Scarlett's Dance Debut: SOTE Dance Recital 2014

Scarlett's first ballet recital was quite the production.  After a full week of rehearsals (!?), it was showtime at the historic Kessler Theater!  Scarlett's ballet teacher (Ms. Lisa) and her husband own the Kessler, an art deco style theater built in 1941 that was previously owned by Gene Autry and is just a few minutes away from our house.  The theater has seen some rough times through the years, including being hit by the famous 1957 Oak Cliff tornado and suffering a devastating fire in the 70s.  Then it was abandoned for over 30 years before Ms. Lisa and her husband bought it in 2009 and returned it to it's original glory.  This is also where Scarlett takes her weekly ballet classes.  Chris and I have seen a few musicians here in the last few years, and it's a great venue with awesome acoustics and a really intimate feel.   

Note the marquee -- it was a sold out event as well as SOTE's 15th anniversary.  ("SOTE" stands for Studios on the Edge, because the original studio was literally down the street from us on Edgefield before moving to the Kessler.)  

View of the crowd from the upstairs balcony where BB and I enjoyed the show on opening night.  There were two shows (Friday night and Saturday afternoon) because it's a small venue.

Our beautiful ballerina after the Friday night show.  As soon as we found her on the stage after the finale she was waiving her hands around frantically saying, "Everyone else has flowers!  Everyone else has flowers!!  Why does everyone have flowers?!?"  Thankfully, her Daddy was waiting for her outside with flowers.

Leighton and Scarlett.

Mommy and Scarlett.

This is the staging area where the youngest dancers hung out during the show.  The picture doesn't do it justice; it was a madhouse.  Chris and Grandma had backstage duty for the Friday show, and BB and I took over for the Saturday show.  For some reason, there were very few moms backstage on Friday night, so Chris and Grandma basically found themselves in charge of all 9 ballerinas from Scarlett's class.  Their duties included getting them back and forth to the theater for both their dance and the finale, lipstick and hair touch ups, snacks, potty breaks, and entertainment.  Both Chris and Grandma came home afterwards and promptly had a well-deserved drink.    

Playing an iPad game with Vera while waiting to go onstage.  See that bun?  That took me days to master.

Scarlett, Leighton, and Vera backstage on Saturday.

The whole class (Scarlett is third from the left).

On the stage after the Saturday performance, which was attended by Grandma, Paw, Chris, Max, Aunt Brenda, Jennifer, and Cousin Jordan.  Scarlett got even more flowers this time thanks to Brenda and Jennifer (plus more flowers from Daddy; a girl can never have too many flowers).  

Max and Jordan weren't too keen on having their photo taken.

Beautiful ballerina.

And here's a video of the performance from the dress rehearsal.  Presenting "Somebody Come and Play" from the 3-4 year old SOTE ballerinas!  (Scarlett is the third one from the left.)