First Dance Recital

Sydney had her first dance recital after a few months of taking ballet/tap every Saturday morning. The first few sessions were rough. Sydney was clingy and crying but then she started to warm up to the idea of dancing as long as she could be within a couple of feet of Miss Amanda, her dance teacher. Then all was well in dancing land. She started to participate on her own and dancing up a storm. She has been enjoying dancing ever since. But dancing in a studio is one thing. Dancing on a stage with bright lights and a bunch of eyes staring might be another thing. We were apprehensive about her first dance recital and could only hope she would not freak out. We would have been happy with her standing there with stage fright without interrupting the rest of the class.

The class has been practicing for weeks on a tap routine. The chosen song was "Frosty, the Snowman." The selected venue was a small church down the street. We had no idea what to expect. How many people would be there? How early should we arrive? Even I was getting butterflies in my stomach as the big day was rapidly approaching.

We arrived 30 minutes early. Tracie took Sydney to the dressing room to meet up with the class and get dressed. I made my way to the auditorium. The place was packed with at least 150 people. Some families arrived an hour and a half to get the best seat in the house. I weaseled my way as close as I could to the front but ended up sitting to the right of the stage. At least I was on the 4th row. There were going to be 9 classes performing, and Sydney's class was up 2nd.

Then the big moment arrived...


Pardon the shakiness of the video and the occasional giggles in the background. We were just a couple of giddy parents passing the camera back and forth to get a better shot. I was never so proud of my little girl. Not only did Sydney participate in the routine, she did just about everything right. She placed the hat on her head when she was supposed to; she twirled and tapped almost in sync with the instructor. She even took the time to spot Tracie and I in the audience, waved and blew us a kiss, and kept going without hardly missing a beat. My girl rocked!!

We decided that our camerawork was so bad that we needed to buy the DVD from the professional videographer there. It's going to be great to show this to Sydney years from now. Her next recital is in May. Oh, boy! Oh, boy! OH, BOY!!! Can't wait.