a birthday party and a ballet concert

morgana went to a birthday party this evening. she wrapped up two books and a journal bought from the tibetan store.

but first i took a picture . .

xena enjoying the sun . .

korrina was making pretzels again . . chanda helped her with rolling out the last five or so, as she had to run off to a production meeting.

and then she joined me to see the first night of chanda's show. chanda danced beautifully.

traipsing about on a friday night

chanda had a ballet class before she had to run off to a tech rehearsal. francesca on the left takes class with her, and in the middle is isabella, francesca's younger sister. they'll head out to vermont tomorrow to see their grandmother. monday begins a week of no dance or music classes as everyone has spring break . . including the public schools (i think).

afterwards, chanda and i took 1 train uptown to 59th street and the alvin ailey studios where her tech rehearsal was going on. she's performing in a lovely piece by anne kelly who began her own dance company with a musician friend: KMdancemusic. in the above pic, megan the costume designer is finishing up last minute details . . this never stopped. she worked on last minute details up until the second and last show.

chanda danced in a corner until it was time to run her piece.

finally it was time to work the piece out with the pianist.

this is the only shot i have of the dance . . and if you watch closely they are only marking it. i wish i had a movie of their dancing. it was so beautiful!! (as were the costumes!) the music is chopin, nocturne no. 1 in b flat minor. i love listening to anne describe what she needs to the pianist.

ballet observation day

yesterday was a beautiful first day of spring. the sun shone and the birds sang in the morning . . and i spent the day in bed with a low fever, headache and cough. today i'm better, but left with the nasty cough . . the embarrassing and very uncomfortable kind where you have a constant tickle in your throat and you can't stop hacking away once you start. i'm drinking echinacea tea and taking vitamin c, so i'm hoping tomorrow is a lot better. we have an appointment today with a new dentist who is supposed to follow a more holistic path in her practice . . we shall see if she actually does. (we visited a dentist last week who made the same claims, but we didn't find him all that holistic). today is very grey outside, but the birds still sang me a wake-up song. the picture above is morgana in her dance class with marina stevetskaya. it was ballet observation day at manhattan youth ballet, and i sat and watched and tried not to cough for an hour and a half.

morgana has improved so much. her footwork has become more precise and clean.

she has wonderful height in her jumps, which really means nothing when you're a ballerina.

here her teacher complimented her: "nice morgana, pointed toes, straight legs and a plie." receiving a compliment from marina is not easy. morgana cherishes every word of praise.


marina only works with one pianist: a compatriot from russia (who often remembers the students names better than marina! morgana has a story where the pianist corrects marina, "no no, marina, that isn't natalie, that's bridget.") anyway, her compatriot friend plays so beautifully! here she played "matchmaker" from fiddler on the roof and i couldn't stop singing the song all week . . that i finally streamed it from netflix one night with morgana and chanda (who had never seen it before). it's a long movie, we still have an hour and twenty minutes to watch.

her pointework has improved also, though her love for pointework has not increased an iota.

it was fun. i could sit and watch for hours . . if i didn't have such a cough!!! (oh! and the dentist turned out to be very nice. she described everything she was doing to chanda, and her office was peaceful and didn't smell of antiseptic. she had yoga journals on the table along with national geographic and the new yorker, and a bubbling fountain and photographs of a field and trees).

snow on tuesday

the result of the storm last night . .

monday baking

we made our irish soda bread this morning.

we use a recipe from my la leche league cookbook.

it calls for currants, buttermilk and honey,

and made for a delicious breakfast with earl grey tea.

after some workbook studies, morgana went to study group and ballet, and then chanda and i went uptown to her choreography/modern dance class. it was snowing very lightly.

winter is really hanging on this year.

i'm actually finally ready for some spring weather! but, as you can see, we're still getting snow.

by the time we reached third street for her violin lesson . . 

it was layering on the trees and looking very pretty. i still love it. we walked home in a typical new york snowstorm, and arrived home very wet and covered with fat white flakes.

ballet rehearsal at ailey

chanda has been dancing with anne kelly's company KM/DanceMusic. she knows anne from nutcracker rehearsals. anne was the production coordinator for that show, and taught the steps for the mary/william roles.

the piece will be danced to live music and on soft shoe. she's really been enjoying working with anne and the other dancers, kery and liz (who was also in nutcracker this past winter as a skater and chinese dancer).

getting ready and st. paddy's dinner

morgana has her final show today for her ballet school's spring performance,

so chanda did her hair for her.

in the evening we had corned beef and cabbage and read a little about ireland.

a ballet performance

morgana's ballet school had two shows today. chanda, greg and i attended the 7pm show.

morgana and her ballet teacher, natalia.

morgana and her study group friends.