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(From left to right) Caroline, me, Emma and Abby before Grade 1! Beautiful job, girls! You are amazing!

Key word: over

Extra long Friday nights.

Even longer Friday nights.

Cecchetti music dancing in my dreams.

Sleepless hours.

Theory and Vocabulary. 

Major freak outs.

Cecchetti Grade 1 and Grade 2.

Whoo-hoo! From now forward, you are reading blog posts by a Cecchetti Certified Dancer! Hello, I’m Aquinnah and I am a Grade 2! Nice to meet you again…!

Yes, exams have come and gone! Here is how everything went:

I arrived at the chosen studio an hour early. Caroline and Emma were not too far behind. We warmed up, practiced a few things, obsessed over the indoor pool, changed and all those other wonderful things you must complete before exam time. Miss Sara arrived about 15 minutes early with her husband. She calmed our fears, answered questions and suddenly looked a little nervous. The examiners were not even inside the building!

The coordinator finally arrived with the judges (sipping Starbucks coffee) about ten minutes late. She gave us chocolate (because of our “Postponed Bliss”). This wasn’t just any chocolate either– this was a bag of dark chocolate truffles. Mmmm…!

The judges set up as we pinned on our numbers. For Grade 1, I was number two. We walked in when called and completed the exam. I believe we all did extremely well!

Grade 2 presented itself in the same manner, although I was number one of two. I believe Emma and I also did well on this exam!

To speak of the examiners, they were extremely kind– we had nothing to fear. One of the ladies even reminded me of my grandmother at some points in time.

I will not know my exact scores for a few days. They have to be mailed... darn. However, as I promised, I will give you Miss Sara’s predictions:

Grade 1: Pass Commended or Pass Highly Commended

Grade 2: Pass Commended or Pass Highly Commended

I agree! I think Grade 1 was a Highly Commended, and I hope Grade 2 is the same. Just for your own record, a person can fail, pass conditionally, pass, pass plus, pass commended, pass highly commended or pass with honors.

This time tomorrow morning, I will be about 15 minutes into my Cecchetti Exam (Grade 1). Let us see how much random information I can gather up about this week to take my mind off the situation.

Well, ballet class on Tuesday was filled to the brim with Grade 2 combinations (Wow… so far I’m doing an excellent job keeping my mind off Cecchetti…). We made it all the way through the grade and had 15 minutes to spare; we managed to do some non-Cecchetti work! It felt SO good.

Furthermore, the Cherubs were measured for their recital costumes in class! They were so excited when Miss Jennifer called their names one-by-one. I still have not seen the outfits but am waiting patiently (maybe). This Tuesday, we will begin teaching the girls their Christmas Dance! What fun!

In modern on Thursday, as Miss Sara wasn’t feeling too well, we skipped a lot of warm-up and went straight to our dance. We were able to choreograph quite a lot!

Yesterday was my very last “long night.” I can’t believe how speedily everything went! We went over Grade 1, Grade 2 and even Grade 3 combinations in ballet. In pointe, we learned some new combinations and practiced some of the old ones. Miss Sara commented on my arches– I’m really starting to be on top of my shoes! Then, of course, there was the Cecchetti classes. We got all the way through both Grade 1 and Grade 2! Miss Sara also gave us her predictions (about what scores we are to get). These are to be revealed tomorrow (after the exams). I’m not quite sure when I will know the actual scores but will not forget to post them.

So here, lovely dancers, is my second random post of all my random things, simply created to take my mind off…

Six days until Cecchetti Exams… ah!

I figure I might as well give the rundown of my Monday ballet class…:

I was at the studio about ten minutes early and talked to Emma and Anna, specifically about the drastic changes they are planning to make to their diets. A few minutes later, guess who walked in…? APRIL! After weeks on end of being out of dance (because of a very painful injury), April has returned to us! and looks as if she never left. Welcome back, April!

In class, we learned some new turns, although the name of this particular move has slipped my mind. Afterwards, we began the Christmas Dance! I did not expect to start this until after the exams– what a pleasant surprise! The dance is being choreographed to such a catchy Christmas song… why on earth can’t I remember the name…?

Rehearsal Six? Truly? Here is how everything played out…!

Being that my family was invited to lunch at a friend’s house down the road a bit, I was dropped off at the studio early (to save gas). I got myself ready for class and ate a quick lunch. “Clara A,” or Emma, came back to grab her new pointe shoes and told me that she and a few others were hanging out in Studio 3. Mesmerized by the fact that there is in fact a third studio, I walked back. Inside the room I found both Clara’s, the Nutcracker, Emma and a couple of other Party Girls. We hung around, had some laughs and overall just had a grand time being perfectly random.

Shortly before rehearsal time, we were called to be measured for costumes. I happen to be the tallest of the girls by a whole inch (I am five feet, four inches tall.)! Crazy!

Then, of course, there was rehearsal. We ran the entire scene with both Cast A and Cast B. That’s quite an accomplishment! We need to do a little bit of detail perfecting next week….

When my mom came to pick me up, we went over to the little dance store connected to the studio. There, we purchased another required performance item. They are “bun curls.” It is a net of curls (HUGE CURLS!) to attach to my bun, giving me the “party girl look.” So fun! At first, I thought I’d be getting brown curls with red highlights (as my hair turns a bit red during autumn), but I ended up getting a brown with some extremely blonde highlights (after asking a couple of people for their opinion)! I really like them.

This week has sped by! Here is what happened during the past two days:

In modern class on Thursday, I had a little bit of catching up to do (as I was still on vacation on Thursday of last week). I learned some more tricky combinations (to some extremely over-dramatic Beethoven) which I was able to accomplish rather quickly– yay! We also began our Christmas Dance! My, oh my, have I not explained this yet?

Each class (within a certain age group) starts to choreograph a dance toward mid-October to present to all the parents in December (the week before break). We throw together some costumes and dance our hearts out– so fun! It is truly one of the best parts of the holiday season. So far, we have only started the modern dance. I believe Miss Sara plans to start the ballet dance after Cecchetti Exams. As for pointe, we are not allowed to complete enough moves to create an entire dance yet, so we are having our parents come to watch our regular class instead.

Yesterday was another long Friday (made longer by 15 minutes). I had a wonderful time! My mom sat in on the end of ballet class and the beginning of pointe, as it is Parent Observation Week at my studio. The video above is something that she took during ballet while my amazing dance-sisters and I practiced single, double and triple pirouettes. I (located in the far corner of the room) complete three perfect triples in this video! Whoo-hoo! Beautiful job to (from far back to front) Stephanie, Anna, Mary, Emma, Allison and Jamie!

In pointe, I got my first two blisters on my second toes… ouch! Despite my pain, my toes are toughening up and I know now where I will need to use tape for class. Of course, to get blisters, you have to work. I did some releves in parallel (I got all the way over my arches on these!), releves in First Position, echappes, marches across the barre, and… drum roll please… CHAINES TURNS! Yes, we did our first turns, with our hands on our hips, across the floor. It was kind of difficult (as my feet are not totally stretched out yet), but I’m working on it. Basically, if I keep my feet closer together, they will come out perfectly.

Rehearsal tomorrow! I might shop for the rest of my required performance items afterwards. Nutcracker Post coming soon!

“Hold your horses folks. I’m having a kaniption fit.” –Miss Sara

The quote above came from one of the three e-mails that my dance instructor sent out to each of the girls in the Cecchetti class yesterday. The first (and what we supposed to be the only) e-mail was to give us the exact location and time for the exams on Sunday. A while later, we received a second e-mail with the quote above. Why was Miss Sara having a fit? While checking that she had e-mailed us all the right building address, my teacher read that the exams are not until the weekend of the 27th. An e-mail was sent out the the exam coordinator and just before ballet yesterday morning, a third e-mail was sent out to us. This was the conformation– the exams are really on the 28th.

There are many people who have done much switching about of their schedules for this weekend; Emma and her mom already had a hotel room set up. Thankfully, I am one of the few who can say this is working out for me. I am glad to have a whole extra week to practice! However, just as it has been stated, there are others who are not fond of this change in events– someone owes us A LOT of chocolate.

My goodness, how time flies! The fifth Nutcracker Rehearsal has already come and gone. Two hours never seemed so short as they did today! Here are the details:

I arrived at the studio 15 minutes early, as usual. Emma popped out from behind me; I might have jumped…! We hung around with Caroline and Anna, humming Cecchetti music and watching girls put on their pointe shoes until two-thirty. We rushed into Studio 2 (we later transferred to Studio 1) and the rehearsal began.

Of course, missing the fourth rehearsal, I had much to catch up on; however, just as Miss Patty explained, the work was mime. Today was also the first All Party rehearsal which the nutcracker participated in. He is an extremely good dancer (although, most of what he does is “robot”)! It was much easier to practice while the nutcracker danced, rather than pretending he was around.

Basically, we danced with the nutcracker and learned our exits today. I had a great time! Can’t wait for next week (after Cecchetti Exams)…!