Tag: school

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Just Write {6} The Hallmark of Summer’s End

Driving in to work this morning down the wilderness highway from Fox Lake

we pass the first clusters of school children standing in the clear morning light at the ends of long driveways

waiting for the first glimpse of the yellow school bus to appear on the horizon.

Tendrils and wisps of fog rise from the wet chip-sealed highway

making misty the dripping scarlet leaves of fireweed gone cotton

the blown wild roses, the foxtails and cold-stunted aspen.

These fledglings scamper madly amongst the hillocks of wet grasses

lunches packed securely in backpacks of hello kitty pink and batman blue

unaware of the long vista stretching before them

thinking only of this moment

this first day of school

this hallmark of summer’s end.

 

This is my 6th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. I am linking up with The Extraordinary Ordinary.
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Ode to March

It seems this year I do not know
if the snow will ever go.
In March it sits here like a brick
(not a brick like “you’re a brick, Dick”),
I mean a brick like bricks and mortar,
the kind used in the Latin Quarter.

Winter hard and cold and cruel
will last until the end of school,
and instead of flying kites,
all the kids will get frostbite.
No more soccer, bikes or bats,
for them it’s mittens, scarves and hats.

Cry and wail and weep away,
it’s in the snow you’re forced to play.
Sleds and skates and hockey pucks,
if you don’t like it, then you’re (ahem) out of luck.
For no matter how you plea,
summer’s just not meant to be.

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Classes this fall?

I’ve been wondering if you’ve been wondering about classes and troupe now that we are into the month of October!

I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. In fact, I’ve thought of almost nothing else.

I’ve decided to retire from teaching and from the dance troupe for awhile while I recharge my batteries and nurture some of my other interests. Teachers and artists are just like good gardeners: they know that they must occasionally rotate crops and/or let the soil lie fallow in order to rejuvenate and replenish for a new growing season. It’s like I always told you in class: “ya gotta know where your center of gravity is. Ya gotta have balance!”

So, what other interests am I nurturing? Well, if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll all be chiming out in unison right about now: “quilting!” LOL, yes. Creativity comes in all forms, and I’ve been spending time getting reacquainted with an old love. But that’s not all! I am also taking a class through Yukon College and the University of the Arctic called Introduction to the Circumpolar North. I may post a homework assignment on the blog now and again, just because the material is so darned interesting (to me, anyway!)

Anyway, back to the topic of my dance life!

Regarding Saba: while I am very sad to let the dance troupe go, I also have a wonderful feeling of joy and accomplishment at what we were able to do together. When I originally created the troupe it was to give my students a vehicle to perform in professional venues – to take their dancing beyond the classroom and beyond student-level performances and into the realm of true performance art. I believed that setting the bar high (and holding to it!) would not only bring the art of Middle Eastern dance to the Yukon stage as a beautiful art form to be respected and admired, but would also bring great personal reward to all of us. I am certain that we succeeded! Not only that, but we had a blast doing it, and we formed some great friendships! I hope that Saba will either stay together as they are or else find a new vision and re-form into something just as wonderful. I wish them all my best from the bottom of my heart. I feel like a momma…I gave them all I could and now it is time for them to go out on their own without me.

As far as classroom teaching goes, you may have heard that Kelly and I have managed to swing an early retirement, and will be moving to Salmon Arm at the end of 2013. This means that my time with the Whitehorse dance school will be coming to an inevitable end anyway.

I know that I will teach again. It is too much in my blood to retire forever! I just can’t see it, can you? LOL! However, I think that teaching will probably be a “retirement” job. I can definitely see myself offering a class or two in Salmon Arm some day with a brand new batch of newbies. For sure!

I’d like to say thank you to all of the students who crossed the studio floor over the 10+ years that I taught in Whitehorse. I figure over 600 different sets of feet stood in the classroom and learned to trace a hip circle in front of me over the years. That’s an awful lot of joy!

Thank you all so much for following my dream and sticking with me through thick and thin. I truly admire, respect and love each and every one of you, and I am so darn proud of you all.

I’m still available for private lessons & performance coaching. I’d like to offer workshops or go out on the workshop circuit a bit.  I’m not leaving dance, I’m just…taking a huge chunk of it off of my plate.And on the performance end…well, that will never change. I love to perform. I love interacting with the audience. It’s magical! I plan to continue my personal development as an Egyptian Oriental dance artist. I have a reputation to keep up, after all! So keep your ears and eyes open and you may see me on the stage or on the workshop circuit now and again. 

For me, the last show we did, Rockin’ the Casbah in 2011 was the highlight of my career. I can’t think of a better note to go out on than that.