nycda – houston

Kiana had a goal.
she wanted to earn an nycda “mini outstanding dancer” award which is the top award for dancers ages 7-10 years old that comes with a scholarship for one year for all other regional nycda competitions and it covers all your fees for nationals in nyc. Plus, when we go to nyc this summer she will get to be in a special “outstanding dancers” production number and still compete as a mini since she will be turning 11 before then… anyway, some of that is dance world linguistics…

When center stage, our dance studio went to nycda regionals in salt lake city I watched her work her butt off in every workshop class and get chosen by teachers to demonstrate things, etc. she was chosen as a semi-finalist out of the mini’s in slc then she went to scholarship auditions and she stood to the far right of the judges and we watched them not watch her. needless to say, in slc she didn’t get the scholarship/award…

So, we headed off to another city to try again.
{persistance}
Kiana and I went to Houston, Texas this weekend for nycda regionals. On Saturday she attended 6 hours of classes {She takes classes in ballet, a few jazz, hip-hop, and tap} and then finished by 3pm. This was our only afternoon/evening that we really had to get out and play. We headed to one of the nation’s largest shopping malls, the Galleria {it even boasts a large indoor ice skating rink right in the middle – we did not ice skate with the chances of breaking an ankle!} and did some shopping and had a yummy dinner at the cheesecake factory.

I have never been a fan of cheesecake, but we still chose FOUR that sounded to die for and gave them all a try…strawberry, oreo, pumpkin, and chocolate chip cookie dough…they were ok, but after this effort, I am going to stick by my taste buds and stop trying to love cheesecake… Kiana and I both had about one bite of each, what a waste!

Kiana and I had so much fun just hanging out together in-between dance convention events. Besides our one afternoon out and about, we spent each evening ordering room service for dinner and watching a movie. We rented three movies in our room while there, “Sisterhood of the traveling pants 2,” “step up 2,” and “mamma mia,” which we had already seen but wanted to watch again!

Sunday we were up and going early again… Here is my favorite picture I caught of Kiana doing a leap in her ballet class with Duncan Cooper {amazing ballet professional currently in the Harlem ballet.} Kiana was also asked with two other students to demonstrate the ballet combo near the end of class for everyone, I will post the short video clip below. At this convention, there were 113 mini’s she was up against for the award.by mid-sunday we knew she had made it to the semi-finalist for mini’s…

On Sunday evening when her classes ended, they announce the outstanding dancers amongst a few other awards…

and SHE DID IT! She was given one of the two mini outstanding dancer awards in houston, and then there were also six runner-ups. Here is the picture they take after the awards with Joe Lanteri, he is the owner/president of NYCDA. He has many accomplishments but one of the coolest, i think, is that he is a faculty member at the Julliard school.me and my bear –I am so proud of her for how hard she pushed herself to get this! it was so fun to be with her and see her excitement. She now has a goal {if we continue to compete with nycda} to earn an “outstanding dancer” award in each age category. So, she would still have junior, teen, and senior…