Cinderella!
Max's dance school did their biennial production over Memorial Day weekend, his first venture into serious show business. Of course it wasn't all smooth sailing. One week before the show, just days before the full-scale rehearsals, Max injured his knee on some rocks at school. It was bad enough that he wouldn't put much weight on his leg, which made tap dancing kind of questionable. Of course it was over a weekend, so the only place to get an x-ray was our emergency room.

Turns out it was just a bruise, though the orthopedist wasn't sanguine about his chances of actually dancing by the end of the week. Max was pretty good-humored about all the waiting, both at the emergency room (hours and hours) and the orthopedist.

As it turns out, the bruised knee healed up before the full-scale rehearsals, but it did make the pre-show photography sessions a bit nervous. Here's Max at the solo pictures, waiting in line and being posed by Miss Suen.

And here's Miss Suen posing the whole chicken-and-bee crew for the group shot. Yeah, they're cute.

We weren't allowed to take pictures at the performance itself, but I took a lot of pictures (still, no flash allowed) at the first full run-through. This is the big moment in the farmyard, to the tune of the "Chicken Reel":

	Left: Max, coming on stage at the end of a line of chickens, with Cinderella looking on. Below Left: Max dancing next to their demonstrator/instructor, who's playing the mouse Jacques Below: Max does the end-of-routine flourish.

Here's the final bow: it's a big crowd up there, and Max was loving it. What they didn't tell the kids was that at the actual performances they audience would be invited to come up and greet the dancers, resulting in a wave of humanity rushing the stage.... a little overwhelming for the little ones.

	Left: the actual bow, done very properly. Below: Max gave me a great smile as they left the stage. He's lovin' show biz.

Here are some other pictures from the rehearsal: elegant bridesmaids, Cinderella and her horses, very cute fairies and exceptionally cute mice.

One of the big questions we had about how Max would do had to do with the several hours of waiting backstage with his group. He did OK at the rehearsals, even the one where parents weren't allowed, but the performances were much later, going well beyond his normal bedtime. He had a blast. The "den mother" supervising group parents brought all kinds of games, crafts and stuff.

The performances went very well -- the last few rehearasals really did tighten things up considerably: here's Miss Suen at final bow

We gave Max a lei on the second night: look at that smile! On the first night he got a rose from his teacher. Also, much to our surprise, a lot of the kids in his class brought "congratulations" gifts -- mostly candy in some form or another. On the right is Max -- about to fall over with exhaustion -- with the complete collection of commemorative snacks, flora and one star wand.

He's ready to do it again. By the second night, he was wishing there were more performances. There will be another abbreviated version in the fall, for schools, but it's not sure yet whether the chickens and bees will be part of it.  ¶ Friday, June 08, 2007