Coppelia

Hello everyone! How have you been? I'm sure you've been having lots of fun if it's your school holidays too. Let me share with you what we did on Day 2 of the holidays! See the big picture up there? Yup, we went to see the ballet Coppelia! As you might know, I study ballet, so I was really excited to be going.

Coppelia is a comic ballet in three acts. It is about an inventor named Dr Coppelius, who has made a life-sized dancing doll. It is so lifelike that everyone thinks she is real, including Franz, one of the lead dancers. He falls in love with her, and Dr Coppelius tries to take his spirit to magically bring Coppelia to life. He does this by giving Franz some wine which has a sleeping powder in it. But Franz's true love Swanhilde rescues him by dressing up as the doll and pretending to come to life instead. She wakes Franz up and winds up all Dr Coppelius' dolls to help them escape.

Here I am dancing outside the concert hall during the intermission. I took off my dress shoes!

Wheee! Dancing is fun! 

Here we are after the intermission, waiting for the third act to start.

After the performance, we walked around the Esplanade for a bit. Here we are looking at some camera thing that they set up for the Mosaic Music Festival. You can stand in front of it and have your picture taken. I'm not sure what that has to do with the festival.

Here we are in front of a huge work of art made up of a whole bunch of paper birds.

This is what it looks like!

Here I am outside of the Esplanade posing with a piano sculpture that looks like it was made up of Christmas tree lights.

 This is one half of the Esplanade at night.

And here we are just sitting and dreaming of our next adventure! See you again soon!

My Ballet Concert

Ta-dah! This photo here is me in my ballet costume. I wore this costume for my Four Seasons ballet performance. You see, this performance was all about the four seasons. My classmates and I were the first to go onstage. Guess what season I was in? Spring, of course!

Before the concert, we had weeks of practice, and then, the day before, we had to do a full dress rehearsal -- ten times! To get to the concert venue, we all rode on a huge excursion bus. The bus was very cold and those girls who didn't bring jackets were freezing!

I was a little nervous at first, but I got over it soon. Doing ballet exams, and being in other performances and choir helps a lot with that! The performance was extremely fun and we got loads of applause. The last thing all the ballerinas had to do was take a great, big bow during the finale. After the show was over, each dancer got a pretty flower from their ballet teacher. Mine was a big sunflower. It was the best; no, it was extra-terrestrial!

See you very soon!

Hair!

Hi there! I just wanted to show you the bun my Mom did for ballet today. Isn't it perfect? I shall have to tie a super neat bun like this for my ballet exam. It's coming up in just a couple of weeks! See you soon!

Wonderful God

Hi again! Today I am going to share with you a story of how God has helped me a lot in my life, and a small prayer that I like to pray which you can pray too.

The Story

One day, I was about to have my first ballet exam. The exam is held by the Royal Academy of Dance, or RAD.

Before the exam started, my classmates and I were practicing the steps we would have to do during the exam.

When the teacher called me and a few of my friends in to do the exam, I started to feel all funny -- strange, scared and excited all at the same time!

There were people from the RAD Examinations Board sitting at a table. They looked nice, but also very serious! As they gave me instructions, I suddenly started to feel less scared and worried. I felt that God was trying to tell me something. I could hear a voice in my head saying, "Don't worry. Just concentrate, and do the exercises properly. Then get a gold for the exam and never be scared or worried about any exam, or anything else, again".

So I just danced and did all the steps I'd been practising. Two months later I got the results. They put a "D" next to my name on the results list. For a moment my Mom and I thought it meant I'd done badly. But it turned out that "D" stood for "distinction" -- and I got my gold! God really helped me that day.

The End.

My Prayer

Dear God, I pray you will help me to always be strong and be a good Christian. 

I pray You will forgive me for all the things I have done wrong and teach me to not make those mistakes again. I thank You that You are always merciful and faithful to forgive me.

Thank You for blessing us so much and that I live such a wonderful life.

Thank You for giving me such a happy, loving and super-fun family.

Please teach me how to do the right things.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.    

My Ballet Class!

Yesterday my ballet class had an open house, which meant that everyone's parents could come in and watch us! I was a bit nervous at first because all the parents were watching me and my friends, but after awhile it just felt like my usual class. Here are some pictures of what happens in my class!



Here I am at the barre! The barre is the wooden rail on the ballet studio wall. We do many exercises at the barre and our teacher checks our posture and our turnout. Turnout is how our legs turn out from our hips, so that our knees and feet turn outward. It must be done at the hips, not the feet. Good turnout is very important for good ballet technique. Our barre exercises always start with plies. This is where we bend our knees while keeping our backs straight. It is a bit difficult for me to keep my body straight while bending. Next picture!



We do many exercises on the floor too. They help us stretch and practice pointing our toes well. In this picture we have to lie on our tummies and lift each of our legs straight up. Later we will lie on our backs and lift our legs. Next picture!



This is me practising my splits! Doing splits makes us more flexible and helps us stretch as much as possible. Next picture!



More stretching!



Here we are practising pointing our feet. Ballet dancers must point their feet well so that they look long and graceful. We must practise to have a high arch in our feet so that our point looks pretty. We do a lot of exercises so that our feet and legs become stronger and stronger. Ballet dancers need strong legs so they don't get injured. I am still practicing how to turn out my foot well when I point. Next picture!



Here I am listening to my teacher and doing the last exercise before class ends. My teacher is really nice. I pay attention to her especially since my next ballet exam is coming up soon! My Mom said I did a very good job and I can't wait till the next class! See you at the next post!