Tweed Carnival

Well, it's official...the Tweed & District Figure Skating Club is finished for another season! We've held our two year-end events - the carnival and our awards banquet - so, the 2010/2011 season is history. And, as much as I've been looking forward to having my Saturday's back, I think I'm going to miss it in a few weeks.

Carnival - AROUND THE WORLD - Saturday, March 26th

Our theme this year was 'Around the World' - I had to choreograph four group numbers, and chose music from Holland, India, South Africa and Canada!

My Holland number actually ended up being a lot of fun - and the costumes came together perfectly. The little hats were so cute! I just wish I could have thought of a way to create skate covers that looked like the Dutch wooden clompen (clogs)!

Left - Right: Kiley, Sierra, Shelby, Alyssa and Kendal

I was a little nervous about choreographing the India number - I selected the song 'Jai Ho', from the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire', and wasn't sure how the group would respond. They were great though - I kept it pretty simple, and they picked up most of the dance steps pretty well.

No picture :(

The South Africa number was probably my favourite - no surprise there, right?!? I'm a little biased when anything African is involved. This was a small group number, it was just my four Senior STARSkate girls, so that in itself was fun. I can only take credit for half of the choreography though; the number was only about half done, so when I had to miss skating for my Nana's funeral, I asked the girls to add a little of their own stuff....and, they did! And, they did an awesome job! The costumes for this number were pretty fun, too. Especially their head pieces. The girls really wanted to have face paint, too, but we were afraid it wouldn't come off and they would be stuck with it for their solos and other group numbers.

Left - Right: Britteny, Jillian, Kate, Leah

And then there is the Canada number - it was my 'something different' this year. This was a Father-Daughter number - I had about 15 fathers come out and skate with their daughters! I knew I was going to use this idea before we came up with our theme, and at first, wasn't sure how to tie the two together. Then, I thought of Anne Murray's song 'Could I Have This Dance' and thought it would be perfect - cute for fathers and daughters to skate to, and a good Canadian classic song.

It was difficult to schedule practices, due to the fathers' busy schedules, so, I ended up having only one practice with dads and daughters together! I practiced with the girls two or three times, so they knew what they had to do; once the fathers stepped on the ice, they just had to follow their daughters lead. I was nervous about doing it this way, but it worked in the end.

And, it didn't really matter what happened with the choreography, this was a crowd pleaser just because the dads were out there. It was also a tear jerker, according to most of the moms. The number ended with the fathers down on one knee, and the daughters sitting on their other knee - and when a few girls leaned over and hugged their dads when it was all over, it even brought a tear to my eye!

It proved VERY difficult to get this picture! It was only a few minutes after the show wrapped up, and yet when we tried to get everyone back together, we discovered some dads had already left, some had changed, and I think all of them had their skates off. So, this is the best we could do - there are a few people missing!

Funny story from the practice with fathers on the ice. Part of the choreography had the fathers doing a waltz jump (a jump from forwards to backwards) and then a spiral (gliding on one foot while raising the other leg to hip level). Well, the waltz jumps proved to be a little harder then expected - they looked horrible and resulted in multiple falls. After a few minutes of practice, one of the fathers came over to me, and, looking me straight in the eye and with all seriousness says "Mary Beth, you might better just take that waltz jump right out" Ha! I laughed out loud, but also realized he wasn't joking, so, I took a vote and went with majority - I removed the waltz jump! But, I told them there was no way I was taking out the spiral. And, when the fathers did their spirals, there was a roar of applause, so I'm glad I stuck with it.

As always, the carnival was a great day and it seemed like all the kids really enjoyed themselves. It wasn't without some hassles behind the scenes, and leading up to it, but most people don't know about that stuff. One of those hassles was discovering multiple errors in the program at 11:30pm the night before the carnival! Ugh! But, those details aren't the things I want to remember about the carnival, so enough about that.