Tales from the Love Shaque: Charleston bound!!!!

This weekend was one of the toughest competitions I think DOS has been to! As usual, there was the one extremely awesome studio that swept most of the awards but even the judges were hard on them. The highest score of the weekend was only in the low 90s so I'm not sure what they were nit-picking! I'll have to post again when the official results & critiques & pictures come out.

So enthusiastic for that trophy!!

I texted her and told her to look up since she was looking everywhere except at the audience!

Saturday were just the little girls' solos, duet & small groups and 2 of the teens did their solos. I'm not sure of the exact reasoning behind how these were scheduled since we had other teens on Sunday, but I think it's because they were in the Ovation or intermediate skill level and the ones on Sunday were all Encore, or advanced.

Angel hopped a ride with one of the girls who was dancing and I went out there later to catch the last few dances and to bring her home. A lot of people got hotel rooms near the school where the comp was held, but it seemed silly to drive 20 minutes to a hotel, when we don't live much farther than that away!

Angel's first dance was her solo at 8:30 Sunday morning and her last was her duet at 8:50pm - the last dance of the evening, right before awards. It was a long day, but moved right along since we had enough dances spread over the day to keep things interesting.

Each dance was ranked by score; high gold, platinum & double platinum. She scored in the high gold range for her solo, but didn't place. Actually, only one of our girls placed and she got 20th. They got a platinum on their jazz line - and those disco ball costumes looked awesome on stage!! Hiphop line got double platinum and a 4th place. Her jazz & tap both got platinums. I think the judges are blind, since tap to I Love Rock & Roll was freakin' awesome! But I digress. Contemporary got a high gold, but still placed 5th (!!!!) and her duet got a high gold.

Both of her jazz dances received invitations to a dance camp in NYC! I don't know much more about it, other than they'd get to stay in Times Square, see some Broadway shows and take some classes with the Rockettes! That would be beyond cool. I'd totally chaperon.

And the studio received the Studio Spirit Award, which is apparently a big thing! It's all about sportsmanship and spirit! The owner of the studio was so tweaked to get that.

Angel's hairpiece for contemporary.

The girls were so funny. Lauren was sitting on her knees in front of me in the audience, looking at my program upside down. She asked what division contemporary was in. I pointed it out to her, it was Encore. Her eyes got really big and she yelled over a couple rows to some of the other girls, asking if they knew it was Encore - it apparently surprised them that it was considered advanced. I told one of the other moms that because I didn't love the dance or the costume that they'd place really high on it, just because. And they got a 5th! LOL!

I have some issues with the way the comp was run, tho. They called all the winners up to the front 'in no particular order' and then did 5th, 4th, 3rd, etc. Quit wasting time, dammit - just call them up in order! And you can submit your dancer to be considered for Miss Applause. OK. So they'd call up all the applicants and crown the 2 runners-up and the winner. Which is all good & fine unless there's only 4 kids up there! I wasn't there when it happened, but they called everyone up for Petite Miss and crowned the 3, which left little 6 year old Reece standing up there not really knowing what was going on. When she realized she wasn't getting a crown, her little face fell and her lip started quiver before she started to cry. I hope those assholes feel like shit when they do that! And it's not because I know the little girl - that sucks no matter who it is! Luckily they were selling crowns at the booth with the t-shirts and stuff in the lobby so Terina was able to get her one. It probably meant more to Reece coming from Terina than from some stranger anyway. Bastards.

It was interesting that one of studios there is owned by the guy who taught Angel her solo and some other classes last year. I thought it might be awkward, since I know him & Terina didn't part ways amicably - a month before the recital. We didn't compete against him much, if at all, since most of his routines were in the beginner division. I saw him zoom by our dressing room a couple times, but I'm sure Angel pretended she didn't see him. I could tell some stories, but I won't.

That disk in the winged girl's hands is blank, but she won't let me glue a giant googly eye on it!

Please allow me to have a stereotype-ish / kinda racist moment here. There was a trio of black girls doing a hiphop routine. They had pretty smiles and lovely hair with jeweled clips and cute costumes but it sure as hell didn't look like hiphop. What they did is what we call jazz hop. Our group of 23 little white girls turned it out something FIERCE! Gritty. Tough. Mean faces and all. Defending their turf from the "Clique". I only saw one or two of them break into a grin. :)

I grabbed this off the studio FB page - Terina likes to post collages.

So when it was all said & done.... I really wouldn't have been able to wager on how they did, if they were moving on to Nationals or not. Couldn't even begin to guess! This afternoon we got a text from Terina saying the team was invited to wear comfy clothes to class tonight and they would be celebrating their hard werk, dedication, love and support for each other with pizza and snacks. And then she mentioned they might be sharing some other great news, too!

So this evening, I got a text from Angel with this picture and the brief message

"All of them!"