Repertory Dance Theater Performance

Dance Company performed in a showcase with Repertory Dance Theater at the Rose Wagner. It was their very, very last performance together. The dance was beautiful. Ruby is so at the top of her modern dance game, it's hard to see it end. I love her dance friends, too. It sure is rewarding to watch them, especially in such a cool setting with all these professionals.

Ruby is pretty idolized.

Tziporah was isnpired after the show and got on the stage to do a little interpretive dance. It was in the black box, so the stage is right there. Very intimate venue. I wish Freestone could have seen it. He was right down the street, at ballet, like he always is. Araceli had ballet too.

So many endings this time of year with our senior, but so many beginnings on the horizon.

Variation Night

Ruby's Variations night was wonderful. All the girls did all four variations that Christie worked on with them.

I love Clytie. It's my last year teaching for her, and I can't begin to think about how sad I am about that.

Ruby is such a beautiful, strong, intuitive dancer. How can I even watch without getting teary? I still see clearly when she dances the little girl that Ruby was. She loves the same way, has the same mannerisms. She is an incredible spirit who came to us fully formed and developed. She is an old soul.

These girls have spent thousands of hours together, probably, over the past 14 years.

Christie is an excellent teacher. My girls have been lucky to have her demanding presence in their lives.

Dance Company Winter Concert

Friday was the Dance Company Winter Concert.  It's an all-day workshop involving four schools with performances in the morning and at night, with classes in between.  This year, Davis High hosted it, so the girls didn't have to travel except for one rehearsal last week at Ben Lomond.

In the afternoon that day, Ruby texted me, "If you want, you could bring me one of Michelle's cookies."  (The night before, Michelle Fitz had dropped off a plate of the coveted goodies so that the Chinese girls could experience America properly!)

I rushed to the school to find the girls in the dark auditorium watching some staging.  Ruby took the time to sit by me and whisper for a few minutes.  Our conversation was mostly about chocolate chip cookies.  How good they are, how it defies all reason, and how comforting it is to receive them. We marveled at my friends' generosity and goodness, and how all of that is exemplified in one of Michelle's cookies. 

Every moment with Ruby is burnished by the knowledge that she is leaving soon.  I would bring her a cookie and sit with her every single day if I could.  When I lived for a semester in Paris in 9th grade, chocolate chip cookies were what I missed most about home.  Every Sunday evening, Nana Ruby had her cookies set out for us, in a shirt box from ZCMI, the layers separated by wax paper.  How I depended on those cookies!  In Paris, I periodically would schlepp clear across town to Les Halles where there was a Laura Todd cookie store, similar to Mrs. Field's.  I'd breathe in the baking smell and think of my family.

I don't know what Ruby will think of when she's away from home, but I do know that I'll remember that moment in the auditorium, because it represents so many moments.  A whole childhood of dance and music and cookies.  That night, as I watched the girls dance, I tried not to think of all their past performances.  I definitely tried not to picture their chubby 8-year-old legs in my class, some of them, adding their first plies and tendus to their repertoire.  I avoided remembering back to the moment we saw the first Dance Company list that Ruby was on.


I just basked in the moment of beauty and gave thanks for all of it.

Nutcracker Rehearsals

Those last three Saturdays before Nutcracker, finale rehearsals are a wonderful, sweaty cauldron of excitement.  I tried to soak it all in, knowing it would be Ruby's last time. She is such a beautiful dancer.  It gives me so much satisfaction to watch her and see that she has developed into such a good dancer.

I could not be happier that Brynn was Clara.  She was exceptionally hard-working, bright and pleasant when she was in my class.

Browning Center staging, palpable excitement.

My Chinese this year were so good.  We hardly had to work on the circle, which is the most difficult part.  That gave me lots of rehearsal time to hone their footwork and spacing.  They were marvelous.

Ruby...beautiful, even if she doesn't think so.

Olivia Perry, Hanna Gemperline, Taylor Francis, Marley, the Spanish.  Ruby so, so wanted to earn that part.  But alas, Nutcracker is rarely perfection.  Rather, it is equal parts heartbreak and elation.
  Ruby was happy to dance the iconic Waltz of the Flowers.  It's a shame each Company dancer can't have the experience of one of the solo dances in the Suite at least once, it's such a special privilege.  The dancers who get the plum roles get them because they are excellent, so you can't argue with that.  Corps is pretty great, too.