The dance season kicked off this year with Hollywood Connection. We will be attending their nationals in San Diego this summer, but this weekend was the regional convention right here in Santa Clara. Serafina performed three routines on Friday night: her senior large jazz, her senior small jazz and the Senior hip hop crew. All the routines were fantastic to watch, but the large jazz placed third and the hip hop got first. Exciting! Here are a bunch of the dancers after awards on Friday night.
Saturday morning we had to be up early for Serafina to attend convention classes and because the convention center is directly across the street from Levi's stadium where the 49ers were playing in a championship game, that meant she was stuck there all day. Between taking Lyft and catching a ride with some friends attending the game, I was able to leave my car there but escape for a bit of normal life before returning for competition that night. Next year, I'm booking a hotel room. Even though it's just 15 minutes away from our house. If the 49ers have a crap season, I'll cancel. Otherwise, I'll save us both the misery of being trapped at the convention center.
Despite taking classes all morning, supporting the junior team she's a T.A. for and being stuck at a convention center all day, Serafina still managed to be a good teammate all evening. Here she is helping apply some lashes, something she is very good at and I am not.
She danced beautifully for the second night in a row and her senior contemporary routine won third and the large hip hop team won first. Here she is with Karin waiting for the awards to be announced.
More happy dancers celebrating at the end of the awards.
Sunday was the final day of classes. I dropped her off and returned later in the afternoon for the closing show where they hand out scholarships and other awards. Serafina has not yet be individually recognized at a dance convention. It has been a hard pill to swallow since she is really a fantastic dancer and works so hard. Going into this season, I was optimistic that she would finally get the kudos she deserves especially since she was added to a Masters class at the studio that works specifically on auditioning, which is how awards are granted. But we were both very realistic about Hollywood Connection. Not only was it the first convention of the season, this was her first year moving up a category for dancers 14 years old and up. She would take classes with the oldest group and be up against them for any kind of award. And since she's just a little over 14, she would be one of the youngest in the room against literally hundreds of kids aged all the way up to 18. I dragged Leo with me to the convention center so he could finish his homework, and then he sat with me as the award ceremony took place. We were towards the back of the dark, crowded ballroom. I warned him that Serafina probably wouldn't win because she's the youngest in her category and she might be grumpy because of it so be nice to her on the drive home. Well imagine my utter and joyous surprise when they finally got around to announcing the Icon runners-up and I hear this...
Sure, terribly pronunciation, but it is still my Serafina being called on stage! The other moms I was near congratulated me and said "this is a big one!". I leapt up and got a picture of all the Icons and Icon runners up on stage.
So what does this mean? Well, as a runner-up, she can compete to be an Icon at Nationals. She'll participate in a special routine for all the Icon winners and she'll be allowed to compete a solo at Nationals. A solo!!! This is all her heart has desired for a long time. Her studio only grants a dozen or so solos to dancers and a majority of them are for high school seniors. But this award means she'll get to have a solo this season.
After the awards ceremony wrapped up, I rushed to the front to hug my girl and take the pictures I've been waiting to take for years.
Kavni and Serafina
With Ananda
Hugging Miss Tami, one of her teachers and who she is T.A.s for
With Linda
Some of her besties.
Hugging Miss Gabby
Serafina has asked Miss Gabby to choreograph her solo. She fully gets Serafina as a dancer and I can't wait to see what they create together.
Bonus picture with her brother since he just happened to be there bored in the awards until it all turned so very exciting.
Honestly, whatever happens the rest of this dance season, we will be riding high on this awesome win. I'm so proud of her, and I can't wait to see her go through the process of learning and performing the solo.
When tickets went on sale for the Arctic Monkeys, one of Serafina's favorite bands, I decided to scoop up three tickets. It was the farthest in advance I've ever bought concert tickets. On the checkout screen, it said "congratulations! Your show is in 380 days". Ha! Over a year in advance! I figured if she no longer liked the band when the show finally came around, I could sell the tickets. Tastes change when you're a teenager, after all. We gifted her the tickets last Christmas with an Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt. As the date finally approached, she decided to invite her dance friend Karin (who also join us for her birthday dinner). I wasn't sure if her folks would be okay with me taking her to San Francisco on a school night, but luckily she was allowed to come along. The show was at the Chase Center where we saw Lizzo last year. I pretty much repeated all the steps - parked in the same lot, ate pizza at the same restaurant, even stopped at the crazy Restoration Hardware store to take some pictures on the roof.
Here are a couple of those pictures.
After being sooooo far away at Taylor and Beyoncé, it was a delight to find we had very good seats. Since I bought the tickets so long ago, I forgot that we were nice and close.
The girls wandered around and bought t-shirts while I enjoyed the opening band. Arctic Monkeys put on a great show and the girls learned the important art of moving up as close as you can, even if you don't have tickets for those seats as long as you don't get kicked out by security.
When we were at the Taylor Swift show, Serafina mentioned that one of the backup dancers, Karen Chuang, was also a dance teacher that she had taken class from during a convention. This was a pretty cool fact. Well, it got a whole lot cooler when her studio invited Karen to teach the weekly Master Class Serafina attends.
Here's the contemporary dance combo they learned during class.
When Serafina was nine, she went to her first big concert. It was a triple bill of Spoon, Cage the Elephant and Beck. Though she liked songs by both Cage the Elephant and Beck, they weren't her top picks of bands. But she enjoyed herself until she got tired and fell asleep in the seats! She didn't complain or ask to go home, just figured out a way to lay down and snoozed until it was time to go. I told Tom that we owed her one for being such an absolute trooper, so the next time Taylor Swift came to town, I would find a way to take her. Of course, a pandemic hit, during which Taylor released three albums. Serafina's musical tastes have shifted and matured, but she always has a deep love for Taylor. Then Taylor announced her epic "Eras" tour which would cover songs from all 10 of her albums. My friend Kristi (Sunny's mom) managed to get two pre-sale codes for tickets. I was waitlisted for pre-sale but never got a code. The day the tickets were released, it made national news and sparked an immense outcry from her fans because the Ticketmaster site crashed a lot and most tickets were scooped up by scalpers that resold them for thousands of dollars each. But Kristi and her husband, Ricky, both logged on to put their pre-sale codes to work. Ricky, by some sort of miracle, got through and purchased tickets at face value. And two of the tickets he scored were for me and Serafina! Amazing!
As Taylor's tour made its way across the country to us (the second-to-the-last stop), I had heard about the intensity of the fans, the insane merchandise lines and the over three-hour set list. Now I've been to a lot of concerts, big and small, but nothing prepared me for this experience.
First we did some prep.
Pretty nails for Serafina.
And making beaded bracelets with album and song titles to trade with other "Swifties". I made most of them because I do love a handicraft.
Serafina looked so pretty that night. Gorgeous make-up, beautiful dress. A lot of attendees were dressed very over-the-top, and I think if she could do it again, she would have also worn a more elaborate outfit.
So parking was a bit of an issue at a sold-out show for 60,000+ people so we parked at Ricky's work and hoofed it a little over two miles.
Serafina and Sunny in front of Levi's Stadium (home to the 49ers football team).
Our seats were way the hell up there! And in the sun for a while. The adults wandered around a bit, getting food and drink and taking in the crowd. Everyone was so dressed up and the merch lines were the longest I've ever seen at a concert. I ordered Serafina's t-shirt ahead of time online thankfully.
The girls were too excited to do much walking around. Also, Serafina ended up with blisters so she wasn't doing any extra walking. They took plenty of selfies though.
I made them smile for me too.
A selfie with Sidney (Sunny's older sister), Kristi, me, Kristi's thumb and a stranger's cleavage.
Shortly before the show started. I'm not sure if you can tell how far up we are but we are waaaayyyy up there.
There were two opening bands before Taylor took the stage a little after 8pm.
Here's a little clip of her first appearing on stage and the girls losing their minds. I love the look on Ricky's face when he realizes that these girls will be doing this the entire time.
The entire stadium was singing along. And swaying under our feet! Not just a vibration, a full rocking, undulating movement. For a moment I thought I was having some sort of vertigo episode, but Kristi confirmed she felt it too.
Do you have a favorite Taylor Swift song? I do. It's Lover...
When we entered the stadium, we were all given light-up bracelets. Just a simple plastic square on a ribbon. When the show started, the bracelets lit up and were in-sync to the music. It was an extremely cool effect.
Here's a video that shows that off pretty well.
Taylor performed almost non-stop until 11:40pm. She only left the stage a handful of times for very quick costume changes. She even made some of her changes, very creatively, on stage. She sang 45 songs, some while dancing, some while playing guitar and some others while playing piano. It was an absolutely incredible night. Both Serafina and I felt very lucky to be there. The recovery from pure exhaustion took a while but man, it was worth it.
It's been a while since we took Mousse to the beach. He doesn't love the ocean, but he loves space to run and he is an absolute lunatic about a frisbee.
Water was cold but the sun was nice and it was a lovely day.
Another recital in the books! It was an exhausting, inspirational, fun time. Each year, I get to know the kids and teachers more and more so the recital becomes more meaningful. It's such a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the dance season, especially on a year when we aren't headed to the national competition just a few weeks later. The recital was the actual finale to this dance season, complete with an emotional sendoff for this year's graduating seniors.
Serafina performed all of her competition routines, with the ballroom routine performing in two shows. Because she was a teaching assistant this year for a pre-jazz class, she was also in the opening number. Her large hip hop routine closed every show. It is one of the most high energy, fun routines and is delightful to watch.
In addition to her competition routines, she performed with her four technique classes as well. Here's a few shots from hip hop. My phone acted up and I couldn't record it.
Here's her technique class contemporary routine. I took this video during dress rehearsal so there is a lot of talking in the background.
Here's a video of the opening number featuring the teachers, TAs and seniors. This is also from rehearsal so they are all in various costume pieces. For the actual show, they looked more uniform with matching shirts and bottoms. I helped back stage for the two morning shows. I got this cute picture in the wings before the girls went on for Show Jazz.
Serafina's school friend Bella came to the first show. It was really sweet of her to support Serafina.
Tom, Leo and I got to watch the afternoon show on Saturday.
Sunday morning I worked backstage again. I got a few pictures of Serafina's ballet dance from the wings. She wasn't that please with me about it.
Her bestie Sunny, along with Sunny's aunt, and Serafina's former teacher Mrs. Ghelfi, came to watch with her daughter Sadie. Sadie loved the recital and had lots of questions about it. She had her mom sign her up for a class as soon as they got home.
They hung out with us during the break between shows. We walked around to the front of the theater and I got this shot.
Ah these two.
The final show was Sunday night. Tom, Leo, Nana and I were in the audience. The little jazz dancers that Serafina was a TA for performed during that show and I told her I needed a picture of her with "her little friends" (that's what I called them all season when she went to assist in their class). Serafina was dressed for her Senior Hip Hop Crew dance that went on immediately after their routine.
After the show we were able to give her lots of flowers and praise.
That night we celebrated my birthday and Father's Day with one delicious cake.
I don't really mind spending my birthday at recital. Next year, Serafina will be old enough to sign up to participate in the "Dancing Dads" routine. Tom isn't so sure about it all, but it is a crowd favorite and Serafina assured him he'll be towards the back.
After a fantastic time in adorable little Sayulita, it was time for some big resort living. Just two nights in a Marriott in Puerta Vallarta, but we were excited for less bugs and more hot water.
We were offered an upgrade to a room with a view. We declined and found our room still had a pretty spectacular view from the balcony.
We are pretty good at resort life.
I really wanted to go down to the boardwalk, but Tom wasn't sure if he wanted to deal with the crowds. I may have pulled the emotional card since this was a special place for me and my dad. But it worked and we all were very happy we went. We got there just in time to catch the sunset.
We literally jumped out of the taxi and ran down to take it in.
Then we walked along the boardwalk to take in the sights.
Including these guys...
We also enjoyed these cool sculptures.
Serafina telling secrets to the giant ear.
We ended our stroll at a pretty fantastic restaurant that the concierge at the hotel recommended.
I mean, Sayulita is great but you're not going to be served flaming dancing fajitas.
The musicians were terrific and they played Guantanamera, which is a song my dad loved to sing along with whenever he heard it.
Again, we loved Sayulita but they didn't have a night market with a cake booth.
Saturday we woke up early and headed to the port to go on an excursion called "Outdoor Adventure". This outing started with a 20 minute speedboat ride to a small beach south of Puerta Vallarta, which I wasn't thrilled about because of my earlier boat barfing, but I did just fine.
After the boat, we loaded onto these Unimog trucks to head up into the jungle.
At "base camp" we geared up for the day. Harnesses and helmets on!
But we still needed to travel further up the mountains into the jungle. For that, we rode mules. Yes, mules. Mine was named "Mosca", which is a slang term for fly (my dad taught me that). Mosca decided he wanted to run up that hill and I wasn't a fan. My thighs were sore the next day from squeezing on for dear life. Serafina apparently almost slide off her mule too. And Leo's mule was the slow poke and brought up the rear. That certainly wasn't my favorite part but we made it, and it was on to the rest of the adventure. We took nine ziplines through the jungle, rappelled down a waterfall, and finished off with a waterslide that required we wear hockey masks with full face protection. Oh man. It was scary, exhausting and so much fun. We definitely made some memories. No phones were allowed on the course (with good reason), but I don't think any of us will ever forget the experience.
