Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Ballerina Butt

"Glute Meat".  That's how my ballet teacher refers to our butts.  She says we have a lot of "glute meat".  It makes me laugh.

It's true though.  We all have dancer butts.

Like I've mentioned before, I began dancing at a ballet school about half an hour away from my house at the beginning of the season.  Since then, my body has certainly changed into more of a dancer body.  Butt and all.

That's kind of all I have to say right now.  I've been kind of boring lately.  This thought about dancer butts was fostered by my school musical, actually (you can expect a musical update soon).  During rehearsal our stage manager requires that we wear sweatpants/yoga pants/leggings.  According to some of my cast members, leggings make the booty look nice...

Friday, February 3, 2012

Pizazz!

I have officially started all of my choreography for the acro classes!  I'm pumped!!

Here are the songs I chose:
* Advanced: Dance Like There's no Tomorrow - Paula Abdul
* Intermediate II:  Kung Fu Fighting - Cee Lo Green ft. Jack Black
* Intermediate I:  Dynamite - China Anne McClain
* Beginner:  The Time of My Life - Randy Newman (A Bugs Life soundtrack)

Everything is going well!!

I hadn't made a solid decision on the Intermediate I song until tonight.  I had been thinking of using the Numa Numa song but I wasn't in love.  The studio director came in tonight and was asking me to make the final decisions between to costumes she had chosen and she also put in a CD of songs she thought might work so I could have some other ideas.  As soon as Dynamite came on every single girl started to sing along.  I looked at the director and we both just kind of nodded.  The girls had chosen it for us :)

I'm excited for the advanced class but at the same time I'm a little concerned.  The music requires a lot of sass and I'm choreographing a very fast piece for them.  Time will tell.

I was pleased with their efforts tonight though.  I asked them what elements they thought that the piece needed.  I said it was something that we don't work on in class very often (I've been kicking their butts with technique and conditioning).  Immediately each girl yelled something along the lines of "attitude" which was exactly what I was fishing for!!  My favorite adjective was given to me by my oldest student who said the dance needed "pizazz" which I really liked!  They also told me they needed to use facials and add flair.  I was so proud of them!  I now know that what I am telling them is sinking in...next step...get them to utilized in their bodies, not just their brains.  Baby Steps.  Baby Steps.

Return of the Rubberband Girl

Okay, so I know that a lot of my blogs are centered around the "Rubberband Girl".  Sorry about that.  But that's not going to stop me from writing this post.  Guess what it's about...

I am now into the second semester of my junior year in high school.  At the beginning of the year I was asked to join a studio art course with artist Ski Holm.  He taught drawing the first half of the year and this semester he is teaching oil painting.  In order to be in the course you had to be hand selected.  Unfortunately I was unable to participate in the drawing half, but the school worked with me and is allowing me to do one of my graduation requirements in my spare time so that I can fill that course period with the studio art painting class.  We're only a week into it, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

I have the class second period which begins just before 10 am.  Today as I walked in Mr. Holm was like, "Hey Mary Kate, I hear you're this big legend for being extremely flexible."  I laughed and said that it was probably true, but asked who told him that.  He said that his first period studio had seen the back of my palette (we have been oiling our palettes) which has my initials "MKC" written on it.

Apparently just seeing "MKC" makes people think of me, which then seems to lead to my dancing.  Who'd have known?

I was pretty surprised because my Rubberband Girl dance was my freshman year, meaning that at this point half of the school doesn't even know about it.  I guess I'm just so legendary ;) Ha!