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April 17, 2009 Whew! Picture week is over and what a great job everyone did!! Special thanks to the crew from Photographic Keepsake for providing all the props and backdrops for great photos!! I really appreciate all the time and patience of Keith, Steve and Carl the photographers. I don't know how you guys do it!
April 23, 2009 General Team meeting! Thanks for a great turn out parents!! I loved the comments and helpful insight! I think that we made some great decisions for our dancers! Donna will be typing up a memo from the meeting and sending it by e-mail for all who missed the meeting :)
May 4, 2009 What a fun weekend of competition! It was 2 days filled with so much emotion! PRIDE: as all the dancers rose to the occasion and did their very best. LAUGHTER: it was great to see old friendships rekindle and new ones form! SADNESS: as I watched the graduating seniors compete their last dances. HAPPINESS: as my own daughter bounced from room to room to watch her favorite dances. It was a great way to finish out our regional competitions in Minnesota! Now we have National Competition in Palm Springs in California to look forward to! I I now turn the focus to "RECITAL TIME" which is going to be an amazing show of talent. We have such a great group of kids this year that I know that recitals are going to be the icing on the cake for wrapping up a fabulous dance season!
May 18, 2009 Recital weekend proved to be another great showcase of talent! A special thanks to the remarkable staff of Dance Express for putting on 5 professional quality shows! It felt as though the shows ran like a well oiled machine!! Also special thanks to Paul Christianson and his light crew for doing a fabulous job with lights and special effects and the amazing custodial crew at Mankato West High School for always making us feel right at home! As we put our thoughts toward next season and next years recitals final thanks to all the parents for putting your faith in our program.
June 13, 2009 Lake Okoboji Dance Camp!! We had a great group of kids and staff for dance camp this year! It was a year of firsts... First year that the buses arrived ON TIME! The first year that the temperature was an average high of 55 degrees! BBRRRRRR! The first year that we had to have our camp show INSIDE! Despite our new challenges I feel like it was such a fun year. We had "tough" dancers that make the best of every situation! In the beginning of the spring I had the fear that this may of been our last season of Lake Okoboji Dance Camp but after the great turnout and response from staff and parents I am happy to report the the tradition of L.O.D.C. will continue :)
June 27, 2009 NATS 2009! Dance Force and S' Express, Mitzi, Donna and Sara Panzer attended "national competition" in Palm springs, CA. The girls competed with "Hall of Fame" talent competition did FABULOUS! All the dances received either High Gold or Platinum Honors. The dance "ching-a-ling" took 1st overall in the small group National league. The dance "Are you the One" received "great intensity" award. The dance "The Nightmare" made it as runner up in the the "World Series" competition which consisted of the top 5 high scoring routines. When we weren't competing we stayed in San Diego (2 condos right on Mission Beach). We had a great group of teens. Everyone was so easy going and lots of fun! Besides the beach we also did some sight seeing to Coronado Island, Sunset Cliffs, La Jolla and Hollywood. We took a guided tour of celebrity homes in Beverly Hills. It was exciting to see where the Jonas Brothers lived as well as the home Michael Jackson was living in two days before he died!
July 25, 2009 Princess Camp! 60 newly crowned princesses just graduated from the Dance Express Royal Academy! It was great to have a morning session and an afternoon session to help run smooth camps! A special thanks to princess Jennifer, Princess Katie, Princess Kaylee, Princess Molly, Princess Maddy, Princess Megan, Princess Nicole and Princess Lindsey for making the whole camp soo much fun for so many little girls! Fun crafts this year included making their very own soap, picture frames, treasure boxes, magic wands, diaries and crowns.
August 10, 2009 With tryouts behind us now it's time to really focus on getting the fall schedule ironed out! A special thanks to our judges Paul, John and Sara for doing a fabulous job! Your words of wisdom were inspiring! I think we have some ROCK SOLID teams formed this year! I really loved the new additions to tryouts...Learning the dances ahead of time really make life less stressful for all involved! I also loved to be able to post the results immediately! No waiting for the mail to come and no wondering who else is on your team!! This week is POP STAR camp! We've got some excited dancers ready to work hard on their music videos this week! Today we made homemade lip gloss! It was so much fun for the girls to create their own colors and scents. Tomorrow we will be tie dying t-shirts. I had to laugh when I was preparing the ingredients for the tie dye! Jen, it really helps to read the directions ahead of time!
November 24, 2009 What a busy busy fall! It started out with a bang with the Minnesota Timberwolves inviting Dance Express to be their half time entertainment for their game in Mankato! With less than 3 weeks to prepare Meredith and I dove right in and started teaching a group Hip Hop dance to 120 of our team dancers! I am so proud of the kids for learning so quickly and being so dedicated! The performance was a huge success and we received several compliments from the Timberwolves staff! Even from T-wolves owner-Glen Taylor himself :) It was exciting to see so many dancers on the floor at one time! Special thanks to parents for helping to be organized and all the extra driving for extra practices! After the performance was behind us it was time for me to get busy choreographing for the cast of the Mankato West High School production of Beauty and the Beast! Although it was a big time commitment it was very rewarding to work with the talented kids from Mankato West. Now it's on to recital plans and costumes! With the fun theme of "A Night at the Movies" the choices seem to be endless! It seems like their are so many great choices for songs and costumes I'll have to narrow down my selections!
Jan 2, 2010 I can't believe Christmas break is behind us and the new year is already here! It was such a great break with lots of family and friends to enjoy a few days off! We were even able to come in and reorganize the storage room-a long over due dreaded project!! . A special thanks to Donna, Nicole, Brianna and Megan for your hard work. Now if we can stick to our pact of never letting it get messy again (ha ha). January and February will prove to be busy months with lots of fresh ideas and new choreography to try out on the dancers. It's "GO" time so kids be ready to learn a lot and work hard :). Parents, try to remember that your input really counts. Having your child perform the routines they will be learning in class is essential. Not only does it encourage practicing (which we all know is so important) but your "eye" is key on helping your child grow as a performer. Sometimes a gentle reminder from "MOM" might be the needed ingredient to reinforce what we teachers have been saying in class!!
April 23, 2010 We just finished the competition season!! I was extremely proud of not only the DXP dancers and staff but the amazing parents! We attended 3 large competitions. The first 2 were at the Northrup Auditorium which can be a challenge finding one another and locating dressing rooms due to it's enormous size! The 3rd competition proved to be quite lengthy (I think I pulled into my driveway at 2:00 am Monday morning!!) but it was held at the beautiful new Burnsville Performing Art Center. It was great being on the South side of the metro, shopping nearby and FREE parking is always a plus :) It was really nice at the various competitions to reconnect with other studio owners and directors to hear how they do things. I'm constantly trying to generate new ideas to keep improving at Dance Express. One thing that I think we will be implementing next fall is the addition of recreational teams.. I've had parents concerned that their children can't be involved with school activities and be on competitive teams too (due to time, budget etc...). Many of the studios in the cities have recreational teams (in addition to their regular competitive program) that aren't as much of a time/cost commitment (1.5-2 hours per week-only 1 competition per year). That way we could stay the course for those kids who can't get enough dance and also have a place for the dancer who needs to cut back! I also had parents ask to order the costumes EARLIER so there isn't the last minute scramble before competition season. This year we ordered costumes earlier than ever before (trying to keep costs down we primarily ordered from the various costume books and NOT have them custom made which has proven to be very costly - many of the costume catalogs didn't even arrive until the beginning of November) With the heavy snows on the East coast the past winter it slowed production of many of the companies down and we still didn't get our costumes until the beginning of March. |
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