Dress Rehearsals, Presentations, and Performances, Oh My!

Well, we've made it through the week of dress rehearsals and practice performances. Miss Diva had rehearsals from 5:00 to 9:00 almost every night this week. That's a lot to ask of a seven year old, but she's held up miraculously well (probably due to her undying enthusiasm for dance and an apparently endless supply of energy). In the Chronicles of Narnia ballet, the mice come on stage after the dramatic scene in which Aslan is killed on the stone table. As young and cute as they are, they provide some comic relief after the tension and sadness of the previous scene. They scurry around and untie the ropes binding Aslan to the table. Miss Diva is the first mouse on the stage, and they are all so cute! She is just in love with being a mouse (although she has confessed that she hopes maybe next year, she'll get to be a flower - pictured above in the pink and green dresses beside her). Myself, I can't even contemplate next year after this week's grueling schedule!

Also on the docket this week was the kids' presentation of their robotics team at our local library. They set up their competition table in a meeting room at the library and showed how they would run the robot through the challenges at the competition. They also presented their research project (which is in the form of a play about medical applications of nanotechnology on cancer), and took questions and answers from the audience, similar to how they will answer questions from the judges in the competition this weekend. Afterwards, they demonstrated the robot for anyone who wanted to take a closer look. I was really impressed with all of the work they've put into this, and how professional they are all able to be. M. especially really took time to show some of the kids from the audience how to work the robot, and let them handle it and run it on the table.