Tiny Dancer

I've added a new category of posts called "Blast from the Past." As I keep working on this scanning project of old newspaper clippings, programs, etc, I will be posting things here and there on my blog.

Here is a newspaper clipping from the Vicksburg Evening Post publicizing the Nutcracker December 1987. I was a Mouse and Ponchinella that year. That is me and my little butt on the left, and my friend Alison Price and her little butt on the right. In the center is my old dance instructor, Genie Atwater, who I've blogged about before, and also in there, just right of me, is my friend Karla! Look at how cute we all are.

(They almost always misspelled my name. When I decided to change my last name to Gerdes, Fuzzy said "no one will ever know how to say or spell your name" and I told him that was old hat to me. If I wasn't listed as Reed, I was always listed as Eric.) (Also, it says we are rehearsing at Warren Central, but we are clearly at St. Mary's Gym. I remember that day like it was yesterday and I will never forget the smell and feel of that gym. It was always cold.)

It is fun to find this now that I am back in ballet classes and leotards and tights are a part of my weekly routine. Of course, now that I am pushing 31, I blew out my shoulder this week in hip hop class, but it was totally worth it. I was "leaving it all on the floor" as they say.