New Solo

Finding a song for Kai's new solo was a bit challenging this year. Holly and I had discussed it quite frequently. This would be her first solo in the Teen division. I had asked Holly for a Latin piece and she looked and looked for music and didn't find anything that she liked. Then she was thinking that Chantilly Lace had suited her well. She liked the old 50's band music on Kai.

She decided on Great Balls of Fire. We liked it. My only hiccup was that in my eyes, the costume had to be red.....again. Her Chantilly Lace costume was red. With a name like Great Balls of Fire, what other color would I use. I figured I could be creative with it.

Then, on the night before Holly was going to start her solo, she called me and said that she had downloaded every single version of Great Balls of Fire, and she didn't like any of them. The ones she liked, were to short and the ones that were longer, she didn't like. She was stuck. I thought that she would cancel her private for the next day until she found new music.

The next morning, she text me and said she hadn't found music, but to go ahead and send Kai to the private. About an half an hour into the private, Holly text me that she had found music, and that she thought I was really going to like it. She was splicing two versions of the song together. The original and the remix. She drove to my office and I jumped in her car to listen to the music. I was HAPPY.....VERY HAPPY. The only thing that she didn't like, was the name of it. It was called the The Mexican 'Dance Dance'. She thought it was to long of a name. She changed the name of it to "Baila".

I was HAPPY for many reasons.

1. It was Latin
2. It was Thalia (I grew up listening to Thalia ever since she was in Timbiriche way before she married Tommy Mottola).
3. It had a Ballroom/Jazz/Techno feel.
4. A Latin inspired costume with gross after gross of Swarovski's ran through my brain. I'm thinking at least 40 gross at the very least.

These four points made me very happy, and the next day I was on the hunt for some ballroom costume ideas. I went on to some ballroom costume sites and I ended up on the site for the designer from Dancing with the Stars. I found this costume below, and I loved it.

I decided to make a few changes to it, but mostly in the skirt and colors. Rather than spreading out the rhinestones all over the costume, I am making a design that comes down the front, and then adding the rhinestones all around. Initially Holly wanted her to use ballroom heels for the dance, but then with all the leaps in it, she decided not to. I can't say that I was to disappointed, I had started pricing those shoes and I couldn't find a pair under $140. Phew!

Holly did finish her solo, and it is now in the major cleaning phase. It is so fast and hard, that I had to go record it in sections. Below is a video of her last private and the end of the dance. This was filmed after she had already done it for over an hour. Not that I'm making excuses, but she was real tired, and Holly had just added in the last four eight counts.

I don't think she will compete this one to much until Nationals. Most likely DMA and maybe KAR. She really has a lot of work to do on it before she can get it on stage. In the mean time, I will start ordering rhinestones and do what I know how to do...her costume. The dancing is up to her, Holly and whoever else I may have to hire to help her clean it.