dance your pants off

That's exactly what J did, and here he is in his brand new tights.

He's off to a rip-roaring start with his dance year. This past week several exciting events occurred:

He started his new Jazz class, which he says is fun and easy.

He started his new Modern class, at a level up. Which he says is challenging, but he also says it's his favorite class "because I get to do a lot of stuff on the floor and I really like that."

He started his new Ballet class, which he said was pretty easy, and that his teacher is his favorite teacher. Which is nice, as she's also the artistic director of the school and is someone I very much trust to bring him along at a developmentally appropriate pace.

He started his new Tap class, at a level that is pretty advanced for a kid who's never had a tap class before. He said it's hard, but that his teacher told him "If you find it hard, you need to go home and practice. And if you find it easy, you need to go home and practice." We're trying to figure out a space for him to tap in. Later this winter we'll be replacing our wall-to-wall carpeting with some sort of wood flooring to creating a better dancing surface for him (well, also because it's just healthier, but the dancing surface is a bonus!), in the meantime we'll just strip some carpet back and let him tap on the underlayment.

He auditioned for The Nutcracker, which is being put on by his ballet school. He'll get a part (all the kids do) so he'll be in the show, the auditions were just to allow the directors to see all of the dancers at once so they can figure out which parts they are going to dance. We'll find out later this week.

Most exciting of all, he came home with a letter after just one ballet class at the new school. It started out: "Dear Parent, We have identified your dancer as talented and very promising and hence we are inviting your dancer to participate in our special Junior Trainee program." Basically the program provides an additional ballet class each week to give kids that have the potential to become professional dancers the opportunity for further training under the guidance of an American Ballet Theater certified instructor. (Who just so happens to be J's ballet teacher.) They also may have special appearances and performances and other assorted opportunities. Two of his friends also received letters, one a fellow homeschooler, and the other a boy he met for the first time at ballet class this week and really hit it off with.

So he's very excited, and as a result of realizing just how much dancing he was doing this fall, he asked to drop chorus for this semester so that he doesn't have any commitments on Sundays and has one day to just relax. Makes sense to me. And just because he's not singing with the chorus this semester doesn't mean there won't be plenty of singing going on around here, mostly on the way to and from dance class!