Ballet 2014

As a contrast to the previous post about this year's ballet, Giselle, here's a look at last year's ballet -- Super Mario Brothers. Yes, I'm aware someone did a little Mario-Princess Peach number on one of those competition-style television shows.  This, however, was a full length ballet, written before that dance was shown on television, and including more characters:

(Annabeth played Mario)

 Princess Peach, Princess Daisy and Toad were included:

As was Bowser (and Bowser Jr.):

Plus other of Bowser's minions such as the koopa troopas and the Hammer Bros:

And a bunch of goombas:

Early in the ballet the Hammer Bros, working for Bowser, kidnapped Peach.  In the meantime, Bowser Jr was after Daisy.  Queen Rosaline begged Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, et al, to rescue Peach.

Mario made his way through Water World

Down a pole (doesn't look like much here, but was really difficult to stage):

Battles ensued.  Many parts of the game were played out on stage, including Mario shrinking down to a smaller size (played by a young child) and being restored by the Wishing Star.

(Honestly, the first time I saw Bowser flinging Mario around like this I sort of panicked, like, "holy %&&*^$, you're about to bash her head in!")

But in the end, justice prevailed. Bowser was driven away, and all was well.  

Or was it?

Overall, an incredibly imaginative, fun, show.  

My part of it was making the costumes for Mario and Luigi.  Also, buying various compression tubes for Mario's shin splints, since doing the Mario-style gait really did a number on her shins.

Ballet 2015

This year's ballet was a classical ballet -- Giselle.

We have a new tech director/teacher, and this was the first set he had his class make.  It was really lovely:

My assignment was to make sleeves for the Friends costumes.  They were re-using old recital costumes that had straps.  One mom added aprons, another added more tulle to give more fluff to the skirts, and I added the sleeves:

(It turned out that I had to do Giselle's sleeves and the sleeves of the Ladies in Waiting.  Lots of sleeves.  I really don't like sleeves in the first place, but, by golly, I have a lot more insight into how they are attached onto ballet bodices.)

Of course, after act 1 the Friends transform into

deadly Willis.  These three (Myrtha and her head minions Moyna and Zulme) had struck this exact pose during the first act scene pictured above -- foreshadowing! -- but to my knowledge no one managed to catch it in a photo:

Annabeth played Moyna, shown here floating around a graveyard terrorizing Hilarion:

The chug scene -- Annabeth is in front:

Death of Hilarion:

Very beautiful ballet.  Much pointe work.  Many "dead" pointe shoes after the whole thing was over.  Many sleeves.  Many revamps of the bodices of the Willis costumes (the tutus themselves were several hundred dollars, so inexpensive bodices were purchased ... which didn't work with the tutus.  So, much sewing and fiddling around to get the whole thing to work.) (Also, my habit of carrying around electrical tape in my backstage-costume-repair-kit actually came in handy, so that was cool.)

We can't wait to see what next year's ballet will be!

Drive-By Blogging

Sometimes I think I should really "catch up" here.  I thought maybe at this point I should start with current stuff and move backwards.

But just throwing out some random events seems more to the point.  So I scrolled through the photos from the past year ... and discovered that we really don't take and upload that many pictures any more.  Anyway, here's an assortment of things that caught my eye from the last 12 months.

Annabeth went to homeschool prom, which is open to all high schoolers.  I made her dress.

I also made the dress she wore as Blanche Ingram in the musical version of Jane Eyre (the fabric for both dresses was purchased in one shopping trip, which was a LOT of fabric).

Thalia is in Britain for a semester.  We went to visit her, and we all went to Paris, where we visited the Eiffel Tower and waited a really long time for this guy to move so we could take photos from this corner (after a while we were waiting just to see how long he was going to spend taking pictures of every. single. building.).

Annabeth and I started making doll clothes.  

At first we did it for a silent auction to raise money for a charity, but then we decided to try a craft show.  We're considering continuing with this.

Probably more on some of these subjects later.  Or not. 

Endings

Finale time at dance school.  "Finale" is a fancy way of saying "recital" without actually using the word.  It nicely conveys the sentiment that we're wrapping things up for the year.

Annabeth performed in beginning pointe and regular ballet:

And also in an advanced tap number that was a medley of Star Wars music, and one of the most creative things I've seen in a while:

In other endings, we've finished up the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.  It's time to bid goodbye to middle school.

And, of course, there was a costume to make.

Wrapping up OTSL Spring Training, for the little recital on the final day the kids were divided into groups and asked to stage a scene from The Mikado.  Annabeth ended up with the geekier set, and they chose to stage it as The Avengers.  Annabeth decided to portray Peter Parker -- she's fascinated with Andrew Garfield's portrayal of the role, and has spent quite a bit of time analyzing his character choices and movement patterns.

The kids whipped up some simple costumes for the occasion.  Annabeth had visions of making a stencil and painting an old sweatshirt, but what actually worked was printing out a picture of the logo, applying shiny red Duck Tape to the back of the printout, cutting it out, and then gluing it to the sweatshirt.

Here she is with some of her fellow Avengers.  The guy playing Iron Man found an app that looked like an arc reactor, and taped his phone to his chest under a tshirt -- very creative.

It was a cute performance.  Interestingly, they had the less talented group overall (which isn't to say they weren't talented -- it's just that the other group had some kids who were off-the-charts AMAZING) but their rendition held together better as a story.  The other group set the scene in a school, had fine characterizations, wonderful singing, but somehow didn't manage to convey the story as well.  (Annabeth and I discussed how this is rather like  theater groups who attract talented people but have crappy directing that leave the whole less than the sum of the parts. Not that we're admitting we know any groups like that.  Ahem.)

Everyone also sang a solo.  As I mentioned, there were some performances that were absolutely stunning.  Annabeth had a falling out with her voice coach by that point, which said person probably didn't even realize had occurred. Her performance was ... interesting ....  I don't think I've ever seen her sing an entire song with that "I'm smiling while I'm thinking about how I'd like to murder someone" expression on her face.  There's a good chance Annabeth will refuse to attend another of the OTSL camps in the future due to preference of not dealing with that person again.  Oh well.

Final bento -- tiny twice baked potatoes, steamed broccoli, grapes and blueberries:

So the Annabeth's singing camp is done.  Still to come for her are a dance camp and and theater camp.

First Summer Camp 2014

Annabeth is in her first summer camp of 2014 this week, Spring Training with Opera Theater St. Louis.

She's just doing this week, which is a four day week due to the Memorial Day holiday.  The camp runs for 2 weeks, and campers have the option of taking either or both weeks.  The price in incredibly reasonable for a camp of this type and length, especially considering it includes a ticket to an opera performance.

This is a new experience for us.  A mom from a theater group said her daughter really liked the camp, so that was part of the impetus (her daughter has an amazing voice).  Also, attending a performance of The Magic Flute was part of the deal, so that was pretty attractive.  Annabeth used to listen to the CD version for young children just about every day when she was a toddler -- we all had it memorized.  It's pretty much the soundtrack of her childhood.

So far Annabeth has found the people running the workshops to be excellent, BUT she feels like there's too much "dead" time -- in her view they could've tightened up the schedule and made the camp shorter each day.  I pointed out that maybe public school kids are used to more lulls in the day (plus, honestly, she is too, but she chooses for herself when to do those more mindless things). 

After 2 days I could hear a difference in her singing (she had a voice lesson with her regular teacher after the camp yesterday ... also hours of dance lessons in the evenings, which is pretty much a dumb thing to do during a camp like this, for the record, and probably adds to her feeling that they should cut the days short).  At the camp they have private voice lessons during the day, and she's really enjoyed having a different perspective from the teacher there.  They've also had acting lessons, which, frankly, she was disappointed in -- she said the instructor was really good, but she'd already learned or figured out everything they covered.  The movement classes were pretty simple, too, due to all of her dancing.

So, some of the bits have been sort of "meh". However, last night's OTSL performance of The Magic Flute was AMAZING!  I can't emphasize that enough.  It was the best thing I've seen live on stage in ages and ages.  That thing we do around the house with our voices that's sort of musical?  It bears no relation to the singing we heard last night.  The costuming was fabulous, the blocking was great, the casting was inspired.  I would love to go see it again.  

Every day she takes a lunch, so I've been making bento boxes.  One of the uses of my blog is to have a record of these for myself so that during a future camp I can easily whip these off.  This is what we've served so far this week:  

Tiny burgers from the recipe in The Just Bento Cookbook, cheese slices, cucumber carrots, blueberries and raspberries, and totally amazing mini corn muffins from the recipe I pinned (I only made 24 of them so I didn't have them hanging around, and I deeply regret that decision since I want to eat a dozen right now).

Saffron Road chicken nuggets, blueberries, carrots, Amy's mac and cheese, Marzetti Ranch dip.  With a fork and spoon since mac and cheese with chopsticks seemed dicey.

Almond butter and jelly sandwiches on the super thin Pepperidge Farm bread, cut into butterflies, celery, carrots, and cucumber, grapes and blueberries, tiny cheese cubes.

Tomorrow will be miniature baked potatoes with bacon and cheese slices, and ... something or other.

Since last time ...

Let's see ... lots has happened.

Driveways and walks were shoveled repeatedly.  Cold was survived.

Braces came off.

Another show, which probably deserves another post.  

More colleges were visited, and some colleges were visited more.  Auditions and portfolio reviews happened.  A final choice was made, and deposit deposited.  Plus a graduation.

Co-op came to an end, and disbanded.  We were really done with it this year.

Family members got sick and got better.  A fender was bent, then repaired.  A filling flew out of a mouth while flossing.  People came to visit; some spent a night or two.

And other stuff.  Life went on.  Homeschooling was accomplished.

Which brings us up to date.  Sort of.