AN: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! I'm having trouble updating. My reasons are two
fold. First, I can not seem to convince my pest of a sister to leave me
along long enough to type anything. She wants me to stay on her AOL name so
I can write what she wants to say to her friends. (She's much too much of a
princess to type things herself.) Second, my computer has gone all strange.
I think I have it mostly sorted out now but, we'll see.
elrohir lover: Thanks for the compliment!
Hobbitgirl11: Thanks! Acrobatics is wicked fun! I use to take it but I stopped just after my younger sister (the pest) blew her knee out. One of the benefits of knowing acrobatics, though, is the fact you can do some of the really cool stuff done in action based movies.
Lindiel Eryn: Yeah, little sisters can be very annoying. Dancers, on a whole, are not the most mentally stable people in the world. We all have our heads in the clouds someplace. The fact she's afraid of making mistakes is something every dancer has, especially if the real Spiro is your teacher. Thanks for the review as always!
Sarah: LOL! There's some more dancing coming up!
littlesaiyangirl: Thanks, as always! The night of the show is the most high stress night for any dancer and those two really do have breakdowns. I had the experience of watching them have their little episodes just before we went on stage.
elvenrocker: Interesting thought, I never considered that! Let's see what I can do!
Elainor: The show is usually just a few weeks after the costume rehearsals. Sorry, Arwen's daughter doesn't make an appearance. Let's just say, she's not the ballet type. Thanks for the review, as always!
Saralitazie: It is Italian (a/k/a my second language). I'm going to translate everything from the title of the story to the chapter titles at the end of the story. I appreciate the review!
*words*---indicates music used in a dance (Every song I use is the property of its singer. I don't own any of them.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
The ballet moved quickly unlike some of the ones done in years prior. The audience, for once, was actually interested in the dance and that was felt by those on stage. They were inspired to give more back to the audience. More emotion was poured into motion.
When Spiro, dressed all in gray, came charging out from the front wing, the audience actually cheered. The din was so loud that the some of the dancers could not hear the music.
Emma felt fear well up inside her and it was not because she could not hear the music.
His entrance was her cue to run toward the charging ballet teacher so he could lift her up and drop her to the ground. The stunt had worked well within the confines of the studio but they had not tried it out at dress rehearsal the previous week. He wanted to save it for the show and make it a surprise.
Pushing all fear from her mind---it was only another four letter word after all---she took four or five long runs and jumped with all her might.
She felt Spiro catch her in mid-jump and lift her over his head. They two held that pose for what seemed like a lifetime and a half.
"You ready?" he whispered to her.
The sound would not have been audible to any other dancer but, with her sensitive ears, Emma was able to pick up on the whispered question.
"I guess," came her whispered reply.
The dance teacher took a deep breath and threw Emma in the air. She was falling and she knew she was going to hit the ground. It would hurt if she did not land just right. The ground grew closer and close, the numbers on the stage floor growing larger with every passing second. The audience watched with baited breath.
All of a sudden, she tucked herself into a tiny ball and hit the ground rolling. When she got to her feet, taking off into a grade jete, the audience roared.
The rest of the ballet passed in a blur of motions, of entrances and exits, and of mimed battles.
It ended with Kim, Lauren, and Emma running off into the wings, pretending to chase after the captured Merry and Pippin.
In truth, the trio ran toward a set of chairs set up in the wings. They had the fastest of fast changes, going from ballet to acrobatics.
Emma ran to her chair, the last one in the line, and began to shuck off her ballet costume and change into her acrobatics outfit.
"I help you, yes?" asked the girl who had been assigned to helping her change from one costume to the next.
"No, no, you don't have to help me," Emma called, "I can do it myself."
The girl backed off with a smile and went to go help Kim, who, by the looks of things, was having another breakdown. She was shouting orders to the three or four girls who were helping her change.
Emma raced, pulling her one piece blue jumpsuit on her person and vividly blue acrobatics slippers on her feet. Her hair was suppose to be up but, give the time constraints, all she was able to do was pull it into a very messy ponytail. She would just have to make sure not to step on it during the course of the dance.
With two minutes to spare, plenty of time considering, Emma stood in the wings again.
The theme of the acrobatics dance was "Charlie's Angels" and used music from the film. She did not understand how the music and theme pertained to the costume but this was neither the time nor the place to consider that.
The stage had lapsed into darkness again.
"Get out there," hissed Kim, her voice rough.
Emma trotted out onto the darkened stage again, taking her mark between Lauren and Melissa. The trio assumed what she was told was a traditional pose from the original "Charlie's Angel" series. She did not know if Kim was telling the truth, having never seen the series herself. The movie hadn't interested her either and, as such, she'd never seen it.
Ignoring the fact she was standing right in front of her family and her brother's friends, Emma readied herself for the high impact dance. Without a clear head, she was going to make a mistake. Unlike the ballet, where one mistake had a very slim chance of hurting someone else, if she were to make a mistake her, the odds were very good that she was going to hurt someone else in the process. A misplaced kick up before a handstand and someone could wind up with a broken nose or worse!
A spotlight roved over the confines of the stage, stopping for the briefest of moments on this dancer or that dancer before moving on to someone else. All this was done to the original theme song of the television show.
"Tug of war," Emma thought, grabbing her left leg with her left arm and pulling it up to her side.
As the two dancers on either side of her changed pose, she changed as well.
Reaching her right arm behind her head, she pulled her right leg up. Using her left hand, she pulled the leg up further to touch her head. The pose was uncomfortable as it sounded and her left leg began to shake slightly.
"Stop, please stop," she mentally admonished her limb.
She willed her leg to stop its senseless shaking. Turning all her energy towards the rebelling limb, she tried to force it to stop. She'd done this step a thousand, a million, times before and she'd never fallen. She was not about to start now.
Her leg stopped shaking, much to her relief.
Moments later, she turned and ran offstage, lining up behind Lauren for the triple person, one handed cartwheel that would take them back on stage.
As she prepared, the music changed again. This time it turned into a song called "Independent Women."
*Lucy Liu... with my girl, Drew... Cameron D. and Destiny
Charlie's Angels, Come on
Uh uh uh*
"One, two, three, cheat," Lauren whispered to the dancers behind her as they took the stage.
The order to cheat, for the dancers behind to break their hold on each other's hips and put their arm down to complete a two handed cartwheel, had been used since Melissa was unable to do one handed cartwheels.
Emma ignored the order to a degree. She took her hand off of Lauren's hip but still did a one handed cartwheel.
A partner trick, involving her cartwheeling on Lauren's legs, later and Emma was standing in the wings again.
The music was in the process of changing again, leading into a song called "Barracuda" by some old band called Heart.
Taking a stage with a bounding run, Emma gave herself over to the old pop sounds that filled the theater.
*So this ain't the end
I saw you again
Today
I had to turn my heart away
Smile like the sun
Kisses for everyone
And tales
It never fails
You lying so low in the weeds
I bet you gonna ambush me
You'd have me down, down, down, down on my knees
Now wouldn't you?
Barracuda*
Emma was sitting on her knees facing the back wall of the stage. Her shoulder was aching from the trick she had just performed. It was a roll called a "fish flop" and involved rolling backwards and coming to rest on one shoulder.
"Pain, another four letter word," Emma mused, fighting the urge to just rub her shoulder.
She knew that it was very unprofessional to reach up one hand and rub her shoulder. All her years of dancing had drummed that ideal into her. When on stage, you only moved when it was part of the dance. There was not brushing hair out of your face or rubbing a sore limb.
Her dwelling did not last all that long, though. The music was fading into the next piece, a piece was that was slightly less high impact that the one prior.
She sprang to her feet as the opening notes of the song "Heaven Must be Missin' an Angel" filled the theater.
*Heaven must be missin' an angel
Missin' one angel, child, 'cause you're here with me right now
Your love is heavenly, baby
Heavenly to me, baby*
The piece had the audience laughing. Many knew the song, much to the surprise of everyone on stage. The dancers had just gone from high impact acrobats, performing tricks many figured were impossible without the aid of a Hollywood stunt team, to cutesy little dancers.
"Step, both arms up, step, right L shape, step, both arms up, step, left L shape, step, both arms down," Emma reminded herself, allowing a "dancer's rush" to dull the pain in her shoulder.
As long as she was dancing, the energy from the gathered crowd was keeping her from noticing the pain in her shoulder. Once she got off stage, however, it would be a different story. She was hoping that it wasn't going to cramp up before the jazz dance.
She walked offstage, after getting up from a straddle leap that landed her between Lauren and Kim, listening to the music change once again. They were heading toward the lyrical part of the dance, a part she was glad she only had a minimal part in.
This year's lyrical acrobatics piece was to, yet another, old song. This time the piece of choice was a song called "True."
*So true funny how it seems always in time, but never in line for dreams head over heels, when toe to toe this is the sound of my soul this is the sound I bought a ticket to the world but now I've come back again why do I find it hard to write the next line when I want the truth to be said I know this much is true*
"Ready over there?" questioned Lauren.
The dark skinned dancer was holding a wooden ladder in her hands and looking at her smaller counter part.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Emma responded, just before the duo made their entrance on the line "but then I come back again."
It was the only way she could remember when her entrance was.
The lyrical section ended without flourish. All energy was now focused on the finale of the acrobatics dance. This was the time to impress the audience, to show they what skills every acrobat truly possessed.
To the driving beats of a techno version of the "Charlie's Angels" theme song, the acrobats took the stage one at a time. Each had been given two counts to take the stage alone and show what she was best at.
Emma stood in the wings, bouncing from foot to foot. She was to follow Lauren in the sequence of individual tricks.
As Lauren ran off, Emma ran on. She took the stage in a few runs, diving into a cartwheel. From there, she went into a handstand and held it for quite sometime.
Over she fell into a backbend and, pulling herself up, she performed a back handspring.
The audience cheered, the sound deafening to the elven child's sensitive ears. She ran off stage with a smile on her face.
The dance ended as it began, on a darkened stage with acrobats in groups of three.
Tired, breathless, and worn out Emma darted back to her dressing room. There was still a jazz dance to do.
In the back of her head, she was well aware of the fact that her time here had grown short. The countdown was on. Middle Earth was calling.
elrohir lover: Thanks for the compliment!
Hobbitgirl11: Thanks! Acrobatics is wicked fun! I use to take it but I stopped just after my younger sister (the pest) blew her knee out. One of the benefits of knowing acrobatics, though, is the fact you can do some of the really cool stuff done in action based movies.
Lindiel Eryn: Yeah, little sisters can be very annoying. Dancers, on a whole, are not the most mentally stable people in the world. We all have our heads in the clouds someplace. The fact she's afraid of making mistakes is something every dancer has, especially if the real Spiro is your teacher. Thanks for the review as always!
Sarah: LOL! There's some more dancing coming up!
littlesaiyangirl: Thanks, as always! The night of the show is the most high stress night for any dancer and those two really do have breakdowns. I had the experience of watching them have their little episodes just before we went on stage.
elvenrocker: Interesting thought, I never considered that! Let's see what I can do!
Elainor: The show is usually just a few weeks after the costume rehearsals. Sorry, Arwen's daughter doesn't make an appearance. Let's just say, she's not the ballet type. Thanks for the review, as always!
Saralitazie: It is Italian (a/k/a my second language). I'm going to translate everything from the title of the story to the chapter titles at the end of the story. I appreciate the review!
*words*---indicates music used in a dance (Every song I use is the property of its singer. I don't own any of them.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a handful of made up characters. Tolkien thought up the concept and, as such, it belongs to him. I'm just playing in his world. I'm broke and in college. All I own are Pointe Shoes.
The ballet moved quickly unlike some of the ones done in years prior. The audience, for once, was actually interested in the dance and that was felt by those on stage. They were inspired to give more back to the audience. More emotion was poured into motion.
When Spiro, dressed all in gray, came charging out from the front wing, the audience actually cheered. The din was so loud that the some of the dancers could not hear the music.
Emma felt fear well up inside her and it was not because she could not hear the music.
His entrance was her cue to run toward the charging ballet teacher so he could lift her up and drop her to the ground. The stunt had worked well within the confines of the studio but they had not tried it out at dress rehearsal the previous week. He wanted to save it for the show and make it a surprise.
Pushing all fear from her mind---it was only another four letter word after all---she took four or five long runs and jumped with all her might.
She felt Spiro catch her in mid-jump and lift her over his head. They two held that pose for what seemed like a lifetime and a half.
"You ready?" he whispered to her.
The sound would not have been audible to any other dancer but, with her sensitive ears, Emma was able to pick up on the whispered question.
"I guess," came her whispered reply.
The dance teacher took a deep breath and threw Emma in the air. She was falling and she knew she was going to hit the ground. It would hurt if she did not land just right. The ground grew closer and close, the numbers on the stage floor growing larger with every passing second. The audience watched with baited breath.
All of a sudden, she tucked herself into a tiny ball and hit the ground rolling. When she got to her feet, taking off into a grade jete, the audience roared.
The rest of the ballet passed in a blur of motions, of entrances and exits, and of mimed battles.
It ended with Kim, Lauren, and Emma running off into the wings, pretending to chase after the captured Merry and Pippin.
In truth, the trio ran toward a set of chairs set up in the wings. They had the fastest of fast changes, going from ballet to acrobatics.
Emma ran to her chair, the last one in the line, and began to shuck off her ballet costume and change into her acrobatics outfit.
"I help you, yes?" asked the girl who had been assigned to helping her change from one costume to the next.
"No, no, you don't have to help me," Emma called, "I can do it myself."
The girl backed off with a smile and went to go help Kim, who, by the looks of things, was having another breakdown. She was shouting orders to the three or four girls who were helping her change.
Emma raced, pulling her one piece blue jumpsuit on her person and vividly blue acrobatics slippers on her feet. Her hair was suppose to be up but, give the time constraints, all she was able to do was pull it into a very messy ponytail. She would just have to make sure not to step on it during the course of the dance.
With two minutes to spare, plenty of time considering, Emma stood in the wings again.
The theme of the acrobatics dance was "Charlie's Angels" and used music from the film. She did not understand how the music and theme pertained to the costume but this was neither the time nor the place to consider that.
The stage had lapsed into darkness again.
"Get out there," hissed Kim, her voice rough.
Emma trotted out onto the darkened stage again, taking her mark between Lauren and Melissa. The trio assumed what she was told was a traditional pose from the original "Charlie's Angel" series. She did not know if Kim was telling the truth, having never seen the series herself. The movie hadn't interested her either and, as such, she'd never seen it.
Ignoring the fact she was standing right in front of her family and her brother's friends, Emma readied herself for the high impact dance. Without a clear head, she was going to make a mistake. Unlike the ballet, where one mistake had a very slim chance of hurting someone else, if she were to make a mistake her, the odds were very good that she was going to hurt someone else in the process. A misplaced kick up before a handstand and someone could wind up with a broken nose or worse!
A spotlight roved over the confines of the stage, stopping for the briefest of moments on this dancer or that dancer before moving on to someone else. All this was done to the original theme song of the television show.
"Tug of war," Emma thought, grabbing her left leg with her left arm and pulling it up to her side.
As the two dancers on either side of her changed pose, she changed as well.
Reaching her right arm behind her head, she pulled her right leg up. Using her left hand, she pulled the leg up further to touch her head. The pose was uncomfortable as it sounded and her left leg began to shake slightly.
"Stop, please stop," she mentally admonished her limb.
She willed her leg to stop its senseless shaking. Turning all her energy towards the rebelling limb, she tried to force it to stop. She'd done this step a thousand, a million, times before and she'd never fallen. She was not about to start now.
Her leg stopped shaking, much to her relief.
Moments later, she turned and ran offstage, lining up behind Lauren for the triple person, one handed cartwheel that would take them back on stage.
As she prepared, the music changed again. This time it turned into a song called "Independent Women."
*Lucy Liu... with my girl, Drew... Cameron D. and Destiny
Charlie's Angels, Come on
Uh uh uh*
"One, two, three, cheat," Lauren whispered to the dancers behind her as they took the stage.
The order to cheat, for the dancers behind to break their hold on each other's hips and put their arm down to complete a two handed cartwheel, had been used since Melissa was unable to do one handed cartwheels.
Emma ignored the order to a degree. She took her hand off of Lauren's hip but still did a one handed cartwheel.
A partner trick, involving her cartwheeling on Lauren's legs, later and Emma was standing in the wings again.
The music was in the process of changing again, leading into a song called "Barracuda" by some old band called Heart.
Taking a stage with a bounding run, Emma gave herself over to the old pop sounds that filled the theater.
*So this ain't the end
I saw you again
Today
I had to turn my heart away
Smile like the sun
Kisses for everyone
And tales
It never fails
You lying so low in the weeds
I bet you gonna ambush me
You'd have me down, down, down, down on my knees
Now wouldn't you?
Barracuda*
Emma was sitting on her knees facing the back wall of the stage. Her shoulder was aching from the trick she had just performed. It was a roll called a "fish flop" and involved rolling backwards and coming to rest on one shoulder.
"Pain, another four letter word," Emma mused, fighting the urge to just rub her shoulder.
She knew that it was very unprofessional to reach up one hand and rub her shoulder. All her years of dancing had drummed that ideal into her. When on stage, you only moved when it was part of the dance. There was not brushing hair out of your face or rubbing a sore limb.
Her dwelling did not last all that long, though. The music was fading into the next piece, a piece was that was slightly less high impact that the one prior.
She sprang to her feet as the opening notes of the song "Heaven Must be Missin' an Angel" filled the theater.
*Heaven must be missin' an angel
Missin' one angel, child, 'cause you're here with me right now
Your love is heavenly, baby
Heavenly to me, baby*
The piece had the audience laughing. Many knew the song, much to the surprise of everyone on stage. The dancers had just gone from high impact acrobats, performing tricks many figured were impossible without the aid of a Hollywood stunt team, to cutesy little dancers.
"Step, both arms up, step, right L shape, step, both arms up, step, left L shape, step, both arms down," Emma reminded herself, allowing a "dancer's rush" to dull the pain in her shoulder.
As long as she was dancing, the energy from the gathered crowd was keeping her from noticing the pain in her shoulder. Once she got off stage, however, it would be a different story. She was hoping that it wasn't going to cramp up before the jazz dance.
She walked offstage, after getting up from a straddle leap that landed her between Lauren and Kim, listening to the music change once again. They were heading toward the lyrical part of the dance, a part she was glad she only had a minimal part in.
This year's lyrical acrobatics piece was to, yet another, old song. This time the piece of choice was a song called "True."
*So true funny how it seems always in time, but never in line for dreams head over heels, when toe to toe this is the sound of my soul this is the sound I bought a ticket to the world but now I've come back again why do I find it hard to write the next line when I want the truth to be said I know this much is true*
"Ready over there?" questioned Lauren.
The dark skinned dancer was holding a wooden ladder in her hands and looking at her smaller counter part.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Emma responded, just before the duo made their entrance on the line "but then I come back again."
It was the only way she could remember when her entrance was.
The lyrical section ended without flourish. All energy was now focused on the finale of the acrobatics dance. This was the time to impress the audience, to show they what skills every acrobat truly possessed.
To the driving beats of a techno version of the "Charlie's Angels" theme song, the acrobats took the stage one at a time. Each had been given two counts to take the stage alone and show what she was best at.
Emma stood in the wings, bouncing from foot to foot. She was to follow Lauren in the sequence of individual tricks.
As Lauren ran off, Emma ran on. She took the stage in a few runs, diving into a cartwheel. From there, she went into a handstand and held it for quite sometime.
Over she fell into a backbend and, pulling herself up, she performed a back handspring.
The audience cheered, the sound deafening to the elven child's sensitive ears. She ran off stage with a smile on her face.
The dance ended as it began, on a darkened stage with acrobats in groups of three.
Tired, breathless, and worn out Emma darted back to her dressing room. There was still a jazz dance to do.
In the back of her head, she was well aware of the fact that her time here had grown short. The countdown was on. Middle Earth was calling.