Usually this is the most stressful part of recital for me because not only am I keeping track of costumes, tights and multiple dance shoes for each of the girls, but I've got my own stuff to worry about too. Thankfully we didn't have as many costumes among the three of us than we have had in years past (a couple of the girls' classes combined in to a production number with one costume so it cut down the number of costumes by two -- and that's significant when you add in all the doodads like hair pieces, tights, etc.) so things in the dressing room thankfully started out easier for us this year.
The other part of this busy weekend that I tend to stress over is the girls' hair. The girls lamented that my bun-making skills were sorely lacking at picture night earlier in the week (I'm lucky to get a brush through my hair most days so they know this is not my forte to begin with). But I had another go at buns for dress rehearsal with some improvement. And confirming the adage the 'third time is a charm,' I was relieved (as were the girls) I got things figured out by the first night of recital so there were no unraveling bun incidents on stage.
The reason my bun-making skills improved was more about utilizing my resources better than my actual skills (use enough gel and bobby pins and you can make anything work!).
In the aftermath of three nights at the theater (dress rehearsal one night plus a show on both Saturday and Sunday), I'm paying the price of our haste -- getting out the door each day and heading straight to bed after each show -- by picking up bobby pins and hair nets all over the house (costumes however were treated with much more care). There was definitely a dump and move on thing going on with hair paraphernalia, especially for G. because she can't handle "stuff sticking in to her head" or "sticky hair" any longer than absolutely necessary.
I estimated I used about 20 bobby pins per bun, plus a few extra for their crowns, and when I picked up a dozen bobby pins off the floor yesterday I did the numbers on how many we likely used over the weekend. Multiply 20 by two girls over three nights and well, that leaves me estimating there are over 100 bobby pins scattered around my house right now.
The girls and I had a fun weekend with our dance friends but I am relieved I'm off the hook for a while with hairdresser duty and costume wrangling (bless those girls and their moms who do this sort of dance show stuff on a regular basis with competitions). I'm really glad this is only a once a year thing for us (I actually kissed each one of my girls on Sunday night to thank them for that).
The buns this year actually had to be below the crown per the dance teacher's instructions. Once I got that figured out the girls did their head-shake test to assess the bun's stability before we moved on to securing the crowns in to place with yet more bobby pins.
My Arabian dancers were part of a multi-class production number of Aladdin, which not only saved us money on costumes but helped moved the recital along to save on empty stage time that usually happens between individual numbers at recital.
The girls and I did a dance called Generations with other families (moms, grandmas, kids, cousins, aunts - every family had a different mix of family members dancing together) that we learned a couple of weeks before recital. Each family was charged with making their own costumes based on an assigned color so the girls and I went with a tie-dye look (a favorite craft project at our house). This year's music included a mix of "Me and My Shadow" and "We Are Family," which made for a fun number for both the families dancing and the audience.
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