The Week in Review

So this was a pretty busy week - overall a good week. As I said in my previous blog I was spending 95% of my week in DC teaching ballet and jazz technique to 3rd - 10th graders.

I have to admit, I haven't danced for 6 hours a day in a long time, so it was a pretty rough week physically. I don't think my body was quite ready for the shock of it. My calves were so sore on Tuesday that I wasn 't actually really able to dance (what I consider to be) full out again until Friday. Nevertheless, it was actually a nice change of pace considering I don't teach dance during the school year at my HS.

I have to say that it actually made me miss TAKING a dance class instead of teaching one all the time. I am hoping maybe I can squeeze some classes in after school starts in the fall. The other nice aspect of the class was that since it wasn't a Musical Theatre related class, I could choreograph dance for dance-sake. Since I am usually choreographing for a musical - what I do has to be in context with the show, the storyline and characters.

I really enjoyed pulling some ballet out of my back pocket, since you don't use plain ballet in musicals very often. My favorite aspect of the week was choreographing some jazz. There are songs I hear sometimes that I am dying to choreograph, but really have no forum to put them in. There is a song in the show SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, that is a really fun uptempo jazz piece. Unfortuantely, my students weren't loving it as much as me. So at the end of the week we worked on a lyrical jazz piece to "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. They enjoyed working on it and I wish that I had somewhere to keep developing it - oh well, maybe I will find an opportunity. Hopefully, Mia Michaels won't do it anytime soon on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. Clearly if she does it, it will be brilliant, and it's hard to follow brilliance like hers.

In other news, my new laptop arrived on Wednesday!!! Unfortuantely, I was in DC from Wednesday - Friday because I was staying in DC to save money on gas. Kevin went to pick it up from Jason and Erika's on Wednesday night - I was sad that I wasn't able to go and visit with them. Thank you Jason for helping me get it and helping me save some money :-)


Another high point of the week was that we finally purchased another couch to replace the one that didn't fit! We went to JCPenny's and didn't see anything outwardly that we liked, but discovered a very comfy brown leather couch. We liked the style, but not the color. Much to our surprise we could actually order it in black. The catch was that being special ordered it would take another 6-8 weeks to get...so it means we are back to sitting on the futon for awhile. (We actually need to get it back in the living room seeing as we have reverted to using the floor and pillows as seating.)

So that's the week - we ended it with a nice trip to Pizza John's on Friday night. Kevin spent all day working Saturday. I spent the day with Kierstie and Debbie working on SUMMER SHOWCASE, the piece I am directing, which starts Monday. SOOOO excited and cannot wait to start!

Today was catch-up day, the hightlights being laundry and McDonald's...and getting started on Thank You Cards. Am really looking forward to tomorrow when we will have a new niece and I get to start SHOWCASE...