Ballet Concerto Holiday Special

Whew!  It's been a busy couple of days after a busy couple of weeks.  We've been preparing for performances in Ballet Concerto's Holiday Special.  That means late nights of rehearsal after ballet classes, Saturday rehearsals that have me ferrying the girls between ballet and Chinese School, Sunday dress rehearsal at the studio and then dress rehearsal on stage Wednesday night, performance Thursday morning, and performances again Friday morning AND Friday evening!

Thursday morning's performance was especially exciting, with the power going out and staying out for over an hour!  The event was sufficiently startling to make it a big story in the Star-Telegram:

Many performing arts organizations do shows for schoolchildren. It's good for outreach, community building and giving kids a glimpse of the arts. Hopefully they'll be interested enough to become patrons later in life, if not entertain artistic inclinations themselves. But Thursday morning, the full house of more than 2,000 bussed-in children for Ballet Concerto's "A Holiday Special" got an unexpected but equally important message about the arts: The show must go on.

Just before the show was to begin at 10 a.m., the electricity in Will Rogers Auditorium went out, triggering the safety lights at the front of the house. We later found out that there was an outage in the Cultural District.

About an hour later, the lights came back on, and a shortened version of the show (which was already to be trimmed from the program that will play for the public Friday night) started at 11:15. A few schools had already left, but the majority stayed, thanks to the artists stepping in and doing what comes naturally in such a situation: They entertained. The Ballet Concerto staff and helpers led the children in several rounds of carols, and then the dancers came out to demonstrate dance terms, technique and styles. They even invited some of the children onstage to participate. And then the star of the show, "Frosty the Snowman," was greeted by cheering children.

Of course, what the story doesn't mention is the kids stuck in the basement dressing rooms in the dark for most of that hour!  And I was one of two moms responsible for keeping them entertained and calm!  Whew!

Well, the show(s) did go on, with Zoe and Maya both shepherds in O Holy Night (that's Zoe seated second from the left in the photo above, and you can catch a glimpse of a quarter of Maya, the second standing child shepherd).  Zoe was also an angel in the same ballet, but no pictures -- I was backstage during her performance with her shepherd costume so she could change in the wings.  Her regular ballet classmates were all shepherds, but the director asked if she'd also be an angel in the upper level class, too. That's partly because Zoe is pretty good, and partly because she was available for the upper level class since Maya's ballet class is the same time so Zoe was always at the studio!

In addition to being a shepherd, like Zoe's class -- again, partly because she's good, and partly because she's there when Zoe's class is in session! -- Maya was a Frosty Kid in Memories of Frosty.  That's her leading the other marchers in the picture below.

Both girls did a fantastic job (not that I'm prejudiced or anything!) and had a ball.  And all I can say is thank goodness it's over!