Courtney's Dance Recital

We spent Saturday at Courtney's dance rehearsal and then the recital later that evening. She did a great job dancing and you can tell that she dances with every part of her body, mind and spirit. She was in 4 routines and had a couple of quicker changes that she was initially a little stressed about, but all turned out perfectly. As last year's Overall Dancer of the Year, she got to present this year's award to her friend and teammate Erica Johnson. She was so proud of Erica as she has worked hard all year and is so dedicated to the team. Courtney also won a special award of her own. She was selected as the Ballet Dancer of the Year for 2008. Her ballet has really come a long way this year and she has improved her technique so much! Anyone who knows Courtney knows that moving around a lot comes naturally to her, it is a little more work to keep the movements as slow and exact as ballet requires. She is becoming very graceful and it has been fun to see her grow in her abilities as a dancer. While ballet is not her favorite (lyrical and jazz currently hold that spot!) it is the foundation of everything in dance so she knows it is important to continue to improve her ballet skills and the rest will improve as well. She also takes a ballet class at the Newberg studio and was invited to dance en pointe starting in the fall. We are not sure if the schedule will work out yet with all of her commitments at the McMinnville studio, but she was excited to be considered ready for pointe work which requires lots of foot and ankle strength as well as balance and flexibility.

It was a fun recital and all the girls worked hard to put on a wonderful show. We get to take a week off and then classes start up for summer again.

I will have some pictures of the recital on the site soon.