Special experience

It is such an honor for these young girls to be ask to dance with the pre professional dance company G2. It also shows great dedication. Josie is performing Fri, Sat, Sun for 2 wknds.

The G2 girls did a phenomenal!

Muffins with Mom

Calvin has a fabulous teacher who mixes learning with fun and crafts and love. Mrs Michelle is a great teacher! For muffins with mom the children made us some fabulous gifts and Mrs Michelle made us a scrapbook of the year in her class and personalized it for each child.

Josie Lane is blossoming

I felt this was a time where I had to make note of something really wonderful going on with Josie. 

Above you see her at age 1 and 2 in Dancing Dolls and Happy Feet classes.  She has always loved dance as most kids do when classes are fun and filled with dance, a fun teacher (Miss Kelley), lots of props and super cool songs. When Josie was 6 she auditioned for a part in GHDT's Nutcracker.  She got the part of  a unicorn and they had just opened Academy of Gregory Hancock.  I remember the first time going for auditions and they didn't have the floors down yet.  Josie had taken dance since she was one and decided to put the girls in a modern class, which was something wasn't offered at the Fishers Y.  She was the youngest in the class at AGHDT as they didn't typically take students till 8 but since she was in Nutcracker they went ahead and let her.  She had Miss Meredith Brown and fell in love with dancing that was more demanding, more technical but in her eyes still very fun!  I always told Miss Meredith she had the perfect blend of "sweetness" and "I know you can do this so get your but busy!"  She added ballet to her night of modern and was still taking classes from Miss Kelley too.  The following year she added a second night with Miss Melanie Eakman, who has the same sweet personality as Miss Meredith and the same get busy attitude!  Again, great teachers just solidifying that we made the right choice to add AGHDT into her dance life.  This year she made the choice to really beef up her dancing.  She takes 10 hrs of dance a week between 2 studios.  I am constantly checking in to make sure she is still happy and doing what she enjoys!  Someone ask me if Josie minds giving up her Sat for dance.  I said it's only the morning and she doesn't think twice about it.  In her eyes she's not giving up anything.  It's her passion...when she gets home from dance on Saturday's she's typically choreographing dances or doing dances she already knows all afternoon. 

Over the past 2 weekends Josie has done 2 dress rehearsals and 4 shows.  She did 7 numbers in each of  AGHDT's shows and 7 in each of the Wishes shows.  Ask her if she wish she did less!  Ask her if she is tired of dancing!  I can tell you what the answer would be NO WAY!  In both AGHDT's and Wishes shows Josie had a little solo in part of a dance.  I remember watching her in Miss Melanie's ballet thinking where did my baby go?  I couldn't help the tears from falling.  Where's this tiny little girl with feet so chubby that I could hardly squeeze them into her ballet shoes?  The answer is that in the past 3 years she has grown not only as a dancer, but as a young lady.  She is responsible beyond her years.  She knows her schedule, she keeps track of her own dancewear.   She practices.  And this is on her own.  I have never once said Josie you think you should practice that dance or work on this.  All while getting straight A's in school.  Now, onto watching her in her solo in Wishes.  She was a helper for the intermediate jazz class and did around 10 fouette turns in a row without stopping, falling or  hesitating.  If you know what a fouette turn is you will be highly impressed.  At this moment I felt immense pride.  I realized the week before she was growing up and now I choose to embrace this awesomeness and revel in the power, balance and strength that it takes to do these turns.  This is my beautiful daughter!  I AM PROUD

The saying goes "It takes a village to raise a child".  It also takes a village to teach one to dance.  It is so important for dancers to have many types of dance and we have found studios where that is possible.  I feel very lucky that all of you:  Meredith, Melanie, Martin, Gregory, Kirsten, Sara from AGHDT, and Diane, Kelley, Jere, (and I have to take a little credit since I've been her dance teacher too:) from Wishes have been a part of Josie's village! 



Solo in Miss Melanie's Lucy

This was Martin's Broadway Jazz Josie front right



Fouette Turns