I was so pleased with our very first year of dance competitions.  In fact, I couldn’t be more proud of my kids.  I took in a Salsa Trio called “Spy Salsa”, made up of Grace Gibbons, Christina Basile, and Katie McCombs, and a Lyrical solo to the song “This Is My Beauty”.  We did great at both competitions.  Because the kids have never competed before and are fairly new to comps, I entered them into the Level 1 Division at both comps.  I have to say that I did disagree with some things that happened at Starbound National Talent Competition.  Something I noticed with Starbound is that anyone could walk in the back of the auditorium, and I thought to myself… this is not safe.  This woman walked in randomly, and actually stepped out onto the stage performing an interpretive dance on the stage while a soloist was performing a beautiful lyrical solo.  The backstage crew was so relaxed that they didn’t even notice that the woman walked onto the stage.  They realized about 30 seconds into the routine what was happening.  The soloist ran off of the stage, because she was so confused at what was happening.  My kids and their families were laughing hysterically, but felt so bad for the soloist.  She did get to perform again, and I think she won a really high score.  The competition were unable to give me my vocal critiques when I was ready to leave, and they told me that they would mail them to me.  I never received them still.  Also, I felt that the judges were somewhat brutal in scoring the Spy Salsa, given I even put the Spy Salsa in the Novice Division.  Both routines scored GOLD first places… so I am not complaining.  I do have to say that I did enjoy the professional theater that Starbound decided to host their competition at, as well as high quality videos could be bought.. which was wonderful!!!!
Their second competition was Rising Star Talent Productions.  It was awesome!!!  I truly believed that the scoring was right on par.  No odd random women running out onto the stage rolling around.  We were happy!!!  They had stage managers, as well as a very informative woman running the merchandise table.  It just seemed that everyone was friendly.  Both talent at Rising Star and Starbound was wonderful.  Some studios in Rochester are doing wonderful things with their kids, so it was an honor to be competing amongst these great studios.  The Spy Salsa won GOLD and the 2nd Highest Score in the Duo/Trio category amongst every genre of dance in the junior division.  I was SOOOOOOOOOO excited for them.  They each one a big trophy and another trophy that displayed their high score.  My soloist, Katie McCombs who was also in the trio, performed her lyrical “This Is My Beauty”  and won Gold, as well as 2nd Highest Score in the Solo category amongst every genre of dance in the junior division.  She was only 1 point away from winning 1st, and from a perfect score in her division.  She took home 4 trophies that evening, and apparently her grandpa had to build her a shelf in the house for all of her trophies.  It was an awesome couple weekends of competitions, and I couldn’t be happier for the girls.

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You can check out the spies at: http://youtu.be/bQ16ghvpukI