.about.icing.

I've been obsessing a lot over costuming lately.
Mostly trying to go through and re-home costumes I don't wear or don't fit anymore; meanwhile ruminating on what I'm going to replace them with.

In my classes I go on a lot about cake -vs- icing. Cake being your actual dancing, while icing is your flair: your costume, jewelry, makeup, etc. To me, the dancing is supreme; after all, that's what you're doing. Everything else is just what your wearing. But that doesn't mean that costuming isn't really really important.
Costuming is extremely important, as it's your first communication with your audience before anything else even happens. It's sets the mood, the tone; and in a way it sets the audiences expectations. We see a magnificent costume, we're going to expect magnificent dancing. We see a mediocre costume and well...you get the picture.
On the one hand this can work to your advantage - spend more time on your dancing than your costuming, and you're probably going to wow them. Ont he other hand, we are a simple species that is attracted by shiny objects. Put two relatively comparable dancers side by side, one in a simple costume and one decked out to the nines, and the decked out dancer is going to grab the attention.

Back to cupcakes.
Two pictures below, one of a tasty looking but undecorated cupcake. The other with icing and strawberries. Given a choice (and an assumption that noone has diabetes), most people would reach for the icing cupcake first.

 

Same cupcake, extra stuff.

So something to keep in mind while your preparing your performance - is your icing adequate to your cakey awesomeness? And if it's not, what are you going to do to fix it?

Meanwhile, here's another beautiful cupcake of the gluten-free persuasion, as it's Celiac Awareness month and I do love my cupcakes.

 

Recipe of awesomeness here!