Recital Work

This past weekend I shot my first long recital, I had to clarify that because I've shot three mini musical recitals. While shooting and editing what has been condensed down to a three hour program I have learned a few things and also I have some questions.

The biggest question that I kept asking was when does grace occur. When I say grace I mean the fluidity while dancing. The five year olds were cute, but they weren't really moving to the music. Instead they were just jumping up and down and doing what they thought they were taught. As the age of each group started to rise I started to notice that around middle school some people were starting to show signs of grace. Of course, others were flopping around like fish, grace is something that can't be taught. Trust me I am not graceful at all, and this is not a slight towards The Wife, but grace has not been her strong suit. I remember in first grade during music class the teacher had me stand up and sing a song. I was actually singing, it takes a few years of like to actually sing and not just say the words in a rythmic pattern. What is that age when grace starts to creep in? What is the age when you finally say yeah, maybe you need to do something else.

Then I started to wonder, do the parents of the ungraceful not see the fact their child has no rhythm or major skill at dancing. One girl looked to be in high school and you could tell she had no desire to be on that stage. The other two girls dancing with her, were not the best dancers but they were putting out a very admiral effort. The other was going through the motions. I kept imagining her inner dialog.

"Gosh, why am I still doing this... step ball change... I hate dance, like, I haven't wanted to dance for like three years... hop, pop, slide... I just want to go home and read Twilight for the fifteenth time... spin, drop, pepper grinder... Edward Cullen is so dreamy."

Then you had the kids that you could tell LOVED being on stage yet did not have any skill. For them I say keep dancing, I would be in this group, they are oblivious to everything, but they just gotta dance man!

There were many kids on stage that just did a great job and have some sort of skill, yet with those kids there is a subset, the divas. They believe they have skill and they believe they are the next big Broadway star. Even though they can be a little "over the top" to be honest those are the kids with the parents that will ALWAYS by a DVD and even though I hope my kid will never turn out that way. The more the merrier, keep buying my DVDs for $25 and help me make a living.

For the most part things for me went off with out a problem, except for one guy. I'm shooting a tap group and this guy walks up to me all angry asking for the manager. It takes me a few seconds to wonder what's going on and during that time I swear I smelled Bourbon. I tell him I think the back because there is a production going on. He keeps asking me questions and finally I had to tell him I am not connected with the company directly, I'm just freelance. He storms off, come to find out his child's name was left off the play bill. I hated it for that kid, but really, you had to interrupt me shooting your kid dancing? Maybe I don't understand parent logic because my kid is still baking, but couldn't that wait till oh I don't know afterwards? It's not like they told her she couldn't be on stage, it was a typo. Deal with it later, enjoy your kids performance. Be happy now and then rip someone a new one. If I was vindictive a certain name might get left off of the DVD, but I can't cause I need money.

Over all it was a good experience and hopefully enough people will like this DVD and maybe I can get a few more ordered before I jump the price up another ten dollars. Even better I get 20 more after the price increase.