nuvo dance nationals

kiana and i just returned home…
after having a great time in beverly hills.

kiana spent seven of the days dancing for nuvo dance nationals-
rehearsals.
workshop classes.
competing.

we arrived one day early and stayed one day extra to have some time to play. on our first evening there, we headed to the movie theaters to see…

the proposal –

we loved it. so funny. so cute.

on our second day, we took a hollywood tour! it turned out to be so awesome because the tour takes 2-12 people per little black van, and our group only ended up with four people. so, the driver was very accommodating whenever we said, “hey! stop here!” for example…at michael jackson’s home.

two days before his funeral services, we paid a visit to his holmby hills home-we drove all over rodeo drive, beverly hills, holby hills, and bel air neighborhoods. some of the actors/actresses the driver told us about, i had no idea who they were {i’m still a bit young to know old hollywood. kiana would say, “mom, who’s that?” and i had no idea…} but a few highlights were…the home billy ray is building for miley cyrus, will smith, drew barrymore, hugh heffner’s playboy mansion {seriously}, tom cruise & katie holmes, simon cowell {which was cool because my neighbor is his builder!}, to name a few…
next we stopped downtown to see the chinese theater where the stars have their hand prints in the sidewalk. i thought it was cool to see frank sinatra’s, and kiana thought it was cool to see the cast of harry potter. a couple other notable ones for us were will smith and shirley temple.
we walked down the road a bit to a shopping area that had an observation deck to see the “hollywood” sign. to say the least, we were disappointed in how little it was from this view…
another stop was the farmers market where we had lunch, and after walking around a bit realized we were at the grove! one of my favorite places from our trip to l.a. in march…after our tour, kiana returned to rehearsals and started her week of dance…

she spent hours rehearsing with her coaches for the dances they would be competing and she spent hours and hours in convention classes with guest professionals teaching the classes… i am so proud of kiana because she was one of the few girls who never skipped one class!

company rehearsals-
two of the nineteen workshop classes she attended-during workshop classes one afternoon, a few of the dancers currently on “so you think you can dance” stopped by to visit…

kiana got to meet brandon and kayla–in the morning, afternoon, or evening…whenever kiana had more than a thirty minute break, we would take time to walk about two blocks from our hotel to
“century city.” it’s a fabulous outdoors mall with gre
at food, and movie theaters. a favorite stop was the pinkberry! how we love our yogurt! one day while also shopping {very quickly} we crossed paths with marcia cross from desperate housewives! she was a gem of a sweetheart and was very obliging to take a picture with kiana & cheyenne…
kiana, kelsey, isabel, and lisa walking to century city.
cute dancers.
we made pinkberry runs as often as possible!
this is also a pic of the hotel we stayed at…one afternoon at century city, we ate at “pink taco,” and nicole richie was right across from us, so kiana snapped a picture with her, nicole is one very cute pregnant momma! the picture on the right is our favorite dessert crepe –

strawberry, banana, nutella…we had a few of these 😉i don’t have pictures for this, but kiana also got to go to dinner with the murillo family and ashley tisdale! she had a great time spending an evening with them.

early in the trip, most of junior company had a free evening so with two other moms, we took eight of the girls by city bus to the santa monica pier. it was a blast! we rode the ferris wheel and the roaster coaster {twice} and ate dinner at the mexican restaurant at the end of the pier. we only had a few minutes to play on the beach before we had to catch our bus back to the hotel…but that was ok because the evening was a bit chilly.
a picture of us all riding the bus back to our hotel. it turned into quite the bus hunt to find one going back to our hotel at 9pm. The original one we planned on taking never showed up! so, i made friends with a very nice local guy who walked us a few blocks to find a different bus!
kiana dances on the junior company at

*center stage performing arts studio.

because the competition had professional photographers, i only could take pics of the girls in their costumes before or after each performance.

this past week the junior company competed in six dances at nationals and kiana also competed her solo. i missed a picture of one team dance “eyes on me,” and SOMEHOW i missed pics of kiana competing “dancing with myself,” for the last time this year. i must have been enjoying watching her dance and did not think about my camera!

kiana and her company coach stacy. stacy is so talented, and creative. we just adore her! thank you stacy, for all the hard work and long hours you invest in the dancers!

“let it fall” click here to hear the adorable song!
the picture below is of the dance, “call the law,” and it has been my favorite dance that junior company does all year. this dance made it to the final-finals and took 2nd runner-up for the overall junior category! the juniors danced so good! way to work so hard girls! i’m so proud of you!

click here for the music…
“simple symphony”
“{shorty} get loose”
“i’m alive,” production number. this is the costume the juniors normally wear for the same dance they performed at stadium of fire…

pool party! nuvo had a poolside dinner party one evening. they had hot dogs, pretzels, chips, soda, etc. for all the dancers and parents.
Nuvo awards the dances either silver, high silver, gold, high gold, or DJ’s choice. Only a few dances all year received DJ’s choice awards. Earlier in the week the girls had to pre-qualify a few dances that they didn’t compete at regionals. during that time they received two golds and one high gold. When Kiana competed her solo at nationals, she received a high gold {way to go bearzy!}

When Center Stage competed in finals, every single dance center stage competed received a high gold AND through-out the week we had a total of FIFTEEN DJ’s choice awards!!! it was so awesome! four of our dances made it into he final gala, which is a semi-formal event. Each of our age groups had a dance in the gala – the mini’s, juniors, teens, and seniors.

the nuvo black and gold gala. i was the black, and kiana was our gold! so cute. the main ballroom where the girls danced all week is the ballroom that was used the first two years the academy awards were given. we had a very yummy dinner, and then enjoyed the gala which included a final competition. center stage had a mini’s group competing, our juniors, teens, and seniors! FOUR dances! Then as a surprise, NUVO announced they were going to split the mini/juniors and teen/seniors and the top scoring dance from each of those groups in addition to their cash awards and prizes…the two top studios would also receive a one year scholarship to all regionals and nationals in 2009-2010 to cover ALL studio expenses. This is HUGE because some stuidos this year spent $60,000 in just our registration fees for the nuvo competitions!

and guess what??? our TEENS “just dance!” won the teen/seniors!

not only that, “get silly” was the national 1st runner-up for minis! “call the law” was national 2nd runner up for juniors! “dreaming” was the national 2nd runner-up for seniors! AND.. Jessie was national 2nd runner-up senior break-out dancer! Jill was national 1st runner-up senior break-out dancer! AND… Jenna, Hefa,Eric, and Ruger all were chosen at die-hard dancers!

did you know?

our teens being CHAMPIONS awarded CS free tuition to nuvo regionals and nationals for ALL OF NEXT year!!!

Also four of our Seniors are now apart of MSA the biggest agency in cali.

We won almost everything!!

and, our relaxing day-after the finals…we went to the santa monica pier {again} and i will post polaroids from that later.

but we also spent a portion of our day out in malibu.
i love malibu.
we found an adorable shopping area called the country mart & lumberyard. at the lumberyard we stopped at CRUMBS to have a cupcake.

there were cupcakes named after courteney cox, artie langue, lots of stars.
it was fun.
and i went to my first crewcuts STORE there!

it’s always fun to meet a shop in person, that i’ve only seen the catalog of…but i was in love with these cactus’ too. aren’t they the cutest?!?

our relaxing day was a perfect end to a busy week!

*****

*side note: the utah valley magazine has an awesome cover story this month about chelsie hightower who is one of the amazing teachers at center stage and had all her dance training there…it’s a great read! check it out!

if you are interested in signing your kids up for dance at center stage, you can register now for fall classes! or – better yet, company auditions are july 21st-22nd!