This isn't REALLY Philly and Alicia's Last Dance Competition Trip Report - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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So we are all in our jammies and relaxing in front of the TV around 9:30 pm just about ready to hit the sack and the rest of the crew get back from NYC. Everyone shares a bit about their day and the girls get all wound up! The girls have to dance again tomorrow, but they are crazy wired. Since Alicia’s solo placed and her duos placed she also needs to film “bumpers” for the dvd they put out of the final showcase (top finalists). They have to be there at 8 am dressed and ready to go. She is feeling yucky again, but not nearly as bad as yesterday, but can’t seem to settle down. I am kicking myself thinking we over did it by going to the zoo! I should have made her just stay at the hotel and rest! Of course that would have just made her stir crazy, so there is just no winning! We finally manage to get the girls off to bed, but I think the mom’s are more tired than the dancers! Six thirty am roles around too early for my liking, but out of bed I roll, quick shower, breakfast and off we go!
We get through the even faster costume changes for bumper filming and sit around and wait. There were all the mini groups, large groups and productions and our older girls had only two dances. They did one of their two numbers and had only their production number left. Since it is a small studio, the studio owner likes to incorporate all the “company” dancers into the producion number. It can be a challenge mixing eight year olds with eighteen year olds, but she makes it work! This year it was a medley of 50’s music themed around “Happy Days” with Alicia as the center of attention. She was a GEEK (which she actually IS!) boy that is turned into a cool guy by the end. It was really cute! Here she is being geeky with one of the younger girls that she also used to teach.
The schedule had the dancers taking a lunch break and then a dance class, and then returning for productions before final awards. The competition people asked if our production group could go early but unfortunately some of the girls were gone for lunch. Little did we know we were the only group left to dance!! So after lunch they did the class – which is always a blast, but Alicia still sat out as she was still feeling pretty whipped – and Maggie opted out of because she was starting to not feel well. When the hour long class was over they had “One more dance of the competition” before awards! It was sort of weird being the studio with the last dance, but the girls put on a great show!! Alicia is ALWAYS hysterical when she comes out looking all geeky and acting dorky! She really is a ham on that stage! Of course it helps that she is a good dancer too, so when it looks like “HE” doesn’t know what “HE” is doing the judges know SHE really does know what SHE is doing! It was a crowd pleaser! Everyone was happy to be done dancing and ready for the final award ceremony, and ahead of schedule! Some of the people were going to be driving home that night! But we weren’t out of the woods yet! If the groups scored in the top 5 over all for small or large groups, they would then be competing AGAIN in the showcase for the cash prize. Since Maggie was feeling sick she slept through the awards. We had to give her the news about their scores and whether or not they made showcase after it was over.
As much as you would like to see your child do well and be a winner, sometimes you would also just like to go home. Ok I know that is not very nice, but it is how I felt. I know they danced well, but it is not always about the prize! Here is the run down of how they scored: The highest you can score is Platinum (within 4 points of a perfect score!) then High Gold, Gold, High Silver, Silver, High Bronze, Bronze, Honorable Mention (but everyone usually always gets at least a Silver!) They scored all High Golds and a Platinum for their production “Happy Days”! Way to go Girls and Geek! They also had highest scoring production!
The following dances made it into the showcase (YAY…UGH….YAY….ugh…yay...ugh). Ballet (My Heart Will Go On), Jazz (Footloose – Go Skittles), and Modern (American Beauty) WHAT?! We were ALL SHOCKED by that one! They also break down this part of the competition by age category, but not by style catagoy. OUR girls had 3 out of 5 in the top five for Teen category!!! We also had 2 in the top 5 for the junior category! Go DMX!
The Junior girls took 2nd and 4th place over all for Junior Small Groups! And Alicia’s group… drum roll please……..
4th place over all American Beauty
2nd place over all Footloose and
1st place over all for Teen Small Groups My Heart Will Go On!
I am SO EXCITED that their BALLET dance WON FIRST PLACE OVER ALL!!! For all you non dance people you might say ok that’s nice, but what’s the big deal? But for anyone who knows dance, you know that a high score in ballet (due to technique) is a BIG deal. And these girls not only look beautiful on stage they have great technique! Thank You Dance Teacher!!! So as painful as it was to have to stay and recompete the dances again – The dances were being filmed, so it was being treated like a live TV show. They literally danced one number and had ONE number to change and be on stage ready to dance again. They did that for 3 dances! - it was worth it in the end! The girls were exhausted and over joyed! The downside…. Who was going to carry home those trophies?
The Skittles…
Last edited by tinker_me_happy; 07-09-2008 at 09:18 AM..
Congrats to them - they did really well! It sounds like the rest of the day went really well at the zoo, you did well dodging the weather and I loved the staring contest with the tortoise.
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Well, Thankfully One of the Dad's had his trusty leatherman type tooly thing and took those lovely trophies apart and brought them back to central MA in his truck! The girls all had a great time, though we would have liked to have seen more of Philly. I did get to see the stairs Rocky ran up! And a couple of statues!! And of course America's first Zoo was great... but then again I like that sort of thing - I am truly a six year old inside !
Glad that you got to see the Art Museum steps (did you see the Rocky statue off to the right of the steps at the bottom?)
Hope you get another chance to see Philadelphia soon!
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