"100% Pure Love"

I know it's late here in Toronto, but I needed to share some pure awesomeness as quickly as I could!

Our Company photographer Greg Tjepkema just emailed me some rough copies of 2 pictures to wet my taste buds tonight...

Above is one of our Lyrical Groups entitled "Bird Girl", and the other picture is of 13 year old Savanah in her Jazz Solo costume! I mean, I loved both of these numbers regardless of what the pictures would have turned out like... but I think I just found a whole new appreciation for my work!

I'm going to need to find a mop quickly to clean up my drool off the floor!

"We Belong Together"

So yesterday was insane... which for those of you who don't follow cool lingo, means really great!

We had an unbelievable photo shoot downtown for our Company students with Greg Tjepkema and I can't wait to share the photos with everyone. I really tried to push the envelope this year, so I can stay a step ahead of everyone following in my footsteps! We used a gorgeous row house as a backdrop, an abandon train, the hood of my car and pretty much any cool place we could find to create magic. We did head shots for all the kids, and decided to get a 'dance shot' of each of them in all black on a white brick background. We got all of our group shots done in all various places and then we finished up at the beach in water with balloons and climbing trees. It was a lot work, but it was worth it!

Then we decided that after the Photo Shoot would be a perfect time to have our annual Company end of year BBQ Pool Party. We always have several get togethers a year for our Companies, including a Christmas Party, but everyones favorite is always at the end of the year. We are all done our competition season and everyone can really let loose and have fun. Were lucky enough to have a great family in the Bellchambers at our studio who lets us use their house every year. They have a big backyard with a heated pool, a hot tub and a fire pit, so the kids are amused for hours. The dads BBQ, the kids run around and the moms work on their contemporary dancing while all the staff enjoy the show!

Now in the past when we have had Company parties with everyone included it has always seemed a bit disjointed. The older kids would always hang out together in a separate area of the backyard then the younger kids. They would hide up in small groups in bedrooms upstairs and it just didn't seem like a big group atmosphere. And to be honest, I never really noticed it was like that until I experienced how different our party was yesterday!

There was one point in the evening when every kid from our studio was there and every parent was as well, including my own parents. Everyone was gathered out on the deck while every kid was in the pool together, from age 5 to 18. The moms were doing a Rockette line and the kids this time were cheering on their parents instead of being totally embarrassed by them. We started a fire and all the kids gathered to roast marshmallows and make smores. I went down to help them out only to find the Senior girls handing out the supplies and making the smores for the younger kids. The Inter kids were all roasting marshmallows for the Juniors and everyone was sitting in each other's laps around the fire.

I went back up to the deck and sat down with a group of parents spanning all the Companies and commented on how nice this was... they all quickly agreed. A parent who has been with my studio for many years commented on how great the atmosphere was and how happy she could see her daughter was. I guess sometimes you forget how much an 8 year old at your studio really idolizes a 13 year old. Just being able to ride on their back in the pool or to share a marshmallow with them around a fire really makes them feel included and special. I'm sure you can all understand how a younger student can look up to an older student as a dancer, but can you say the same about them as people? Yesterday I could say that I had 32 kids who all felt special and included, as well as about 50 parents who could not have been happier with that reality.

We leave for our Nationals trip in about 4 weeks and now I could not be more excited. The parents planned an evening out in Rhode Island, while the older kids agreed to babysit for the night. We also decided to have a bonfire at the beach the night before we all leave and I know that every family will be happy to participate. Nationals would have been exciting regardless, but now that everybody is more familiar with each other, it will bring an entirely new element of fun to the trip.

Maybe it's the combination of people at your studio in a year, or the group of kids you have at one point, but I feel it all kind of coming together for us right now. It won't necessarily effect the way the kids dance at Nationals, but I don't think how they perform will necessarily be what they remember most about our trip. They're going to remember the sleepover party they all had crammed in one room, swimming all together in the pool, and improv dancing on the beach at night. I like having meals out with the parents and I enjoy sitting by the pool having a Mojito with whomever is around. I'm glad that I can enjoy studio activities with all the families instead of just encouraging them all to do things together and not being included. It's also nice that I can be involved in all the fun and still be shown respect. After all, you can't really respect somebody that you don't really know!

"Picture Perfect"

So tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the entire year... Company Picture Day!

Now, normally I detest picture day at the studio. Every student in our entire studio in and out of the building at least once, including the entire entourage they show up with. Loose sparkles from one end of my studio to the next, bobby pins everywhere that clog my vacuum, and of course parents think it's the day to address every other issue they have. I loathe the forth coming of Picture Day every year... which is why this year I have opted out of it!

Instead, we are offering a professional photographer on site at our Recitals with a photo booth set up in the lobby area. Students can then have individual pictures done there at their leisure and parents can preview and order everything right there on the computer screens. We are also offering stage shots of every one of our classes, just like they do at competitions. That way were helping people to preserve those really special moments on stage that you can't duplicate. I feel as though it's a really great compromise to having Picture Day, which I know a lot of parents don't enjoy either, especially while the weather is so nice on the weekends.

However, I do like the pictures that come out of all of this, so I have found a suitable compromise to satisfy my needs!

Last year I hired a friend of mine, photographer Greg Tjepkema to do some more professional like photographs for the Competitive Team. I was tired of the same old poses in lines, in front of a grey cloud background in the studio... and I'm sure the kids and parents were as well. So, we rented out Berkley Church in downtown Toronto instead for an evening and decided to take advantage of the natural settings and the beautiful architecture. It ended up turning out better than I could have ever imagined!

We only took a bunch of our Intermediate & Senior student last year to try it out and see what would happen. We did a quick sitting for all of the kids to have some head shots done, instead of doing a solo picture in every group costume. We did all of our group pictures in various locations around the building and we tried to get some really special shots that took a lot longer to process, but turned out beautifully. I tried to make the pictures more like art, so people could be proud to show them off to their friends, and frame them on their walls as more than just another dance routine photo.

One of the great things about it was that a bunch of the kids actually needed head shots done to send to the National competition we were attending for the Title Competition. So it was kind of like killing two birds with one stone. They got a few shots taken, then Greg touched them up and we sent in what looked like head shots worth hundreds of dollars. We are doing the same again this year with the head shots, as about 7 of the kids need them for the Title Competition again this summer at our Nationals, so I make a lot of parents happy by taking care of that for them!

We have planned to do this again this year with Greg, but with our entire Competitive Team now, and we have moved to a different location. We've rented out a loft downtown for the day, where we have access to a great indoor space, but there are also a lot of outdoor areas to take advantage of around it. A really extraordinary picture day like this requires a lot of planning so we have already organized a lot of group shots before we get there. However, some of the greatest pictures last year came from the kids doing some improv around the space and Greg just snapping shots of them as they went. We'll do quite a bit of this on the fly, but I do have a concrete idea in my head of what I'm looking to accomplish before I get there.

Check out some of our pictures from our 2009 Company Photo shoot!

I have recently noticed online that a lot of my dance teacher friends have also started to get creative with their studio pictures and are having them professionally done. I'm glad that I may have inspired people to take another approach to something that might seem so insignificant in the grand scheme of the year, but these pictures do represent an entire year of work and growth in the kids. I take a lot of pride in showing off these pictures as a representation of my studio and how creative I can be with all aspects of what I offer. Sometimes it's the little things that you can do differently in your own studio that really shows people that you care and can set you apart.

When I look back at these pictures years from now I will be reminded of the great routines I choreographed and the wonderful kids I worked with. And even if the routine wasn't that great, at least I have a really nice picture to convince myself otherwise!