Prouder than a proud thing

It has been the dance school’s production of The Nutcracker this weekend. The tension and excitement has been building since Eldest was cast as Clara, and the relations and friends were primed and ready to attend so that someone would be watching her at each of three performances. We went to the last night last night. It wasn’t enough! Mother of Leading Boy14 had been on Saturday night as well, and I wished I’d done the same. Eldest was lovely; the whole school had gone up a notch since their show three years ago, and it was impossible to take it all in in one go. Miss Dance Teacher had done wonders with choreography so that all the children had the potential to look good even if all they could really do was ‘good toes, naughty toes’. The sweetness of four little angels helping the fair godmother pick stars from the sky! And the costumes were wonderful: tutus in all directions! From the smallest child who sat on the stage too struck by the presence of the audience to actually dance to the Sugar Plum Fairy in all her technical pointe shoe glory it was a delight.
Inevitably the 5 boys in the school were particularly noticeable: four of them doing a Russian dance were an absolute scream as the two little ones made a terrific stab at doing the leaps of Leading Boy14 and Leading Boy15. Wonderful! And their presence meant we were treated to pas de deux by both the Sugar Plum and her Prince, and Clara and the Nutcracker. They’re boys not men so their role was supportive rather that any sort of lifting or ‘real’ help, but what fun!
Now she is back down to earth with sore feet and a worry that it will be her last show – in three years time she will have left school.
We await the hideously expensive DVD.