Ballet West Spring Show

Everyone is wearing gingham these days! I felt left out, but not enough to go to a store. Then I found this in Araceli's closet! I wanted to look half-decent for my date with Scott (and like 10 of our kids) to Freestone's BW performance.

This was Tziporah after the show. She had a black eye from school and she'd been asleep for the whole second act. Poor kid!

The rest of us were alive and well! It is so exciting to watch Freestone onstage! He has been at BW for a year and a half now. It's incredible to see the progress, though not surprising, given how very driven he is. He has taken double classes all year with the goal of getting into the Professional Training Division, PTD. He got accepted for next year, which is pretty exciting! Mst of his friends are already PTDs, so he feels like the designation legitimizes him. Starting in September, he'll go to ballet from 1:30 to 6:45 every weekday and 10-3 on Saturdays. Unless there are rehearsals for a show or master classes, or YAGP. There's always something extra. Freestone is basically never home. This week, the week after the spring show, is his week off. I love having him around! The first day, he sais, "I can't live like this! There's nothing to do! It's only been ONE day?!" Granted, he is working at my store and has actually had some social life, but it's hard to come down from that intense schedule. He's usually at Ballet West from either 1;30 or 3:00 to either 6:45 or 8:15, and he's normally extremely punctual and likes to stay late. If he rides the bus or train, it take three times as long to get to and from, so we try to drive him, but he often rides public transportation.

Anyway...the spring show was so fun!!

Saturday morning, I relaxed with my boy for a few minutes before dropping him off at warm-up class on my way to Laura's funeral. He's a fun kid.

My gorgeous, glamorous parents at the Saturday matinee.

Mr. Jeff right before he pretended to hit Freestone on the head with his bouquet of flowers.

And Mr. Jeff pretending to be nice. Ha ha! Freestone worships Mr. Jeff. He is an icon. He and Mr. Nicolai are such colorful characters. Freestone has a lot of excellent teachers, but those two seem to conjure up the most stories. They're just very demanding. Of Nicolai, Freestone said, "He's a terrible teacher, really, but somehow, we all improve in his class and we have fun." He's not a terrible teacher, though, and Freestone knows it, but that's a perfect description. Scott and I watched his class. He grunts or waves his hand and everyone knows exactly what to do. His Ukrainian accent is thicker than the coffee he drinks with his cigarettes, but somehow all the students get him. He'll sashay over to a student during class and sneer something like, "Jonas did it better." And suddenly, that student has fixed whatever was wrong. A genius disguised as a "terrible teacher." 

After the last show, Scott and I took Freestone across the street to Squatter's. He ordered an apricot Hefeweisen. What a card! He got water.

And this was Freestone three years ago. It kills me! This is even before the stage that Mr. Jeff calls Freestone's "Little Porker" stage. So much has happened to that little mind and body!  And so many good things are in store.

Freestone

I hate that I never write on my blog anymore. I'm just going to do it randomly and whenever I have the brainpower, regardless of chronology, so at least I have some thoughts on paper. "Paper."

Freestone is fun. His life is amazing. I love to hang out with him because it's just so easy and funny. He does half of his 9th grade classes online, so I take him to school at 9:30. Then he walks to my music store at 1 and works for an hour while I run errands. He catches the bus to Salt Lake at 2:30 and is at Ballet West for the rest of the day. Either Scott or I pick him up at night, usually along with Ptolemy or Xanthe after their Nutcracker rehearsal. He always has stories to tell about his friends or his teachers. Ballet West is such an incredible place.

My favorite stories are about "Mr. Jeff," or Jeff Rogers, Freestone's favorite teacher. When I was 14 years old and finally made the Ballet West Nutcracker, it was the highlight of my life. I was an Oriental Servant during the epoch when BW had taken out the actual dance, so Servant was what they referred to as a "furniture part." Yes, I was furniture in a turban and pancake makeup and I loved every second! At that time, Jeff was at the beginning of a brilliant career at Ballet West. In fact, that was the year he won the Princess Grace award, an award that wasn't won by a member of BW again until just this year. So I was completely gobsmacked by Jeff. I was going to marry him. He was just so cool, it was hard to take it all in!

Well, I never married Jeff, luckily for Scott ;) (and Jeff's husband.) But I do love to hear stories about him. He is an excellent teacher and works Freestone to death, which Freestone loves.  Freestone started class at Ballet West last January, after making friends with all the other kid in Nutcracker. In less thanone year, he has made so much progress it would make your jaw drop. He works SO hard. He takes extra classes. He stretches and conditions at night after he gets home from hours of class. Right now, he's taking regular class, plus rehearsing for two Nutcracker productions, the BW gala performance, another BW performance that I can't remember the name of, and also has private classes to prepare for his YAGP solo in February. He auditioned to be represented by BW in YAGP, just for the experience, and he got it. I was stunned! It will teach him so much.

As I've said before, I'm sad for our girls, especially Golda, who loved Ballet SO much and dreamed of dancing at Ballet West. We just couldn't afford it. Freestone started out with a half scholarship and this year, was awarded a full scholarship of $4,700.00.  It is humbling to see what he is being given along with that scholarship, and also sad to watch what any kid could have, if they just had the money. I'm grateful for that initial scholarship, because it truly changed Freestone's life. And we get to be along for the ride!

At Stella's recital

Doing homeowrk and trying out his "slutty Santa" Halloween costume. Oh dear.

In picture day makeup. He had fun with the eyeliner.

Ballet, Orchestra, Ballet

Once in awhile, Freestone does something other than dance. Last Tuesday he had a festival with his junior high orchestra. I got him out of his ballet class at Clytie's ten minutes early to get there on time, and pleaded with Mrs. Tuke, the orchestra teacher, to let him go a little early so he could get to Little Mermaid rehearsals. He changed in the car and shoved a snack into his dance bag. Why does all the sustenance I provide for my kids come on brown bags?

Our carefully choreographed plan was off by one minute. He didn't quite make it outside before his Ballet West carpool had to leave him, so I had to leave a violin lesson ten minutes early (sorry, Greta!) to rush him to rehearsal and zoom back to Kaysville for Ruby's variation night. Fortunately, Capitol Theater is just a straight shot on the freeway, not to many traffic lights. Freestone hates rushing, and the maniac I become when we are. I've learned to stay much more calm, thanks to Freestone. He'll say, "Mom, chiiiiiiill." It's a reversal of our dynamic when he was a baby. With Freestone, I found that I could calm his fussing by holding him against my chest, taking a deep breath, exhaling and relaxing my body. He would take the cue and settle right down. He's got zen in his soul. It's a beautiful thing, unless you're in a hurry.

I think if you could look into Freestone's heart, you would see a calm ocean of loving-kindness. He really is the nicest kid. He offhandedly tells me about nice things he's done, and I look at him in amazement. What 13 year old kid is so thoughtful? His reaction is, "Duh." Of course he treats people with the utmost care. I'll have to remember to act like that next time we're in a hurry. :)

Sleeping Beauty

Freestone was assigned a part in Sleeping Beauty.  It's been fun for him.  The other kid his height was injured, so Freestone has been in both casts, so pretty much every night in February and 6 or 7 matinees, plus his six days a week of class at BW and Clytie's.  The kid loves ballet.  I love the culture at BW.  His teachers are great, they push him, and they genuinely like the kids.  They want them to succeed, and they're very protective of them.  The parents that I've met are friendly.  The other boys are fun.  Several parents that I've talked to have said something like, "Oh, is your son the one with the amazing feet?"  Yes, he gets a lot of attention for that.  His flexibility, on the other hand, is a constant battle.  He's learning a lot, though, and getting stronger.  He even got a full scholarship to the BW summer intensive, before we even applied for it.  Thank heavens!  I wondered where we were going to come up with $2600 for that.  He will have such a good experience.  It will be a working summer for us, unlike last summer when we dozed off for six weeks.  I'm ready.

We have seen the productions a few times. :)

Ptolemy in these pictures is hilarious.

Those make up remover wipes are pretty weak.

They're beautiful, aren't they?

My dad's face had this weird light thing on it in every picture.  I guess his halo slipped.