Dance life

In honor of my 100th blog, let’s take a look back.

Today I went back to high school – back to the halls, the stairs, the seats, the posters, the teachers, the crushes <3, and the drama.  Back to the follies, my high school talent show.

It was a whole different world.

I couldn’t believe how talented some of the kids I saw were, and it got me thinking about how much it’ll change for them like it did for me.  Follies was an amazing opportunity to show your talents, and my friends and I choreographed dances for ourselves from sec 3 to sec 5. It became the most important part of the year – practice every week, everyday even.  Then there were the school plays.  All the fun we had and all the time we spent was unforgettable.  Watching the show tonight I remembered so vividly being a part of it and it made me miss all the school shows and plays I won’t get to be a part of again.  

Meeting my old teachers we talked about school and my future.  I miss the times when I didn’t have to think about my future, I miss the talent show, I miss my adorably funny economics teacher and curling coach, but I don’t miss high school.  It’s fun to watch a show filled with happy and talented people, but I’m happy that I’ve grown up still do what I love: dance.  I may not have the follies, but I’ll always have Cameron School of Dance.

My neck is stiff, my back is hurting, my legs are sore, and my feet feel swollen.  That’s right; I just got back from the weekend dance convention, Coastal Dance Rage with some of the most popular former dancers and choreographers from So You Think You Can Dance. 

Our first class was with Nico, Canada’s first SYTYCD winner, and he taught us contemporary jazz.  In all honesty I remember liking him and enjoying his dance, but I can’t remember much about his class because it was at eight in the morning and we’ve learned almost ten dances since then.  I loved Nico, and voted for him all the time last season, but he never had the same friendly and lovable personality some of the other dancers/choreographers had so he’s easy to forget sometimes. 

Blake is unforgettable on the other hand.  His dance, and the song we danced to, keep replaying in my mind.  He has an in your face attitude, and he can come off a bit strong sometimes, but if your keep trying, you’ll get it.  Blake walked into the room, got on stage and started teaching.  Even though it was fast, and hard to keep up with, in the end his dance was our favorite.  As soon as the song came on, I took the night by Chelley, we all just got it.  

Bobby Newberry, our next choreographer, has a very similar style, only his choreography was a lot more intricate.  After struggling for a while most of us managed to get the gist of it, and it ended up being a really fun class as soon as we stopped thinking bout the details and just had fun.

Shannon, Blake’s sister, was our contemporary teacher, and she likes to throw her head around a lot.  The entire ballroom seemed to be in pain the day after her intense head rolling choreography, but asides from the pain it was a really great piece.  I loved doing it, even though I knew I looked like an idiot it just felt nice to throw myself around and be emotional because it’s something I don’t do a lot.  

Twitch, runner up in season four’s SYTYCD was the best teacher of the weekend, and I’m so happy to see that his personality is just as personable and genuine as it appeared on TV.  He went really slowly with us, and broke each movement down, so we could get his hip hop routine even if (like me) we weren’t very gangster. 

Benji on the other hand…the winner of season two’s American SYTYCD, was my least favorite teacher.  He had great personality on the show, and even though I didn’t like him and was upset he won, I respect his dancing and I knew he won because of his great personality. He has a great personality, and every time he wasn’t teaching he was funny, and nice, and charming, but as soon as he started teaching he was harsh and aggressive and too fast, especially since the style he was teaching was completely unfamiliar to all of us.

Francisco, an amazing ballet dancer, taught us ballet the second day.  I feel a little bad for him because people don’t want to be doing ballet in a convention, but he’s an unbelievable dancer and I’ll never forget his tour jete. 

Asides from the celebrity teachers we had a few famous assistants in a few of our class, including Cody and Taylor, two of the dancers from this season’s Canadian version of SYTYCD who’d been eliminated.  There was also Melanie M who’d been eliminated just last week from the show assisting too, but she never assisted any of our classes. 

Even though I’m in a lot of pain the weekend was unbelievably fun and it’s worth the stiff neck.   

What is dancing? When you’re a dancer you sometimes forget.  For everyone else in the world dancing is when they let loose and shake it.  For me it was dancing along to ‘Hey Mickey’ at the end credits of ‘Bring It On.’ If you ask a dancer what dancing is it’s a sport, a passion, but it’s choreographed moves, pointed toes, tight abs, flat backs, turn out, and jumps and turns.  Dance becomes technique for a dancer. What dance really is, what I sometimes forget, is that dance is freedom.  It’s closing your eyes and not thinking about what you look like for a second and just moving.  I feel fit, I feel beautiful, and I feel happy and all it takes is a few seconds and a good song.  That’s what dance is.

This weekend my friends and I went to Toronto to see SYTYCDC being filmed and it was so surreal! It all started with Michelle, my dance lurking best friend, who went on the site and registered to see the show.  Hearing the news that we’d been invited to see the top twelve filming show seemed like a distance dream, but I knew we’d make it happen.  After the six hour drive to Toronto we arrived at our hotel exhausted.  The next day we before I had time to process everything we were in a taxi on our way to the filming studio.  We shuffle through the halls lined with SYTYCD posters until we get to the waiting room, full of teenage girls like us. 

While we’re standing around listening to the employee Josh explain all the rules we were asked to move to the opposite side of the room.  Confused but obviously willing to comply, we move to the side of a Joe Fresh stage.  Without much explanation we’re dancing front row in the Joe Fresh station with dozens of other girls for the show.  After that exhilarating yet slightly embarrassing experience we’re ushered outside to wait in the hallway.  In the hall Josh, the off stage MC, was picking out girls to get their place in the audience first.  He walked right by us after saying he wanted energetic girls, so naturally I had to scream in his face to show I was pumped.  Turns out he didn’t like that much, so he walked by us numerous times picking out girls all around us.  Finally, after our smiles faded, our whole line was led into the audience mosh pit.  Turns out Josh was choosing girls to be on the balcony, and we got to stand exactly where we wanted – first row in front of the judges. 

I enjoyed every second of being there, while the cameras were rolling and while Josh was keeping us entertained during the breaks.  We were in our places almost an hour before the show was due to start, so we were entertained by a cute little eight year old named Harper who was hip hop dancing on stage for us.  While the audience was filing into their seats I noticed a few girls in Christmas suits.  The Rockettes were there and during one of the breaks they showed Josh a few kicks!  The audience was sprinkled with dance celebrities, from former SYTYCDC contestants, including Vincent from last year, to choreographers. 

Before the show even started we were filming our screams.  These cheers would be the shots used to show the posters for each couple because we couldn’t hold any posters during the show.  The stage manager told us to cheer as if we’d just watched a dance and we filmed it over and over - once for each couple and a few more times with different lighting.  There was so much fake cheering going on that I was coughing and fake screaming for a large part.  I thought I’d lost my voice, but when the dancers walked on stage I forgot all about it and screamed even louder. 

When the show finally started I was going crazy.  We needed to make an aisle in the mosh pit for the judges to walk through, and I was at the edge of that aisle meaning I was inches away from the judges as they passed.  Tray actually double high-fived me as she passed and Jean Marc grabbed my hand, along with most of the other girls in the front row.  It was such a fun show, and everything was happening so fast.  No double takes, if they make a mistake they make a mistake, it felt very real and I loved that.  At the first commercial break Leah (the host) walked to the edge of the stage and looked right at me and said she has the same dress I was wearing.  I was in shock, I barely understood what she was saying and it was even harder to reply.  Leah looked beautiful and she was such a sweet heart all night. 

The whole experience was surreal, there’s no other word to describe how I feel about it, but it was something I’ll never forget!

My mom sent this video to me in an email and it was hard to believe what I was watching.  This is what the email said:

Recently, in a televised modern dance competition in China - a very unique couple won one of the top prizes and received the longest standing ovation.

She was a dancer, who had trained since she was a child.  Tragically, she lost her entire left arm in an accident and fell into a state of depression; so she decided to coach a children’s dancing group.  From that point on, she realized she could not forget dancing. She still loved to dance and wanted to dance again. She tried to do some of her former routines but without her arm she had difficulty maintaining balance. She practiced strenuously and developed a dance routine - always dancing alone in her studio.

He was not a dancer. He lost a leg in an accident and he had fallen into a deep state of depression. They met - and her goal immediately became to help him become positive about life again. She taught him to dance and in her studio they danced together and developed a routine as their lives and friendship became closer.

Their life together, behind the closed doors of the dance studio - was one creativity, challenge, determination, practice and sometimes failure. Their focus was on doing what others said would be impossible. Several times it became so difficult and frustrating for them that they gave up, broke up. But life alone, without each other, brought them back together again and they became even more determined to perfect a dance routine to a point where they might try to dance outside the studio to see what friends and family thought about what they were doing all that time inside the studio.

Their friends and family were so supportive they encouraged the couple to enter a dance competition, which they finally agreed to do. Only later did they realize the competition was to be televised locally. We will now see the first - and to date only televised performance of their dance…

It took a lot of courage for these two to perform, but what amazes me is the strength they each have while performing the dance.  They male dancer is unimaginably strong and he not only holds himself up with perfect posture but he lifts his partner better than some able-bodied dancers can.

Good for them!

I interviewed Aubree Marchione‏, a professional ballroom dancer, and she showed me a type of dance I’d witnessed before – Wheelchair ballroom.  Aubree is a beautiful young dancer who was introduced to wheelchair ballroom by her dancer teacher Sandra Fortuna the owner of Universal Dance Center in New Jersey.

Aubree teaches the disabled so they can dance at special events.  She has taught people in wheelchairs to dance with their able-bodied partners socially, competitively, for their first dance at their wedding, and at various fundraisers.  Aubree has changed the lives of countless people, including older people who thought they couldn’t dance anymore because of their wheelchairs, young disabled veterans who wanted to dance with their wives at their weddings, and kids with disabilities.  She even taught a blind couple to dance together at their wedding.

Aubree’s story is beautiful, just like her dancing, and with her partner Nick Scott Aubree has performed some great routines.  It seems hard to believe that someone wheelchair-bound could keep up with a professional, but the two work well together and I genuinely think their dance is great – it’s really cute and I can’t help but smile!

There goal is to make it on a show like Dancing with the Stars or SYTYCD so they can raise awareness for Wheelchair ballroom and I hope that they achieve that goal one day.

Why do people play sports or have hobbies or do anything at all?!  When does it come time to stop doing things for fun and to start taking things more seriously?

Last year was my best year in dance, but this year things are changing.  There is a lot of talk about dancers leaving and I can’t help wondering why now…

When you’re young you dance because your mommy thinks you’re cute (even though you just stand on stage and wave) when you’re older you chose to dance because you like it, but when you get even older you realize you cant hold on to dance forever if it’s not a career you want to pursue. 

 When dance season starts again next week I’m anxious to see who will be coming back and who will be leaving the school.  We grow attached to each other as a team, but last year felt different.  Every year someone seems to come and go in dance, but our team seemed perfectly complete last year.   I’m realizing now how many people I will miss and how strange it will feel dancing without them.

I want to say goodbye to the dancers leaving and hello to anyone new joining us.  It’s about dance. It’s about fun. It’s about passion. It’s about friends.  As long as we hold on to those things we won’t get too old too fast and we can stop thinking ‘why am I doing this’ and just do it.    

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This weekend I went to see ‘OVO’ (this year’s Cirque du Soleil show) under the big yellow and blue tent in the Old Port.  Cirque du Soleil is Montreal’s pride and joy, our own creation which blossomed and spread across the world, like Celine Dion only more flexible. 

I’ve seen Cirque du Soleil once before, at the Bell Center, but seeing a brand new show in its proper place was incomparable. 

This year’s theme was bugs, every acrobat in the show was dressed as some sort of bug (my favorites were the grasshoppers with big legs attached to their pants.  Even though most of them were indistinguishable bugs, the theme fit perfectly.  When they were flying through the air or jumping off trampolines or contorting their bodies they really looked like creepy little bugs. 

There were clowns (dressed as a beetle, a ladybug, and some sort of fly/mosquito) and various sets of acrobats. 

The best parts of the show were:

When the acrobats came out with giant kiwis and spun them on their feet.  I was blown away by how synchronized they were.  This part of the show was more dancey than any other, so I felt like I could understand and appreciate it more.

Then the trapeze artists and tight rope walkers came out.  It’s always fun to see people fling themselves across the room and grab hold to someone swinging on a swing.  Everytime someone jumps I tense up for a minute, hoping they catch hold of their partner or that they land strong on the platform.  I can just see it in their faces when they land that this is what it’s all about.  Another girl, while climbing the ladder, kept straightening out her leg into a split while climbing.  Sadly she was not the focus of the stage, and she was practically in darkness while she was doing it, but I knew that everytime she lifted her leg she felt proud that she was their doing everything she needed to do successfully and it was for her, not the audience but she was doing it for herself.  On the other hand, when they fall its fun for the audience, but must be devastating for the acrobats.  One person rumbled their landing and felt into the net below.  The second she felt my mom and I lunged at each others hands and by the time she hit the net our hands were clasped and our hearts were racing.  I love to feel that excitement and thrill as if I were part of the show, and only falls can get you that involved.  I’m sure the acrobat, who received a huge round of applause, was disappointed that she made a mistake during the last show in Montreal. 

Then after intermission they somehow removed the floor and revealed a huge trampoline with what looked like a trampoline runway.  The acrobats would jump on the trampoline and grab hold of a rock climbing wall.  They climbed and contorted and jumped and flipped and it was all so cool. 

The strength they all have in incredible, and the trust and dependency they have with their partner is unbelievable.  It’s a beautiful show, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it.

Today, my close friend Tanya Perks is having an operation.  While she’s lying in bed still groggy from the medication I want to remind her, and let everyone else know, what an amazing person she is.

Tanya is a great dancer (who’d been on the Junior Funk team longer than anyone else) and an even better friend.  I’ve never met someone so open and sharing. Tanya is dedicated and devoted to her friends and dance, and her compassionate personality is a source of happiness and comfort to the entire dance team. 

Tanya is getting an operation today to remove her bunions.  I guess all of Tanya’s dance and tight point shoe work didn’t help her feet.  Today, at the age of nineteen,  Tanya has painful bunions on both feet.  When she began experiencing severe discomfort she stopped wearing her pointe shoes in ballet.  Even though she had been off pointe the entire year at dance, for some reason Tanya wanted to wear her pointe shoes at the big end of the year shoe.  A mix of determination and denial took over Tanya, and let’s just say that she was in a lot of pain at the end of the dance.  Even though she knew it would hurt her, she wanted to be strong and push past the pain to dance with all she had. 

Tanya is inspirational.  She’s is always there for everyone, when they’re down or when they just need a laugh or a place to hang out on the weekend.   

I’m glad Tanya is finally doing something for herself and fixing her problem.  I wish her the best of luck on her road to recovery and I know myself and all her other friend will be there by her side everyday.  She won’t be dancing for several weeks, but I know she’ll be the life of the team as per usual when she’s back at dance and feeling better.    

What a way to end the dance season.  This year the end of the dance season was marked with two competitions, first was the 5678 Showtime Nationals then my team and I were honored to attend the Dance World Cup. 

These competitions were so unusual yet so familiar I can’t imagine a better way to end this year of dance.  First of all dance competitions are usually on the weekend, but not these ones.  Nationals was on Monday and Worlds was on Tuesday.  Packing an entire competition into one day was pretty intense, so everyone was excruciatingly tired.  My school was at the competition for 13 hours straight and I had four dances to perform with my team that day.  Let’s just say that being at the competition from 10 a.m to 11 p.m on Monday then waking up at 7:00 a.m the next morning was not the most pleasant of experiences, but it was worth it when we got back into the competition atmosphere. 

I want to paint a picture for anyone who doesn’t dance.  Image yourself in a crowed room scattered with dance costumes, bobby pins, hair spray, packed lunches, and scattered suitcases.  Getting into the competition spirit mean creating a niche for yourself in that crowed room and getting comfortable.  It’s excessive amounts of hairspray and teased hair.  It’s stretching with your friends.  It’s the sparkly sequins.  It’s hearing the same song for all the dances and knowing you’re different.  It’s about fun and nerves and excitement.  That was what we felt this Monday and Tuesday asides from being tired. 

Nationals was all of this mixed with sadness.  Yeah we all joke about burning our costumes after we finish our dances for the last time, but when it actually comes down to it I was sad that this was the last time my team and I were ever going to perform some of our best dances.  At the end of 500 Miles the lights dimmed and it just hit me.  We will never do this dance again.  So the usual smile that spreads across my face at the end of that dance twitched and I felt like I was losing something special. 

I might have lost a few routines but I gained a once in a lifetime opportunity and a beautiful medal from Worlds that encompasses it all.