Take Me Dancin'

We just came off of a whirlwind weekend of dance. (Not me...although I do like a good two-step...but we'll save that for another entry).  My three nieces were in a dance competition here in Saskatoon.  They live out of town, so they were our guests for the three day event.  It's quite a big to-do, and very entertaining to watch.  I've always found choreographed dance to be rather mystifying.  To me, it would seem dance is all about running to one spot on the stage and doing a Twirly Trick.  Then running to another spot and doing a Jumping Thing.  How do they pick which spots and which tricks??  I know nothing about this and it all seems more complicated than trying to assemble furniture from Ikea.

If I didn't have the girls and their family staying with me, I might think it's no big deal. Put your kid in a tutu, give her a gentle shove onto the stage and Bob's your Uncle. Nope. This is highly involved. There is ballet, jazz, tap, musical theatre, and hip hop to contend with.  The kids are changed into one sparkly outfit after another, hair is coaxed into all sorts of crazy styles, and fake eyelashes are applied.  Their mother can do all of this while she is sewing the last dress.  This would explain why I am not a dance Mom....

 My daughter was in dance when she was little, but we haven't been involved for years and years.  She didn't like "all that boring stretching" before ballet, so dance gave way to stretch-free activities like art and drama when we moved back to Saskatoon.  This suited me just fine because all the commotion this weekend reminded me of how I did not and would not excel as a dance parent.  I would be declared 'Jordana's Mom, the Hopeless and Miserable One'.

First of all, I can't sew a thing.  I'm sure I was voted Most Likely to Tangle a Bobbin by my Grade 9 Home Ec teacher. I held everyone else back, being completely bewildered by having to use a pattern.  Why did they call it a pattern anyway??  That would imply that there was something to follow!  No Man's Land is more accurate... I finally did manage to produce a pink seersucker jumpsuit that year, but only by the grace of God.  If I recall correctly, the zipper cut across my torso at a very strange angle...Good thing it was 1986 and everyone assumed it was designed that way.

I think I come by my hatred for sewing quite honestly.  My poor mother had to sew figure skating dresses for my sister and I every year.  I think she turned to cigarettes for comfort.  I don't blame her... I once bedazzled one of those dresses with sequins using Speed Sew instead of a sensible needle & thread.  For those of you whose father did not own a hardware store, Speed Sew is a tube of glue. Clever on the marketing, those folks.  As you can imagine, this did not work very well -- the sequins fell off and I had a bodice adorned with crusty yellow lines...

And then the dance hair...my Lord the hair... I remember the first recital my daughter was in. "Ok ladies, we need to have a short meeting about hair!"  Oh no, hair requires a separate meeting???  I could feel my blood pressure begin to rise. "For the first dance, we'll need tight ringlets; fairly fat. And then for the second number, just a loose bun."  All the Other Women were nodding in agreement while I went into full-out panic mode... "WHAT??  What does that even mean????  I'm not qualified to do that, she won't even let me brush her hair!"  It was not a fun time in the Lalonde household, but we all melted when she put on her duck costume, hit the stage and bossed all the other tap dancers into position.  So cute they are...I was much better at the makeup part, although putting full out on-the-town makeup on a 5 year old is just plain weird.  Sorry.

However...if you are a zombie from the Shellbrook Zombie Prom...the following makeup would be entirely appropriate!  Thanks for a great weekend girls, you are gifted...dance on.

Jill - All ready for the Zombie Prom