Happy New Year!!

Hopefully you all had time to spend with your friends and family over Christmas.  We definitely enjoyed a little break after our hectic Christmas season. On Saturday December 18th we finished the holiday rush with our own Christmas production of "The Gift"  It was so nice to see so many of you there. The house was packed for almost every show!

Here's a slideshow of some of the pictures from the performance taken by Tyler Dexter:

On Tuesday December 21st the company had our annual Christmas party. This year we had the wonderful opportunity to attend "The Nutcracker" production by Ballet Society of Colorado Springs. It was exciting for us to see so many of our students from workshops up on stage. Afterward we headed over to the Broadmoor to see the beautiful ginger bread houses and to open presents! We think Erin got the best present of all, 2 little handmade rice warmers for her pointe shoes. Such a good idea!

Now that 2012 is here we are back in the studio rehearsing for our tour to Cheyenne, Wyoming later this month. We're also preparing for our Little Ballerina and Choreography Workshops on January 28th.  The Little Ballerina workshop is perfect for anyone ages 4-10 who just loves to dance but may or may not get to be involved in any regular classes. Our choreography workshop is perfect for older dancers ages 11 and up who are interested in learning skills to help them create dances that truly engage and impact their audiences. Registration forms for the workshop can be found on our website www.balletemmanuel.org

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

The Christmas season is one of our favorite times of the year at Ballet Emmanuel so we took a festive survey of our dancers' favorite things about the Holidays. Here's what they said:

Melanie
Favorite Carol:  She has 3 but she loves listening to and singing "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts roasting, etc.) while cooking in the kitchen.
Favorite TV/Movie:  The claymation version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which she got as an early Christmas present this year!

Amy
Favorite Carol: When she was around 6 her family had a cassette tape with a kids choir who sang "The Holly and the Ivy" and she loved it so much that she'd sing it at the top of her lungs in the shower for months.
Favorite TV/Movie: Prep and Landing the newer cartoon about the elite special ops elf teams who prep each house for the reindeer to land.

Laci
Favorite Carol: Laci loves The Home Alone/Acapella version of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" and emphasized that she likes that version the best because it's silly, just like her.
Favorite TV/Movie: Elf because "I just like smiling, smiling's my favorite!"

Erin
Favorite Carol: She couldn't pick just one so she loves them all!
Favorite TV/Movie: "White Christmas" It's tradition in her family to watch it every year.

One of the biggest reasons we love this time of year so much is that we get to perform a lot! In addition to our own Christmas production of "The Gift" we also participate in the Christmas celebrations of several local churches.  Last weekend we kicked off the season with Sunrise Church's "Christmas Celebration." With four shows in 2 days we were quite busy.  Watch the slideshow below for photo's from the event taken by Tyler Dexter.

Surprise at St. Vincent!

One of our favorite events during the Kansas tour was returning to St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Andover, KS. This time they had a surprise in store for us. Since they knew that our performance depicted the story of the Flood their chef created an entire Noah's Ark cake!

There were even sugar cookies depicting all of the animals. Two of each kind.

Melanie loved the shark cookies. 

Amy and Laci loved the whole thing :-)

Right now we're busy busy busy preparing for the Christmas season. It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving will be here in a week and a half! Check our website for all of the events we're a part of as well as for information about our annual production of The Gift. Hope to see you there!

Midwest Tour 2011 Part 2!

We've been home from our last tour for about a week and a half now and dove right into choreographing and preparing for our Christmas concert! Crazy how time flies...

Looking back we are always in awe of the places we go and the people we meet when we're on tour. Here's a brief summary of some of the things we did during the second half of our trip to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

On Sunday the 16th we returned to St. Vincent de Paul in Andover, KS for a full performance of "Rain". St. Vincent is so dear to our hearts and it was wonderful to see them again. We also were able to see some of our friends from Benton, KS who made the drive over. (Stay tuned for an upcoming blog about the surprise St. Vincent had for us!)

On Monday we were able to visit Amy's ballet teacher Ms. Sharon Rogers and take class at her school. We love getting into a studio and taking class whenever we can but it's especially nice on tour.  When we travel we usually perform on tile or carpet over concrete and we spend a lot of time in the car. The combination of these is brutal on our bodies. Thank goodness Ms. Sharon was able to help put us back together!

We devoted Tuesday to Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Centers. It is so important to us to make time for community service while on tour.



Wednesday evening the First Assembly of God church in Wellington, KS hosted a "Rain" performance.  Though it is a small community the sanctuary was standing room only.  We want to give a special thanks to Connie Schaefer for bringing 19 Awana girls over from the Cornerstone Fellowship Church in Winfield, KS.





On Friday we offered some masterclasses at the Bethel College Academy of Performing Arts in Newton, KS. Melanie taught a short modern class to ballerinas between the ages of 6 and 11. They weren't so sure about it at first but by the end they kept saying "modern is fun!"



Saturday was our main event in Wichita, KS hosted by West Evangelical Free Church.  We had a workshop all afternoon and a full concert that evening.  As usual the 4-6 yr olds stole the show with their enthusiasm and everyone did such a great job.  This was our first church workshop of the season and it was so exciting to finally see the kids pieces that we choreographed come to life on stage. Amy's husband also surprised her and made the drive to Kansas to see the show. He definitely earned some brownie points!



Sunday was our eaaaaaarrly morning. We left our host home a 5:45am to get to Salina, KS for church services at the University United Methodist Church.  Thank goodness for coffee! Later that afternoon we were at the Stepz Dance Studio where we taught ballet and a fun lyrical piece.  After that it was homeward bound!!



We are so thankful for all of the opportunities God brought us during this tour. Please check out our Facebook page for more pictures from each of our events!!!

Crafty Card Night!

On Saturday we were invited to Sandy Appelhans' house for an evening of crafts and fellowship.  She is a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and regularly hosts classes for the community.  Turns out we can be pretty creative in more than just dance :-)

Looking back it's really funny to see how each of our personalities came out during the card making process.
 
Laci loves to figure things out for herself. She took on the challenge of  just looking at the example card and ignoring the directions.

Amy is by the book. Not only did she follow the directions but checked them off one by one as they were completed.


Erin has her own way of doing things. She decided that even though the cards were beautiful she'd rather mix up the colors and rearrange things a bit.

Melanie loves COLOR! She spent the most time with the watercolor markers and didn't want to move on to the next station. 


Card #1 Telescoping Fall Card- This one was a challenge at first. All the colors on the top were actually painted on with chalk!







Card #2- Maple Leaf Woven Card- This one was the favorite of everyone. The inside of the leaf is painted with the watercolor markers that Melanie loved. See how the edges of the "woven" part look burned? Don't worry, we weren't playing with fire. It's actually torn and brushed with dark brown ink to appear burned. Very cool.

Card #3- Thank You Banner Card- This was the first card we attempted and it was intimidating at first. With words like Big Shot, Embossing Folder, Dimensional, and Huffing we knew we were in a different world. It is interesting how the arts develop their own jargon and they'd probably be just as intimidated if we started talking about arabesques and pirouettes.





All Done! 4 projects in one evening, whew!



Apparently Stampin' Up! demonstrators can be found all over so look online for classes near you. If you're in the Wichita area check out Sandy's classes at http://sandyappelhans.stampinup.net

Thanks again Sandy for letting us crash your class!

Our 2011 Midwest Tour so far...

We began our Midwest Tour with a weekend in Siloam Springs/Springdale, Arkansas. We arrived late last Friday night at Erin's great aunt and uncle's, Paul and Louis Kimball. It is always extra fun when we get to spend time with one of our families on tour.

On Saturday we held a 6 hour workshop with the beautiful students of Adonai Ballet Academy. New Creation (a new professional dance company from Little Rock) also came and participated in taking our workshop that day. We had a lovely time with all of these dancers and are very excited to work with them again in the future.

On Sunday, we performed during a service at Siloam Springs Bible Church (in Arkansas) as well as danced for a nursing home right on the other side of the road in Oklahoma. It was very strange to be so close to the border and dance in 2 states in one day! Monday night we premiered our new original concert "Rain; Hope in the Midst of the Storm". We packed the house at John Brown University and received such a wonderful reception of the concert that we can hardly wait to share it with all of you.

On Tuesday we packed up and said goodbye to Arkansas headed to Kiowa, Kansas (a very small farming town). On Wednesday and Thursday evening we had the privilege of working with the girls from CH Dance Productions (a studio with a location in Alva, OK and one in Anthony, KS). We spent an evening at each location and we were very impressed with the girls' eagerness to learn and dive deeper into ballet technique. For more pictures of these events, visit our Facebook page.

We are so excited for the rest of the tour and what God has in store for us!