Morning Melodies ballet treat

I had a lovely outing yesterday to the Australian Ballet School's Morning Melodies performance at the State Theatre ... In fact if I'm to be exact, I actually went to both performances - the first at 11am with my husband (who also happens to be Hayley's dad - who'd have guessed that?!) and the second at 1.30pm with a friend who was also Hayley's ballet teacher before she went to the ABS two and a half years ago.

Arts Centre Spire - the State Theatre is under this

The theatre looked full from where we were sitting in the Stalls and it was all abuzz as everyone took their seats. It's a great opportunity to see the up and coming young dancers' first performance of the year and is always well supported with a great mix of wide-eyed youngsters through to the 'grey haired but still young at heart' brigade.

The programme featured Senior School students in Levels 6-8 who are around 16-18 years old and there were four different dances performed (both classical and contemporary) with each one being different from the next.

Hayley (Level 7) danced in the Corps de ballet in Paquita with other Level 7 and 8's. Paquita is a classical, tutu ballet and they all looked beautiful in their costumes which were supplied courtesy of The Australian Ballet.

The hour long performance was a treat from start to finish and it always flies by too quickly when you are a proud Mum sitting in the audience.

Hayley (far left) in last year's Australian Ballet/ABS Peggy performance.
This photo appears on the Australian Ballet's Facebook page and was taken by Jim McFarlane

From foam & fabric towers to ....... knee pads!

The finished item (well, six pairs actually - not including the three prototypes made on the way to my final version).

Hayley and some of her classmates at the Australian Ballet School (ABS) needed to have knee pads that matched their uniform colour which is a purple (but with not too much red and not too much blue). It looks a lot pinker here than it actually is and the purple proved to be rather a difficult colour to find in a stretch fabric. Thankfully I finally found a very close colour match in Spotlight.... which came just in time as I had various dye colours in my hands thinking I was going to have to go down that route! 

Ideally I would have preferred to use a cotton lycra but ended up with a Polyester Brush Back Knit with 5% spandex which should be very soft, flexible and comfy.

Knee pad - inside 3mm EVA foam

Knee pad - outside 38mm HD foam

My aim was to improve on the bright red knee pads they were already using by giving them a bit more protection so an extra layer of 3mm EVA foam was added on the inside.
 

What the???

The profile view (below right) looks a bit 'bunchy' behind the knee but as I modelled these for the photo, I did a bit of a test 'kneel down on the floor' and couldn't feel the fabric bunching so it should be good. I can always cut a small hole behind the knee if needed.

(Note the black stockings ... which were essential as my winter legs are not always as smooth as they could be!!)

Towers & Morning Melodies

I've made a bit of progress over the weekend with the 'foam project'. Here's a fabulous foam tower that took some deft scissor skills to fashion ten ovals out of 38mm thick, high density foam.

An electric breadknife may have been useful here but we don't have one of the those which meant that after cutting about seven pieces (and still three to go) I realised I had blisters on my knuckles.

Then, after quite a few step-by-step stages, I had a fabric and foam tower.

Almost there now ...

 

Hayley (my daughter) was busy baking and decorating some lovely cupcakes this afternoon. I thought they looked so cute that I'd share the photo I took .... yummmm

Marshmallow and Smartie flower decoration

Unfortunately no tasting of them though because she's made them for the Level 8 (final year) students at the Australian Ballet School to wish them well for their first performance of their final year in the upcoming Morning Melodies programme at the State Theatre this Tuesday and The Clocktower Centre at Moonee Ponds next Tuesday.

Hayley is currently in Level 7 and also dancing in this performance which I'm really looking forward to watching :-)