It’s Recital Day!
It’s all dancers and dance teachers’ favorite day of the year, RECITAL DAY! If you haven’t participated in a recital before, this all may be a lot to think about when it’s months away but it comes fast.
So, what is dance recital like in the minds of our little dancers? Well, it goes something like this, that is if our dancers were old enough to write in a diary of their experience!
Dear Diary,
Today was the GREATEST day EVER! I went to bed last night with butterflies in my stomach about all my family, grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and siblings coming to watch my big day. Today I woke up ready to make my debut on stage and feel like a princess! Now, I am only a kid, but what was so fun about today was Mom did my hair and make-up for the stage. Now, I never get to wear make-up so this was amazing! Then I got to put on the most fancy, colorful, glittery, sparkly outfit I have ever seen. They call it a costume, I call it magical. Plus, it makes me feel so special.
We got to check in and my dance teacher and all the other teachers were there telling me how much fun I would have and not to be nervous because I would be amazing. They took me backstage where I got to be with my teacher, play games, color, and practice my dance with my class. Pretty quickly though we were lining up and heading to the back side of the stage. They call this “on deck”. About 2-3 other dance classes were lined up on the sides of the stage while the dancers doing their dance on the stage were finishing their number. This part was so fun because we could see all the cool lights, loud music, the dancers smiling, the audience clapping and yelling for their dancers and it was getting us really excited for our turn.
Then, it was our turn! Our teachers we have in class led us to a sticker on the stage so we knew where to stand, told us to smile really big and we were going to do great! Then one teacher went to the left, one to the right of the stage where the parents can’t see them from the audience (they call it the “wings”) and did the dance with us! It was so cool because no one from the audience could tell they were there to follow if we got scared. Plus, seeing their smiling faces and thumbs up made me confident I could totally do this. The lights came on, the audience “oohed and ahhed”, the music began to play and I danced away! I forgot some of the dance, looked at my teacher and she smiled and said, “You’re doing great – keep going!”. We finished, waved to our families and when the lights went off our teachers led us to another room that was a small theater! Can you believe that after all that fun we got to watch a Disney movie too? We didn’t get to watch the whole thing since the recital was only about an hour, but we still had fun sitting with the dance instructors for those last few minutes.
Next thing I knew we were lining up with our classes and being checked out by our teacher to our Mom or Dad, hand to hand. Mom & Dad had flowers and gifts, we took pictures, and everyone told me how amazing I was and how proud they were that I was so brave. It was the best day ever! It gave me a chance to show what I worked for these past months, gave me confidence, showed my talents, and was a fun day of dressing up all about me. I will never forget recital day and can’t wait to do it again!
