In an effort to get back into the habit of updating this blog regularly, I have decided to forego the lengthy write-ups for actually updating you. Yes, I know I still have a backlog but that will eventually be dealt with.
You may think that the title of this update is a little strange, but all will be made clear.
Regular readers, at least those with long memories will recall that Amélie attends a dance lesson once a week. A mixture of styles, Amélie mainly performs a form of street style. They learn routines for medals but twice a year they put a show on at the local theatre. The beginning of February saw Amélie’s first show. So, for the last few months, Amélie has been working hard, losing Saturdays and occasional Sundays to practising for the show. Amélie wasn’t the only member of the family losing time and putting a lot of effort into the show. Amélie required a number of costumes for the various scenes and all of them involved sewing sequins onto t-shirts and so Mommy spent nearly every evening for the last few months sewing.
As you can probably guess from the title of this page that the show that the class put on was based on the Disney version of Aladdin. They were due to put on three, 3-hour shows on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. However, ticket sales for the Friday were so poor (probably because the show was due to start at 1800, which doesn’t give a lot of time to leave work, have a quick bite to eat and get to the theatre), that the performance was cancelled. Nevertheless, we still had to take Amélie to the theatre as they had a full dress rehearsal on the stage.
We, as a family had purchased tickets for the Saturday and the Sunday performance. Lucinda and Éowyn on the Saturday and myself, Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz on the Sunday. Amélie’s cousins, Lauren and Maddie, also purchased tickets for the Sunday show. Lauren and Maddie used to be part of the same troop and have put many of these performances on themselves, indeed Lucinda and I have been to see them on a couple of occasions.
It was it this in mind that we knew what to expect and why we didn’t offer these tickets widely. The show was over three hours in length and the interval came around two hours into the show. At this point Aladdin hadn’t even met the Genie. Aladdin is a feature film. It runs around 90 minutes and is a musical, however the version that Amélie took part in was supplemented with at least twice the number of songs, from ‘I wanna be like you’ from the Jungle Book to ‘Genie in a bottle’ by Christina Aguilera (which I kind of understand). This means that the kids have nigh on 30 dance routines to learn and perhaps a dozen costume changes.
Unfortunately, this extravagance means that quality is sacrificed for quantity. Personally, I would have preferred 10-12 dance routines executed to perfection but there was time to concentrate on them in practice, rather than the 25-30 dance routines that were on display, that varied in quality.
Regardless of my critique Amélie thoroughly enjoyed performing and loved being on the stage. She also enjoyed the fact that Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz came down from West Bromwich to watch her. Best of all, Lauren and Maddie bought her a card and bunch of roses to celebrate her performance, our budding starlet felt like a true star.
Watch this space to see whether the performing bug has definitely been caught by our second born.
Below are some photos from the performance, I apologise for the quality, a darkened theatre and an iPhone camera are not the best combination.
Love and Peace
Baggie
