the Busy-ness

Here are some glimpses into the pace of our weekend! On Friday we have two sisters come over while their mom works an hour away in West Virginia as a nurse, and their dad teaches guitar lessons.  They came with us to an opening at The Dairy Barn, an art center and exhibition hall where Dan was a part of the evening's entertainment, performing his Wayan Kulit Indonesian puppet show from last quarter.  The exhibit of several types of Southeast Asian puppets, procured by Dan's advisor at OU, included the puppets in this first photo, which were available to "try out" (you could choose your head and body, mount them on a center pole, and have at it!).

Here you get an idea (maybe) of the set-up - Dan's classmate AJ, Dan, and Anika stand behind the screen, which is in the forefront of the photo, next to a laptop and projector.  I should have taken a photo from behind the screen while the performance was going on, so you could see the array of shadow puppets and the dalang, or puppeteer,  hard at work.

The characters below are the comic relief in Dan's piece, which was a segment of the epic story, the Mahabharata.  We were told that in Bali a performance would never take place without food, cigarettes, talking, gambling, and moving around.  Forget about shushing the kids...

And THEN...we were off to the library, to see another performance of An Da Union, back to complete their midwest tour before heading home to Inner Mongolia.  Here is Eliza (who was in heaven), learning some dance moves.

That was all for Friday.  Saturday was all about the Irish Dance performance, again at the library.  Talking about it, waiting for it, getting dressed for it, practicing for it...It was amazing how young E suddenly looked, tall as she is next to her buddies.  Here she is between her close sister friends, J and S (we see a lot of each other these days!), waiting for the music of the Boys of the Hock' to begin.

The performance was short and sweet, and then the teaching began! Dan, in the throes of this quarter's end, made sure he was there for this first of her performances, and was the first to volunteer to come up and be taught! So here they are, passing by, and then greeting each other.

I could go on about many details of this day - the poodle socks, the safety pins holding the sleeves of her leotard up so they don't show through the "ocean sleeves" of this dress...the dress, oh the dress, the beloved dress...she'll get to wear it for two performances on St. Paddy's day itself, swoon, drool, sigh...Dan and I are on the fence about Irish dance - the tension, the odd posture, the stiff upper-body - but E is really enjoying it, loves the music, and feels confident and lovely as she riverdances across the library floor...