Joie's spring ballerina recital was last night. She danced in 3 dances, and did great in each one. She is absolutely a performer and takes performing seriously. The more I get to know Joie, the more I associate the quality of being brave to who she is as a person. During one of the numbers she was one of 3 girls dancing. The other two girls forgot a part of the dance and left the stage before they were supposed to leave. From the audience we were wondering what was going on because there was Joie dancing a solo. She hadn't said she'd be dancing alone so I was curious about what happened. After the performance she said, "I can't believe I danced a solo!" She told me about the other girls leaving early and said she instantly decided someone had to finish the number, so she looked off stage to her teacher who cued her to keep dancing, and she did. It's hard to imagine being 9 years old and taking it on yourself to finish a performance for a group of dancers, and I can't help but think of the similarities to her life. She definitely has the personality to make the show go on.
The theme of the recital was dances from different countries. The black costume and skirt above are the basic costume. This is the Russian costume. Somehow she also claimed the paper Russian flag that was decorating the stage, which her teacher was happy to part with. We now have a Russian flag hanging on her bedroom wall.
