summer festival dancing!

every summer our town hosts a summer festival to benefit local businesses and non-profits in our area.  the festival is held at a park and they have arts, crafts, music, food, and even fireworks.  this year, our dance studio got the opportunity to perform under the park pavilion during the festival!

on saturday evening, 10 of our dancers performed 9 selections from our spring recital.  the weather was gorgeous, we couldn't have asked for a better summer evening to dance outside.  i danced in 4 numbers, 3 of which were from our recital, and 1 of which was a special middle eastern belly dance that my mom choreographed!  (my mom taught a middle eastern belly dancing workshop at our studio in july.)

i have to take a moment to say that a huge thank you goes to my unbelievably amazing husband who did so much work behind the scenes to make this outdoor performance happen!  in addition to filming the performance, he prepped the stage for us, set up an outdoor "backstage" changing area for the dancers, and lugged all of our props down to the park.  a huge thank you goes out to my parents too for holding down the fort at the park, and for taking a ton of great photos of the performance.  (it took me several days to sort through the over 400 photos that they took!)

^our senior ballet class opened the performance with our ballet number to "love song" by tesla which is such a pretty dance.  since we were outside dancing on concrete, we modified it slightly by dancing on flat ballet shoes instead of our pointe shoes.^

^at the recital, i danced as part of a trio to a medley of three country songs: "country girl shake it for me" by like bryan, "the river" by garth brooks, and "she's country" by jason aldean.  we modified the dance into a duet for the festival.  this number is such a fun one to dance.^

^i was most excited to dance the middle eastern belly dance that my mom choreographed special for the festival.  it was such an honor to dance her choreography to the same music that she danced to while wearing the same costumes that she wore when she was a professional belly dancer.^

^i also danced in our senior finale routine to "lucy in the sky with diamonds" by the beatles.  this number is always so much fun to dance because there is so much to it with fabric, ladder tricks, and ribbon dancers!^

you can see more photos from our performance on my dance studio's facebook page (here) 
and the video of our performance on my dance studio's you tube channel (here)

love, laurie