Summer Happenings: Dance for Elena

Elena has been begging since she was about two and a half to take a dance class. It never happened for a variety of reasons. Over the last year, we toyed with the idea of a dance class more seriously, but I was really hoping to find one that was a good balance between technique and just letting the kids move and express their natural creativity. And also a class that didn't try and make six year olds look like 16 year olds. I have a friend in our ward here who happens to have a Master's degree in dance and teaches part time at ASU in the dance department. She is a lovely modern dancer with a lot of talent, knowledge, passion, and an awesome personality. At the beginning of the summer, we worked out a great trade and she agreed to teach a 6 week dance class for Elena, her daughters, and two other friends. Elena was ecstatic when we told her that her long awaited dreams of a dance class were about to be realized. And I was as pleased as punch to have found such a perfect dance class - down to every particular. I knew Elena would be having fun, getting a good education, and have her love of dance and movement nurtured and not quashed.

Dance class was a sweeping success! Elena loved every minute of it and learned some good things along the way. Next Saturday she gets to participate in a dance festival that her teacher is helping to put on and hopefully more classes with Miss Sarah will be in store in the future!

Here is a clip from one of her classes.