Trashion/Refashion Show 2013

It's been epic over here, y'all! Last weekend the littler kid and I finally, after rehearsals and dress rehearsals and practicing and tons of prep work, performed in the 2013 Trashion/Refashion Show. It's so hard to remember what you're supposed to be doing right as you pop onstage in front of all those lights and sounds and people, so I really encouraged the kid to practice her runway walk a LOT this year. She taped a mock runway with painter's tape right onto our living room floor, and practiced on it every single day, taking constructive criticism and Momma suggestions like a champ, and creating almost entirely by herself a perfect routine that involved her showing off the best features of her dress, holding her marks for the proper time, and memorizing the announcer's cues, all while staying energetic and happy toward the audience.

Seriously, that kid worked HARD.

I think she could see how well it paid off, though, as yep, she always knew her cues, and she always knew where to go and what to do there, and that kind of confidence feels good.

Perhaps partly because of all the practice, and partly because her grandparents had flown in from California to visit us that weekend, this is the year that the kid really seemed to grasp what a lot of work goes into being a runway model, and part of a major show like this. Not only did she miss her Science Fair for a dress rehearsal, but on the day of the show, while her grandparents, Matt, and the bigger kid built model rockets and launched them at the park, this littler kid and I were getting her hair and makeup done:

While the grandparents, Matt, and Willow hit golf balls on a driving range somewhere, the kid and I were waiting at the theater, doing yet another full-dress run-through, and waiting some more:

The entire time, the kid was deeply conscious of the fact that her dearly beloved grandparents were somewhere just out of reach, having loads of fun with her sister, and yet she was a great sport about it. She's got a killer game face, that kid.

One HUGE treat that made that weary time of waiting around at the theater a lot more bearable was the Bloomington Flight Club, which performed at the Trashion/Refashion Show and thus needed to practice their routine in that venue several times over the course of the day. I've never been to a Cirque do Soleil show, and I have NEVER seen anything like this before, and I (and everyone else hanging around in the theater!) was flat-out amazed by their performance:

It was just crazy stuff--climbing that silk, and tangling it around their feet to do some tricks, and winding it around them to do some other tricks, and then unraveling it and falling a long ways and yet still hanging on and everyone in the audience shouts "YAY!!!!" kind of stuff. Seriously, wow.

Eventually, though, we were backstage for real, with me trying to touch-up the kid's makeup and her being super picky about how she wanted it to look (Thank god for baby wipes!), and me putting my foot down about her definitely wearing the ton of red body glitter that we'd made together for the show and her changing her mind about wanting it and surreptitiously trying to wipe it off when I wasn't looking and me saying, "Dude, I can SEE the cloud of glitter at your feet," and her smiling and being like, "What?":

Meanwhile, in the audience:

The Skullduggery Pleasant love is VERY real!

The official Trashion/Refashion Show video will come out later (and will be shown off and on all year on local access TV, which makes me super happy, because back when we had cable a million years ago, local access was my favorite channel), but until then, I woo you with home videos of the event:

my favorite of the two Flight Club performances:

the runway walk:

As per usual, my kid was calm, cool, and collected, and I was so nervous for her that I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd had a heart attack or a stroke or something (well, maybe a *little* surprised, because I've been working hard on my health lately, but you get the idea). As I stood near the back of the theater, waiting to make sure that she made it safely up one aisle of the audience, then to meet her in the lobby and escort her back down the other aisle and through the stage door and backstage again, I experienced her runway walk completely differently. Also, completely incorrectly. When she first walked out onstage, I experienced her standing at her first mark FOREVER. I was sure that she'd missed her cue and was going to stand there like a rock the entire time! Foolishly, I even lost my head and began to wave "Come on!" gestures from the BACK of the DARKENED theater. I let out a deep breath when she finally began to move forward, and felt light-headed from apparently holding my breath for the entire time that she'd just stood there.

Yeah, that didn't happen at all the way that I experienced it. Even if you don't want to watch her entire walk, watch, like, the first five seconds, because that's all it takes for her to walk onstage, hit her first mark, wait for her cue, and then skip forward. That's also exactly how long it was supposed to take.

This is why she's the runway model, not me.

It was a great night, of course, but also a long night, and for the first time ever, the kid didn't want to stay through intermission and watch the second half of the show. She wanted to collect her congratulations--

--to change her clothes, to get the heck home, to take a shower, and to get into her jammies.

Interestingly, the kid's been saying that she might not want to do the fashion show next year. She thinks she might try roller derby when the bigger kid tries it in September, and is also considering not taking ballet again next year (although the fact that this is recital weekend, with MORE dress rehearsals and stage makeup and fancy hair and stress over missing uniform parts and a missed practice that was hidden on page 20 of a 25-page recital handout--seriously, WHO gives out a 25-page recital handout for a children's recital?). She's been saying that she's tired of going to ballet class on Saturdays, when she could be playing instead, and although that's kind of rich from a homeschooled six-year-old who spends the vast majority of each day in active, immersive, imaginary play, it's still her experience, and if that's how she feels, then that's how she feels.

Of course, the kid's not planning to quit all her previously cherished activities in order to go and live under a rock next year. It took about five minutes after we were all back home from the fashion show for each kid to ask me if they could learn how to do what they saw the Flight Club do. I did some research, and why, yes, the Flight Club DOES offer children's classes!

So after this horseback riding session, and after the softball season, and after the kids and I take a road trip to Connecticut and back, I promised them that I would sign them up for aerial silks classes. Perhaps next year, BOTH kids will be at the Trashion/Refashion Show--if not on the stage, then maybe 30 feet above it.