February 28, 2012. Jackson, Mississippi. The Ballet Lessons.

When you first arrive the whole place seems chaotic.  The parking lot is jammed  and the halls are crowded.  But on further inspection, everything has a purpose.    The five studios are holding classes, with about ten students per class plus two teachers.   Each class of students has a different uniform.  In the halls are ten more students waiting for the next class, along with the parents waiting to pick up the students in the present class.  Every child is wearing ballet costume with hair pulled back in a bun.  Tights and short shorts, leotard.  The students look marvelous as they are put through their paces.  And they work hard during their lessons, stretching, jumping, working on the bar.

Molly loves her classes.  Her age group wear a white  leotard,  white tights with a short white skirt over the leotard.   Her hair is pulled up in a bun.  She looks the perfect little ballerina.   The teacher puts them through their paces, stretching their joints and pointing their toes and moving their arms into different positions.   They walk and run and jump, but not exactly the way the teacher demonstrates.  In addition the teacher is beginning to teach them their dance, to be used at the big recital in May.  I can not imagine how it will ever work, but I bet it does.  Hands and arms were everywhere, but not any girl doing  the same.  But the four year old girls loved every thirty  minutes of the class.

Right across the hall were the advanced students, learning their dance for the recital.  They are all on point  and doing fancy steps.  What a difference ten years makes to a budding ballerina.