"A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever" - John Keats

People give you stuff when you sew. Like... "Hey. My granny just died and I was cleaning out her closet and I found this garbage bag full of polyester double knit and plastic beaded fringe from 1974 and I thought of you immediately!" And of course you accept it, because that's really nice (and besides their granny just died so you feel bad for them). And... well... because you can't pass up a sack of fabric! It might come in handy some day. You never know what treasures could be in that sack! I've got lovely silk brocade hanging in my closet that was buried at the bottom of a garbage bag full of broken trim and powder blue metallic netting.
Apparently, if you run a ballet studio people do something similar. But with costumes. "You teach ballet! Wow! You won't believe it but my second cousin's great aunt's neighbor's niece used to do jazz and tap and somehow I ended up with an entire storage unit full of AMAZING costumes!" Your gratitude is assumed.

In preparation for the studio's big Summer recital I am going through tupperware bin upon tupperware bin full of random tutus, leotards, and other costume bits and bobs that somehow ended up in the studio's possession, weeding out the ones that are beyond hope and fixing the most egregious flaws in the remainder. I have spent a couple of weeks, now, going through these, and it's totally awesome, to be quite honest. Especially because I get to remove/trash the ones I would rather burn than work on (a rare and empowering experience in the world of costuming!). Below I present some of the most heinous incredible creations that ever graced the form of a 7 year old in tap shoes and pigtails...

Now. Some of them aren't so bad. This one, for instance, could use to be soaked in Oxiclean for a month and gone over with a steamer to remove wrinkles, but you can see what they were getting at, anyway:

I'm thinking Tinkerbell.

And there are things that... well. They aren't really SO bad. Not when you consider that they must have come from 1987:

I mean, yes, it's ugly. But check out that sky-high French-cut leg opening we've got going on, here. You

just can't be mad at a leotard inspired by Jane Fonda AND Gunne Sax, can you?

No. You can't.

Of course, then there are things for which words seem inadequate:

It inspires one to poetry, does it not?

The neon pink fringe

it lay-th below

acid green sequins,

all aglow...

And then this happened:

I want to point out that this neon yellow and pink

leopard print unitard, here, is an ADULT size small.

Adult. I am just going to leave you with that.

Great Big Pile of Nope

"In your professional opinion, are these tutus worth keeping?"

Nooooooooooope.

Minor Improvements That Must be Fought For

Sometimes breakthroughs are exceptional. A moment of clarity and suddenly you are doing something you've never dreamed of.
But, let's face it, mostly you get tiny imperceptible improvements over the course of three solid months of work and the final product can really only justifiably be called "less bad than it was".
Take this petite allegro combination that the students have all come to dread. It's not even complicated, it's just glissades, jetés, and assemblés. But it's quick and it changes directions halfway through and pretty much everyone hates it. Last night, for the first time since we've been working on it (ages! Ages have been put in to this damn thing!) I watched myself in the mirror and felt like it wasn't pitiably terrible, just kind of a wreck. There was, perhaps, a slight bounce in my proverbial bungee. PERHAPS.

Also new: apparently the studio where I take ballet has been voted "best yoga studio" in the city. Which is interesting, I must say, because they don't actually offer any yoga classes. We all think they should accept the award and put it on the front desk just to mess with people.

Halloween Dream

So, I have class on Halloween, this year. In fact I have 2 and a half straight hours of class. And everyone at the studio wants to wear costumes!
I am a BIG fan of wearing costumes at every opportunity, but I seriously doubt the ballet potential of anything in my closet.
What do I have all ready and waiting? Let's see.
There is: Dr. Horrible
Alex Delarge
the White Rabbit (from Alice)
my Renaissance Faire garb (yes, I am one of those people)
Mime
Death
Dinosaur
And these aren't "sexy" costumes, either. Well, Alex has a miniskirt because there was no way I could pull off a jockstrap and I had to embody over-sexed violent youth culture SOMEhow. But otherwise we are talking full-body costumes, here. With accessories and goggles (and a bitchin' dinosaur hat complete with feathers).
Choices, choices.
In seriousness, though, I'm pretty sure that almost anything that goes on my head would fly off as soon as we hit that first flic-flack, and anything that requires face painting or makeup would just end up dripping down my face and getting smeared all over the place because dudes, I am old and it is always 80 degrees in the studio. So, I will probably just bust out the one dance-proof costume headband I have (tiger ears). But, oh, what fun we could have. Now I wish I had tiger striped tights! I could totally rock that.