This past Saturday our teachers got together after classes to spend the day choosing the music for this year’s recital. If you’re wondering if I said “recital” in October, I did! Our teachers and studio staff kick off preparations for June’s recital this month not only choosing music for our classes to perform to, but the costumes that will compliment them perfectly in just a couple of weeks.

Choosing the music is a process, and everyone gets involved. Every teacher comes to the meeting with a list of songs that they’d like their classes to dance to. If there are several teachers that will be teaching the same dance, they all pitch their song and their vision of the whole number (sets, costumes, lighting) and after a little comparison and discussion one of the ideas is chosen. For classes that are in all three shows or do not have multiple classes performing, the teacher prepares a couple of ideas and one of them will be chosen for the teacher to move forward with.

It takes a while to get through over 70 classes worth of songs, but with the help of snacks, coffee, and some laughs, all of the songs will be set to go by the meeting’s end. From there, our teachers will get started looking through costume books and set and prop binders to complete the number for our upcoming recital. The final ingredient will be our fantastic students!

Keep an eye out for the next step of the recital process, the UDMA Costume Show October 21st & 22nd!