Southwest Dance Concert: Social Distancing Style

Jenna and Jaiden just finished their dance concert! We weren't sure what was going to happen with the concert when dance classes were cancelled for six weeks during the quarantine. The teachers continued to sent youtube videos of the dances so that the girls could continue practicing at home -- but it is not the same as meeting in person. Concert is always held in the huge auditorium at Desert Hills High School, but since the school was closed down due to the quarantine the studio was no longer allowed to have it there. Luckily they were able to make arrangements with Tuacahn to have it at their indoor Hafen theater.

Jaiden said that the stage was different -- the width of the stage was smaller, but the depth of the stage was longer, so it was a bit of an adjustment. The auditorium is also quite small -- plus to comply with social distancing requirements they were limited on how many people could be in the auditorium at one time. They had every other row taped off and then had groups of four seats with two empty seats in between each group of seats. The concert was not open to the public and families could only purchase four tickets total. So we were only able to go to one performance. They added a third performance (a matinee) to accommodate all of the families.

I got tickets for me, Rick, Janelle, and Jared. Josh was grateful that he got invited to a soccer scrimmage with his former soccer team that morning so that he had an excuse not to go, ha ha! It was a beautiful concert and very professionally done! Of course Rick and Jared both fell asleep during parts of it though...must be a guy thing. Jenna and Jaiden both did a great job. Jenna was in one dance and Jaiden was in three dances. Concert is always done in such as way as to showcase the Senior girls. This year there were five Senior girls and they were the five muses in the show.

Our family went to see the show during the matinee. I was originally planning on an evening performance but there were not any good seats left and so I opted for the matinee instead and we got front row seats! I thought I would get some awesome pictures and videos, but then they announced "no photography or video" right before the concert started. So I was disappointed about that! They will get a professional digital download of the whole concert, so that is good, but I like having separate videos of just my girls and their numbers without having to go through the whole show! I also like being able to get close ups of them dancing. Oh well!

Saturday night I picked up the girls and we took some pictures out by the waterfall at Tuacahn. At first the girls didn't want to since they had been crying (I guess that is a thing on the final night) and they didn't want pictures with red puffy eyes. But I didn't think we would get around to doing pictures on another night. Jaiden actually has three different costumes, so I guess we will need to do another photo shoot later to show her other costumes, but at least we got some cute ones for now! After taking pictures I took the girls to Iceberg for ice-cream. We had planned to meet up with Amy and her girls. There were protesters lining up and down St. George Boulevard. Click HERE for the news article. I haven't been keeping up with the news or social media lately and so I had no idea why there were there or what was going on, but Amy filled me in and since then I have noticed stuff about this topic everywhere I look... It is really sad!!

These first two pictures were taken after the matinee. The rest were taken after the final performance.

Final Madrigal Concert and Mr. Moore's Retirement

Last Thursday the guidance system of activity for most areas of Utah changed from "orange" to "yellow" starting on Saturday,  May 16th. This means the Madrigals were able to have a closing concert, which was held at Vernon Worthen Park in St. George. We were still supposed to be practicing "social distancing" with families sitting six feet apart from each other and wearing masks, but almost no one did. I think everyone is getting tired of being isolated and are anxious to get back to normal!

This concert was especially touching because it was Mr. Moore's last concert as the music director of Snow Canyon High School. My girls have loved working with Mr. Moore and are sad that he is retiring this year! The local NEWS station did a story on tonight's Concert in the Park. You can see Janelle a few times since she is in the front and Jaiden once or twice (last one on the left in the front).

When we first heard that they were doing a concert tonight I worried about us sweltering in the heat, but the temperature actually dropped quite a bit today and it ended up being a little chilly! I was glad that I had changed from shorts to long pants and grabbed a jacket and blanket at the last minute! I had picked up Jenna and Anna from dance and gone straight to the park and the girls came with Rick.

We got to hear the song the Madrigals sang for graduation and also a few favorites -- they even did a couple of Christmas Songs! He said since things were so mixed up right now we might as well! The group sang "The Hallelujah Chorus" and all of the former Madrigals were invited to come up and join them. There were quite a few former Madrigals who had come out to support Mr. Moore's final concert and it was neat to see them all join in! It reminded me of when I was in the LD Singers and we would invite all former member to come up and sing "Oh, That I Were An Angel!"

It was a really neat night filled with great music and the opportunity to visit with some friends after the concert -- something we don't get much of during these days of quarantine!

Clay Creations and Sudoku

Some of the activities the kids have been doing during this time of social distancing is Sudoku puzzles and cool creations out of clay (check out the detail on Jenna's creations)!!

 
The kids were introduced to Sudoku games at Grandma and Grandpa's house and have been doing lots of them the past several days! They are really good at them -- especially Josh!!

Other fun activities have consisted of playing soccer and pickle ball!