Prima Ballerina

The day of the Festival de Ballet finally came. There was much excitement - Guerita could hardly contain herself and bounced round the house waiting for the time to go off for hair and make-up again. This time she coped well with sitting still and chatted away with the other girls about how they were going to look like Princesas and dance beautifully on the stage.

They really did look gorgeous when they were all done up in their costumes, which were based on the Barbie Island Princess movie.

The concert itself was very entertaining - much better than I expected, actually. The costumes and choreography were so well done - very professional and I was impressed with the standard of the dancing. Not that I am in any way an expert on technique or anything, but they certainly seemed to be doing a good job, didn’t make any major mistakes and looked like they were really enjoying themselves. I must admit I enjoyed the first half of the program more than the second half. Guerita’s dance (the “Baby Ballet” class) was one of the first ones and was very sweet. There was lots of fluttering arms and “butterfly style” dancing.

The rest of part one was the bigger girl’s ballet and tap dancing. They did an excellent Irish Dance routine which I really liked. I actually did an Irish Dancing class with a few girlfriends a few years ago, for a bit of fun, and I was surprised by how much I loved doing it. I think Michael Flatley and the Lord of the Dance is a bit naff, but I am a sucker for “formation” dancing (whether its tap or ballet or whatever - I draw the line at bootscooting though) so I loved this one in particular. I much prefer that to solo dancing.

The second half was Jazz, Hip Hop, Belly Dancing and Latin Dancing, which was less to my tastes. There were lots of “Jazz Hands” and midriffs showing and inappropriate music, like the 6-8 year olds dancing to something with lyrics like “I’m sexy. I’m horny. They call you Mr Personality because you so ugly.” And I’m obviously now an old woman, because I just can’t see the point of learning Hip Hop - how hard is it point your fingers, jump up and down and stamp your feet?

Anyway, it was a good night. It was one of the end of year events that I made a decision to stay here for (for Guerita’s sake) and I am glad we did. It would have been a shame for her to miss out on this.