again to see what she had created after so many years of studying what she loved. This Saturday I had the  experience of being a dance-mom. I had Anneliese's dance slippers in my purse along with her new stuffed monkey that she named "Ooh Ooh", as in the sound a monkey makes. She doesn't know her left from right and she tends to get swept away by the music, I truly enjoy watching her. Little Anneliese loves to dance, and spends a good part of her day just spinning. She scares the pets and breaks a lot of stuff, but she is so joyful that we can't stop her. I did her hair in a perfect little ballerina bun and fixed her "car tutu" before she went on. She had a huge smile on stage and even though she didn't remember all of her steps she had the time of her life! Dance Recital Season has taken on a whole new meaning, and I embrace it! Next weekend we travel to Bath for her cousins' and aunt's dance recital, and we look forward once again to the nervous energy in the crowd being given off by parents and grandparents.  All of those good wishes pushing toward the stage, hoping that their dancer will have fun and enjoy the moment. Anneliese was nervous about remembering steps, so I told her that it was just about having fun, and to free-style if she forgot because she is a beautiful dancer. That this was not a test, it was a special treat for working so hard. I told her to enjoy her costume, the music, the lights and the flowers and to know that we couldn't be more proud of the great job that she and her friends had done. At only 45 minutes long, it was short, and very, very sweet. We look forward to many more Dance Recital Seasons!

It was tutu fun!

Celeste