Tiny Dancer

What is it about little girls and ballet?  Like many little girls her age Lil' Miss loves ballerinas, in fact at her preschool graduation being a ballerina is what she proclaimed was her future profession.  I think it may have started with the Angelina Ballerina cartoons that air on PBS.  We watched them every day for at least 2 years, and there aren't that many episodes, only 39 fifteen minute episodes according to Wikipedia.  Yes dear reader, I know most of them by heart as does Lil' Miss of course!  She may have moved on in her viewing choices but she still loves ballet.

Her summer ballet class at the community center just ended and all the parents were invited to watch the final class.  This class is not a parent participation class (like the one we took while I was pregnant with Destructo-boy, nothing like a heavily pregnant woman dancing ballet let me tell you!), we adults get the fun of waiting in the lobby while the girls dance except for the final day.  They were unbelievably cute, about 18 little girls in leotards and tights, almost every one had on some sort of flowy skirt, a few with tulle skirts, and all running around like little terriers hopped up on espresso.  It was quite a sight to see, and damn if my camera battery didn't die after 5 minutes!

They all showed us they had learned how to do first position, and displayed some other basic moves.  I love how the teacher, Miss Kim, gets them to do some of the basic ballet movements including running, jumping, galloping, (don't know the proper terms, I never got to take ballet) by turning it into something fun.  All the girls in the class had so much fun showing off what they had learned for their parents, and the paparazzi were in full force as they did so.  The best part was at the end of the class when each dancer was given a chiffon scarf to dance with and they all went running around the room waving their scarves in the air.  Amazingly there was only one crash accompanied by tears, it wasn't the only crash, a few others made impact but they got up and just kept on running.  I didn't notice if anyone other parents were quite as amused as I, but I chuckled away through the whole song.

I think we really lucked out in finding Miss Kim, and best of all she actually owns a local studio that teaches dancers up to the high school level so if Lil' Misses interest continues we have someplace local with a supportive environment for her to go.  As long as she has an interest I will find a way to pay for her lessons, she deserves nothing less.  Plus something about seeing her all dressed for class with her hair pulled up in a sweet little bun just pulls on my heartstrings, I actually teared up the first time I got her ready for her class.  Good gracious, when did I become such a softie!?