End-of-Year Performing Arts

Aravis and Mariel 

as Rosalind and Touchstone 

"As You Like It" by Mr. William Shakespeare

(Yes, that is the back of my head.  

I am doing my best to direct them.)

Mariel as a ditzy princess in our drama club play

LittleLa (left) with a friend at our drama club play.  LittleLa is an indispensible member of the backstage crew this year.

We are currently in the midst of theatricals.  Music performances happening soon.  May is a busy performing month for us.  The kids are having a blast.  I am having a blast and simultaneously trying to keep my head on straight.  After the drama club production is over, I have my studio's piano recital, the co-op Shakespeare scenes and sol-fa hymn demonstrations, piano accompaniments for the kids' orchestra and their violin teacher's studio recital accompaniments.  And then I am finished.  I'm just taking it one step at a time.

So is Aravis.  Monday she worked all day at the Walgreens, then worked all evening at the theater stage managing the drama club play.  She got up Tuesday morning and took her Trig final at the college, then went back to the theater for opening night of the play.  Crazy life.  But it's just for a few days.  We slept in this morning.  It's all about pacing yourself.  ;o)

Guest Blogger: Full of Light

(A narration of Monet's "Women in the Garden", written by Aravis)

In Monet’s painting “Women in the Garden”, one woman sits underneath a tree reading a book, another stands slightly behind the tree, and a third walks along the path. The model for all three women was his wife, who posed in each different position so that her husband could paint it. On the face of the woman beneath the tree, Monet tried a new technique – he painted it slightly paler than ordinary to indicate the woman’s skirt reflecting light upwards. In the bottom left corner there are lilies and other flowers, leading up to the sitting woman. The tree is dark and shadowy and so is the woman standing behind it, providing an interesting comparison to the bright, hard shape of the woman walking on the garden path between two rows of black-green conifers. The women in their white dresses, the white lilies in the corner, the light-brown sandy gravel of the path and the pale sky with its white clouds contrast sharply with the almost navy-green trees and shadowy grass. But even the trees have slim white reflective glints on their glossy leaves. The painting is full of light.

Poplars in the Sun (1891) by Monet