Crazy Tutu Day

Well, Halloween class was pretty dang fun. There were costumes, and crazy rock and roll accompaniment, and I didn't even run over any trick-or-treaters on the drive home. Woo! My teacher was wearing a full-body bear suit, which was basically adorable during EVERY SINGLE exercise. Dance class should be like a high school and have crazy hair day or pajama day (or more likely tutu day) once a month.
You know, when I was in high school I never (never EVER) participated in those "spirit days" but to this day I have nightmares that I go to school with no clothes on because it is supposed to be naked day and no one told me it was canceled. And then I have to pretend I am not naked and hope no one notices? Ugh. Never mind.

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.

This is Halloween

Okay! So Halloween is coming up. And that means women in far too skimpy "sexy" costumes getting rat-faced all weekend. And we all know (or SHOULD know) that I am kind of a clothing construction and costume geek. It's what I do, darlings (read that "DAHlings" and remember to sound as snooty as possible. Or at least like Edina from Absolutely Fabulous). Anyway... so last year I was expecting mountains of ladies in their gigantic "Black Swan" costumes to be hogging the club floor, but in reality Halloween was on a Monday so the evening's entertainment largely consisted of my husband and I, and about half a dozen other working slobs dressed in comfortable shoes and drinking conservatively while watching bands play and checking our watches every few minutes because duh we have to get up in the morning. I saw pictures from other people's Halloween nights, though, so I know the skanky Black Swans were out there (I was a fully clothed white rabbit from Alice. Very very clothed. Not even a little bit sexy). I think there will be more this year, though, because companies have had an entire year to get their designs sorted and their stuff produced. Out of curiosity (okay, because I felt like making fun of something) I checked out Trashy.com's ballerina costumes. Because Trashy (despite it's awful name) is known for it's elaborate and fist-clenchingly expensive "sexy whatever" costumes that are then ripped off by everyone else in the industry. Wait, wait, wait... is this a sexy storm trooper costume? Sigh...
Anyway, here is their "Black Swan" costume:

All things considered, aside from the unfortunate amount of visible butt cheek and a certain wobbly shapelessness to the skirt (and the stripper heels), it's not that bad. At least, considering some of the things that are out there. Of course, since this getup tops the charts at about $600, the fact is that you could buy a REAL tutu for less money. Not that it would be the crème de la crème or anything, but sheesh, it would at least be shaped properly, and probably cover your butt cheeks. You could even wear stripper heels if you want, though really if you're going for ballerina you need to go all the way. Heels do not equal ballerina. At least get some flats and tie a ribbon around 'em.
On a different, ranting note: am I the only one who thought it was seriously annoying that the movie refused to used the names Odette and Odile and dumbed it down to "black swan" and "white swan"? Any real dancer would already know those names. But then, real dancers have lives, and real ballet directors live in one bedroom apartments with cockroaches, so what am I doing splitting hairs?