Asian-American Heritage Foundation

On Saturday night, we headed to the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. The girls were singing with some other students form the China Tree school. They were performing at the Asian-American Heritage Foundation dinner. The real point of this was for the school's founder, Susan Chapman, to schmooz with the corporate bigwigs there and find funding for the school. We had to get there early to rehearse. First up to practice was a troop of young ladies doing a traditional lantern dance. As usual, I had the same (and only) problem with my camera - not enough flash to catch the action at the fast shutter speed, but everything was blurry at the slow shutter speed. So here are some blurry pics of the lantern dance. There were also 2 ladies in GORGEOUS Thai costumes doing a beautiful dance, but none of those pics turned out at all. I got a shot of them later, in the "Green Room" (waiting room for the performers).

Olivia practicing her curtsey. Brooke was just enjoying the moment. She really didn't "do" a whole lot on stage, but she's cute "eye candy". Susan Chapman is the tall lady standing behind Olivia. The girls were not in their silks yet, because there was going to be food in the Green Room, and there was NO WAY I was ging to let either of them ruin their China dresses.

On stage rehearsal. Olivia and her partner, Grace.

Here's how they looked lined up on the stage. We even had violin players!

Brooke and her partner, Chloe. Chloe basically "drove" Brooke like a car (hands on shoulders) for the dance steps. Thank you, Chloe!

Olivia and Grace in the Green Room. They ended up with chicken fingers - NO sauce allowed for anyone. Ha!

Here are the Thai dancers. Their costumes were breath-taking. The photo doesn't do them justice. I snuck the picture because I didn't want to look like a total tourist. The little girl is one of our violinists.

A final run-thru in the Green Room. They were being reminded of how to hold their hands between the songs. Almost a week later, Brooke is still running up to me with a big smile and her hands held like this.

Our violinists were 2 sisters. They were cool as cucumbers, since they play with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. The sister in the red silks is 8 years old. She has been playing the violin for 5 years already!! They were great!

They hired a videographer for the event, so we were not allowed to take any pictures/videos during the actual performance. The "cute factor" was off the scale, even if their singing still needed a little work. Here are the girls in their silks after they sang. Before we left, we let the girls ride in one of the fancy glass elevators. We rode all the way up to the 23rd floor and back down, non-stop. Whee! We made our escape and headed for dinner at... Ikea. We love Ikea! It's a furniture store, but their cafeteria is GREAT!

Can Hollywood be far behind?????