"Dancers are the athletes of God." - Albert Einstein

The ballet is a purely female thing. It is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.-George Balanchine-

This past weekend was Isabelle's ballet recital. The director chose a Stars and Stripes theme to pay tribute to those who serve and have served in the Armed Forces. There was beautiful patriotic music and some beautiful dancing.
Isabelle is beautiful ballerina and the quote about ballet choosing the dancer definitely applies to her. We could tell very early on that she was meant for this art. She almost walked in first position and when soccer didn't seem to be exactly her cup of tea (she preferred twirling on the sidelines to scoring goals) we enrolled her at the Ballet Academy. She has been there for 6 years now.
Bless her heart too, she unselfishly watches countless soccer and basketball and volleyball games and even endured a couple of endless track meets this spring and never feels sorry for herself that she only has one recital a year. Because of this generous attitude we try to make her recital weekend a big deal. Everything is about her that weekend and everything else comes second.
I have to say I burst with pride every year as I see how much she has grown from the previous year. But it's no suprise at the improvement considering she dances 4 days a week. This year she graduated up to the pre-pointe class, which for those of you less knowledgeable in ballet is a BIG deal. This means she is that much closer to the ultimate goal of dancing in pointe shoes!
Her feet, however, need to cooperate a little more and quit growing. Hopefully next spring we'll be able to take a trip to the dance supply store in Spokane and buy her first pointe shoes! I can't wait.

Here she is (sorry it's a little blurry) during one of the dances.

This is a group shot where they dance in synchronization in a line, I think they did a great job!

Isabelle in Arabesque after the recital.

A final salute!