Author: Aquinnah

What happens when a teacher and an assistant teacher cannot come to class?

Apparently, I don’t sub for Moriah’s Ballet/Tap Combo class.

Today has been a crazy day!

When I arrived at the studio, I found Miss Bethanny, who came to substitute for Miss Holly’s special needs class, as Miss Holly is currently stuck in a tropical storm in Florida. As Bethanny has never taught special needs until this afternoon, Miss Jennifer decided that it might be best if I assisted her instead. However, since the class did not begin until a quarter of an hour after the combo class, I helped Miss Jennifer with her little ones for the first fifteen minutes of my forty-five. After that, I skipped over to Studio A to work with Bethanny. It was a wonderful class! The girls were all very polite and attentive. As for the teacher, she did a fantastic job, despite her worst fears.

If I were to name one thing that I learned through this must-be-flexible experience, I would say: it takes A LOT of work to be a teacher (especially one like Miss Bethanny!). And although trouble may arise (for instance: other teachers stuck in a tropical storm), if everyone takes a deep breath and relaxes, everything will work out splendidly, just as they did today.

“Breaks are awesome. Dance is better.” -Miss Sara (who only has two days left on her crutches!)

I’m back at dance, lovely dancers. <3

Upon her exiting beginner pointe, I ran to Sarah and gave her a huge hug. Abby, preparing for her own shoes, was quickly given the same.

In ballet, we did much barre work and had a wonderful stretch. Afterwards, we worked on Grade V with Allison and practiced our turns. An extremely full, fun-filled [and quite laughable] back-to-dance class!

In pointe, we cracked down on foot strength, across-the-barre and turns. During our balancing practice, Ms. Tina paid a visit to Studio C to say her hellos. It was so good to see her!

All in all, a simply wonderful two hours of my life. I thank God for Miss Sara and her teaching every day…

Tomorrow, I will be substituting for Moriah. The head teacher is Miss Jennifer, so I feel fairly prepared…!

I hope that you are enjoying your summer immensely!

As usual, it is dreadfully hard for me to believe that I am already signed up for fall classes (especially when summer classes have yet to begin)! In truth, it is no use making you wait any longer for the long-awaited schedule, so here you are, lovely dancers:

Tuesday: Training 3
Wednesday: Advanced Modern/Training 3 with pointe
Thursday: Choreography
Friday: Training 3

My Tuesday and Wednesday Training classes will be taught by Miss Sara and my Friday class by Miss Sara and Bethanny (as it was with my 2012-2013 Fridays). As is the norm, Miss Sara will be teaching modern. Miss Bethanny (as I still tend to call her in “real” life), will be my choreography instructor.

I am extremely excited about all of my classes this coming year, but I am especially interested to see what will take place in Choreography. My teacher has stated that we will be learning how to audition people, how to choose lighting and costumes and other such techniques– wow!

As for assistant teaching 2013-2014, I would love to help Bethanny with her Ballet/Tap class (ages 4-6) on Wednesdays, but we shall see. This year, Ms. Tina is having students fill out application forms in order to teach. Sadly, thanks to fire evacuation, my printer is at a friends’ house, so though I have my job-worthy thoughts all ready to go, I have no paper to write them on quite yet… humph…

 No matter what, next year is going to be a blast! I can’t wait!

Dance for Jesus

It is truly hard to believe, beautiful dancers, that we are already half-way through 2013. How many zombie apocalypses have we survived, again? What is even harder to believe is that today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog– wow!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family— parents, siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins– for the phone calls, texts, e-mails, messages and words which always encourage me. I love you all; you mean the universe to me!

Another huge thank-you to my sisters for always being there. You girls are the best, and I love you like craziness!

Thanks to Ms. Tina for running the world’s best dance studio! Also to Miss Sara and Miss Bethanny (<— Hey, look! I finally learned to spell!) for being the world’s best dance teachers! <3

Last [but certainly not least], I’d like to thank YOU, readers, for traveling with me on this never-ending dance journey!

One of these years, I’ll spend my summer here. <3

Here I am, lovely dancers, just two weeks into my summer, and already, I am out of ideas. In this hundred degree weather, I am all for sprinklers and hoses, but that gets interesting when you’re on a state-wide water restriction. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the summer season. No school?– I think yes! but I have to make it one more week without my beloved dance… darn it…!

So what have I been doing to keep myself in shape? I make it a point to stretch regularly, and I have been choreographing a few dances as well. Thanks to recital, I have a lot of new songs to work with!

Of course, I must be doing something else with my day… right? Yes, of course I must! Lately, I have been doing a lot of baking, drawing and trampoline jumping (depending on the temperature). I also discovered a birds’ nest, complete with four baby birds, in my backyard. I have been taking daily pictures of them, however ugly they may be at the moment.

Summer 2003

I am a social media nut, so Instagram and Pinterest receive regular visits. I recently downloaded “Running with Friends,” which also keeps me pretty busy (Level 20– oh, yeah)! I’m attached to [for some odd reason of which I am not sure] Iron Man: Armored Adventures, but the season is almost over, so I rent movies such as, my personal favorite, the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice.

Dream from Eugene Rabe on Vimeo.

Summer. <3

Yesterday concluded my 2012-2013 year at dance. Part of me is ecstatic about summer, but the majority of my heart is a little skeptical; what am I going to do with the next few weeks…? Right off the bat, I want to thank Miss Tina, for running the world’s best dance studio; Miss Sara, for being such an amazing teacher; Bethany, for being a wonderful instructor and friend; my family, for supporting me. I love you guys!

I spent the last week of classes working on quite a few different things, most of which were quite spontaneous, indeed! On Tuesday, Kristen and I had a semi-private class, so the two of us were able to work a bit on Paquita and The Canary Fairy (on and off pointe)! With our last ten minutes of class, we watched dance videos on Miss Sara’s iPad— so fun!

On Wednesday, I was informed that I have been given the Dance Me a Story mini camp! I cannot wait to assist with this incredible summer camp!

On Thursday, as Emma is still on vacation, I subbed for her kindergarten, ballet class. The girls were adorable and so polite! As for modern, things were pretty interesting…! Miss Sara gave us several difficult combinations and re-taught the class how to perform a forward roll [correctly].

Yesterday was the craziest day of all! Bethany’s class was quite empty, so we were able to spend the first half-hour of class discussing recital and next year (Classes to be revealed soon!). After that time, my teacher looked up and said, “Oh, you decided to show up.”

Upon turning around, Elizabeth, Stephanie, April, Angela and I looked upon Bethany’s “surprise of the day.” She decided to bring in her friend, Matt, so that we could do some partnering! In terms of choreography and style, this partnering work was significantly different than what I experienced with Miss Sara and Mr. Keith last summer, but I still had a blast! Of course, being me, I was still penalized for my grouchy facial expressions… humph…. In pointe, we practiced Canary Fairy again, which looked quite nice– yay!