Summer Dance Camp

Today was cleaning the living room and kitchen day - from windows to pulling things out and cleaning behind furniture and the cabinets. During a delightful break from a friend dropping by to say good bye, we were thrilled to get a text from our daughter inviting us to a small dance program at Village Dance Arts where the students who took Dance Camp this week showed off what they had learned.

There were three groups of dancers, each gave themselves a name. The oldest group called themselves the Angelina Ballerinas. (I fondly remember those books!)

The other two groups were the Sonic Pointers (I think?) and the Bunheads.

The younger girls always enjoy watching the older ones.

In addition to dancing (and making crafts) during the week, the girls learned some Taiko drumming with Miss Denise. They are working on getting a regular class of Taiko at the studio and then also getting one going for adults. Sign me up!

Toni Carrion

Village Dance Arts has been the second home of our youngest daughter since she was five. After graduating from high school, she went off to study dance and now, for the past few years she has had the privilege of teaching alongside her mentor, Toni Carrion. Back when she was in high school, we kept telling Toni not to retire until our group of daughters had made it through her fabulous program. Toni has been a gracious, loving and encouraging with high standards for her dancers.

Now it is time for her to retire (although, really, she seems the same age as she did when we met her over 20 years ago), and on Saturday she was in charge of her final VDA recital - The Snow Queen. 

Here is a short video of some of her former students who spoke eloquently of their love for Toni. We will miss her terribly, but we wish her all the best that retirement can give.

The Marauder's Son - A New Ballet

On a lovely day-before-Easter, I decided to attend The Marauder's Son (based on Harry Potter and the  Sorcerer's Stone) at the Pendleton Dance Center at Pomona College. Emily Kleeman, a Pitzer senior, choreographed and put on this whole hour-long ballet, including fundraising for the event. The dance featured students from the 5Cs as well as a HMC professor (playing a Hogwarts professor). My favorite scene was the chess game. If you read this blog post today before evening, you still have a chance to see the free show at 7:00. Fun for the whole family!

International Festival

I don't remember when I went to CMC's International Festival last, but today's perfect weather was a great excuse to walk through the goings-on.  At the Festival one can peruse items to buy, from books and other treasures to a great variety of foods from all over the world. The lines at Thailand were very long. One can also sit a spell and listen to storytelling or watch dancers, or try your hand at crafts. 

Claremont is hoppin' today, and among the other offerings was Nano Days at the library. You can read about last year's Nano Days here.

Slow Dancing

I think it's too late now for you to go see the art show Slow Dancing projected on Bridges Auditorium in the evening, but I managed to hear about it in time to go see it last night. Three large screens at the front of Bridges each showed a hyper-slow-motion video of a dancer. I got there just before sunset, and the projections were barely visible. By the time I left about 40 minutes later, the dark skies helped  show the colors of the video. 

View of projectors

 Front of projectors

Students walking by hardly looked up at the large screens. Maybe they had already seen it.

Getting darker

Look closely at this photo and see what looks like ghosts walking in front of Bridges. I was playing with settings on the camera, and this is what happened. I thought it was cool.

Full color coming out

Claremont on So You Think You Can Dance

Last week when I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, I perked up my ears when I heard a dancer say she was from Claremont. They did a little story about her and how she played softball and has recently switched her efforts over to dance. The more I watched, the more I remembered Taylor Ward. She was one of my violin students about 10 years ago, and I remember talking to her mom about softball and violin.

You can watch her audition and story on youtube here.

Downtown Dancing

One of the highlights for us during our downtown LA adventure on Saturday was the dancing. At the Music Center we ran across five dance floors where people were learning various kinds of dance. For a 20 minute lesson, you could pay $1 and join a variety of folk learning a short (quite short) routine. 

I was taken with this sweet little girl who was dancing with her dad in some kind of Ballet Folklorico. See the cute napkin in hand used as a handkerchief?

Here are some hip hoppers.

This group was learning Bomba.

We timed our visit to coincide with the beginning of the Grand Park Block Party. At 4:30 we saw the Fanfare for Grand Park which included a short musical piece with three brass players standing in the water (very shallow) of the fountain. This was followed by a dance by these blue people to several pieces of live music. We were just in time to get good seats on the ground right up front so that I could snap these shots.

Because we had been going since 8:30 a.m., we left downtown after this show and did not stay for the rest of the block party, although there seemed to be plenty of people who did stick around.

Cinderella

While Claire was growing up, her second home was Village Dance Arts. She was in about 8 productions from kindergarten through high school graduation. This year she was asked if she wanted to play the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. She happily obliged. She played that part today. Hal and I very much enjoyed attending another recital since it has been several years. It brought back many happy memories of Claire being: a flower, a lobster, another flower, a snow fairy, the Queen of Hearts, a tavern wench, and others. If you click on this very blurry photo, you can see her on the right with a pink cap on her head and a purple dress. They are at the ball.

Rabbit and Rogue

Last night Claire and I went to Orange Co. with her friend Kelsey and Kelsey's mom to see the American Ballet Theater perform Twyla Tharp's Rabbit and Rogue, a new dance set to music by Danny Elfman. I was glad to know that the dance would be accompanied by a live orchestra (the Pacific Symphony) rather than pre-recorded music. I had to say that during Rabbit and Rogue I was distracted by listening to the music, trying to figure out what Elfman was up to.