The good people at MLKBallet have many talents.

First and most obvious: Dance. If you've never seen one of the tuition-free ballet school's performances, you really should. It'll warm your heart ... and make you want to buy leggings and leg warmers.

Second: Charity. Alexa Folsom-Hill (the executive director) and Kate Monthy (an instructor) are the founders -- and they're in their mid-20s. Quick comparison: In my mid-20s, I feel pretty good about life if I can wake up within an hour of when I intended, and have certainly not managed to create a charitable dance school out of whole cloth.

Third: Timing. They seem to have a MOVE! performance juuust when I'm starting to wonder when the next one will be.

Unfortunately, I have bad timing, and haven't been in town on the same weekend as a performance in a year. If you're lucky enough to not be like me, you're in luck. MOVE! returns this weekend at the School of the Arts Theater.

Details:
When: Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Where: 1118 Commerce, downtown Tacoma
Cost: $14, available here.
Why: To help make tuition-free ballet class possible. And to see performers like: NorthWest Dance Syndrome, Josh Reisberg & Free Ya Mind Productions, Joel Myers & Lisa Fruichantie, Metro Parks Dance and MLKBallet’s Student Company.

You may have heard that one Ms. Celine Dion has announced her 2008-2009 concert schedule, which includes a stop at the Tacoma Dome. Tickets go on sale this Saturday (purchase them here), but because we GritCitizens are so well-connected and love our faithful readers so much, we've managed to score four tickets to give away to one of you this Friday (a whole day before they go on sale!).*

Here's the deal: We'll have a designated blog post this Friday at approximately 11 a.m. (Pacific time!). The person to post the 253rd comment (represent!) to that designated contest post will win four tickets to the Tacoma Dome show, which will be held on October 18, 2008.**

Each ticket is valued at approximately $100. We will be moderating our comments that day, meaning that they have to be approved before being published to prevent any foul play -- every comment will be approved unless someone tries to post anything particularly heinous.

-------------

Important notes:

1) In order to post a comment on our blog, you need to be a registered member of TheNewsTribune.com. I'd suggest taking care of that sooner rather than later if you're interested in this contest, just in case you run into any technical difficulties with that process.

2) The winner will be contacted by email and/or phone, so make sure you're using legitimate information in your registration account!

3) Read the official fancy-schmancy rules here.

-------------

* We struggled at first to find a link between GritCity and Celine, but then we remembered how SNL's Ana Gasteyer used to imitate Celine and proclaimed herself "The greatest singer in the world!" We frequently proclaim ourselves "The greatest bloggers in the world!" so that settled that.

** The show isn't until Fall of 2008, which makes it feel like the world could end before the event is held. But the world could end tomorrow too! Doesn't that make you feel better?

-------------

I closed the comments to make sure no one confused this post for the actual contest post. Check back on Friday!