Plans for Spring

Hi everyone. This is Kaya. In Bree's last post, she mentioned a little bit about the dance performances that Marie-Grace, Cécile, Fiona, and I have coming up. She was also polite enough to avoid going into all the details, though, because she wanted us to have the chance to share our own news. So this post is going to be partly about that.

That's not all the post is about, though. You'll notice I titled it "Plans for Spring," not "Plans for Dance." That was for a reason. Our other big news is that we're going on a trip. I'll fill you in on that a little bit later. ;-)

First things first, though: dance news! Every spring, our dance school holds three performances. The first performance is a gala. The gala is a series of short pieces, ballet and modern dance, with some professional dancers who come in from out of province to be part of the event. Not a lot of regular students participate - the local participants are mainly company members - so being chosen is a huge honour. The second performance is a story ballet. That one is... pretty self-explanatory, probably. Every year the teachers choreograph a ballet performance for the more advanced students. Not everyone gets to participate, but most students at the higher levels will be included. The third and final performance is the spring recital. It's a collection of separate dances, both ballet and modern, done by every class; all the kids in the school are in it, so they can show their family and friends how much they have learned during the year.

So, what does that have to do with our family, you may wonder? Well, at least one of us will be in all of those performances!

It was a big surprise for me, but I'll be in two dances in the gala. I'll be doing ballet in a piece that is a new Swan Lake choreography, and also dancing in a modern piece based on a Greek folk song. I'm super excited, but more nervous about that performance than either of the other ones, because my teachers are putting a lot of faith in me by choosing me, and I don't want to let them down.

Fiona, Cécile, Marie-Grace, and I will all be in the story ballet, too. This year's ballet is based on The Secret Garden. (It's actually pretty much just an excuse to have dancers dressed in flower costumes, to be totally honest with you.) Like our Nutcracker, the story ballet will have an A Cast and a B Cast to alternate filling the roles, so more people get a chance to participate. The two casts are equal and have the same number of performances, the letters are just to make it easier to understand who dances when. I'll be playing Mary in Cast A, and Marie-Grace will be Mary in Cast B. (Why does Marie-Grace always seem to get roles that have similar names to her actual name? She was Maria in Nutcracker. I don't know of any ballet with a character named Kaya in it...) Fiona will be playing a rose, and Cécile will be the Queen of the Irises. I think it's going to be a lot of fun!

It's thanks to our mysterious gift giver that this will be possible for Marie-Grace and Cécile, our two vampire ballerinas. They were able to dance in Nutcracker because the winter days are very short in Newfoundland, so by the time school hours are over, there's no worry about the sun anymore. By May and June, the days are longer, and so there are dance rehearsals during sunlit hours. Obviously, this wouldn't normally be possible for a vampire. Cécile and Marie-Grace were originally planning to tell the teachers that they couldn't participate in any of the spring performances because they were going out of town; they were bummed to have to skip it, but there wouldn't have been much choice if they didn't want to catch on fire. Thanks to their new sun protection, they can be part of things after all. We still don't know the name of the person who gave us the gifts, but I know Cécile and Marie-Grace will be thinking of her while they dance, since she made it possible.

The other performance we're going to be part of is the spring recital. I'm going to be dancing three ballet pieces and a modern dance, Cécile and Marie-Grace are dancing together with their class in one piece and with my class in another, and Fiona is doing a piece with her class. We haven't started rehearsing for the recital yet and haven't found out all the details, because the other performances are sooner, but we're looking forward to it also. I'll fill you in on the recital once we know more.

There's one other thing. When my teacher invited me to dance in the gala, she said she hoped that I was going to audition for Junior Company. Our province doesn't have a professional ballet company, but my school's amateur company kind of fills the gap for our city. Company is a group that focuses on performing. Most of our company members are high school and university students, so I would be really young even for Junior Company. I told my teacher I would think about it. I'm really nervous, and I'm afraid to audition. What if I make a fool of myself? If I don't do it, though, I think I'd always wonder what would have happened if I'd tried.

I think I'm going to give it a chance. The next set of company auditions will be at the end of June, and the company continues to rehearse over the summer while regular dance classes are out of session. I'll let you know what I decide, and how it goes.

So that's the dance news! That isn't all that's going on in the lives of The Greens and The Roses that we need to update you on, though. The other big update is that from early to mid June, we're going on a trip to Europe. It's going to be very exciting!

The first place we're going is Italy. We're flying into Venice, and we're going to do some sightseeing and museum visiting. We're also hoping to have a visit with Gia's family and friends while we're there. (Gia is going too, of course, so that won't be weird.) I'm really excited to try real Italian food, and to see the sights.

I doubt you guys even remember this, but back when Bree first moved here and we were interviewing her, we talked about visiting Italy within the next ten years. Surprisingly, it's happening just a little bit more than a year later! It's really cool to be accomplishing one of those family "bucket list" goals.

We'll also be visiting Hungary and sightseeing in Budapest, then traveling to Zagreb and on to the Croatian coast, where we'll probably do more outdoor stuff like hiking and renting a boat.

We're all very excited! We've already started planning what to pack and what we're going to do in Europe. In reality, the trip is still about three weeks away, so we'll be sure to let you know before we go. We just wanted to give you a heads up about it now, though, since we're all looking forward to it.

If you made it through this whole post about our spring plans, "good on ya" as they say around here. ;-)

If you just skimmed, that's okay too. We'll be talking about all this stuff as it happens. We'll keep you posted on how it all goes!

Love,
Kaya