The Alana Haines Awards Experience

Waiting to be called backstage

This Easter weekend, the St James Theatre played host to the Alana Haines Australasian Awards 2013.
Salem had a blast and meet so many other dancers, both boys and girls from all over New Zealand and Austraila.
He really enjoyed meeting up with other boy ballet dancers.
He has made a few friends.

The waistcoat I had just made

Basically at the last minute we had to change his costume as his dance teacher thought he had better wear his black tights instead of his white ones and to change his shirt.
The black tights did not look as good with the green waistcoat I had made.
Luckily I had just made a new waistcoat for him out of a huge size 2XL waistcoat I had bought from the op-shop for $1.  The op-shop bargin had such great fabric which I thought would look great on Salem.
I did a bit of lacing up the back to look a bit more interesting.

The back view and the sleeves before I changed them

I didn't really have another type of shirt for him, so I re-arranged an old satin shirt of mine and changed the sleeves to have a bit of a frill around the wrists.
I think the costume looked okay but it wasn't as nice as the other which we had based on the RNZB's recent production of Giselle.

Having a rest at The Jimmy (St James Theatre)

On the Thursday night we had to be at the St James for Salem to do a 30 min class.
It was a very hot and humid night and all the young dancers really made the studio very, very hot.
I was up there for a little bit and was glad that I could go back downstairs into the cooler temperature at the Jimmy.
Salem said the class was over quickly.
He was the oldest in the group so had to be at the back but he is quite short so couldn't see everything that was being taught.  But soon picked up everything.  He did fine.

With fellow Junior competitors

On Friday, the Junior Scholars got to perform.
He was in the second group which started performing at 5pm.
We made our way to the boys dressing room and I helped him on with his costume and make-up.
He chatted to the other boys.
A real friendly bunch.
While waiting to be called backstage, the kids were all chatting and laughing at each others accents.
I watched Salem dance on the moniter with Lindsay.
Salem danced really well and made full use of the large stage.  He knows that stage very well.
He was very excited when he got back to the dressing room.

On Saturday we came back to the St James so Salem could watch the older dancers, especially the boys.
He was so impressed by them.
He would run up the stairs to the dress circle, watch some of the boys, run back downstairs to tell me all about it, then run back upstairs to catch the next let of boys.
I don't know where he got all the energy from as he did that so many times.
We left a little while after the Junior Scholars semi and quarter finalists were posted up.  We didn't want to be too late back out to Kapiti.  The public transport isn't the greatest on public holidays.
Salem would have loved to stay longer to watch more of the older boys.
Salem didn't get placed but he just loved the whole experience and can't wait for the next AHA Awards in 2015.
http://www.ahaawards.co.nz/