One day in the 4th grade my best friend and neighbor came to my house and told me all about her dance class that she had been taking all year and the upcoming recital. I thought nothing of this until later that day my mother decided it might be another "thing" to try, our conversation went a little something like this:
Me-"Absolutely not! I will, under no circumstances, stand on a stage in front of all those people and look like a fool!" (Mind you, I was a painfully shy 10-year-old)
Mom-"What if you just took the classes and didn't do the recital at the end of the year?"
Me-"What's the point then?"
...no response...
In my head (I'm assuming... I was 10, my memories are a little blurry) my thought was: 'well, if I don't have to do the recital at the end of the year I don't really have to try in class and can stop going as soon as we start learning the dance to be performed... maybe I'll do it just to say I did and call it quits after a few weeks' (after all, that's how most of the other trial runs went). So, I said "OK!"
I convinced my cousin Marisa to take a tap class with me, more like tricked her, but we went, and mom tricked me in to a jazz class as well. I guess that's what I get for tricking the cousin... well played mother, well played.
I honestly cannot tell you what happened that entire first year of my classes (other than trying to practice my tap moves with Marisa on the playground at school but failing almost every time when she would just scuff her feet around and proceed to blow me off because she was embarrassed by me), but I can tell you that it ended in two very unflattering leotards with sequins, fringe, feathers and elastic correlating with the songs "Zoot Suit Riot" (this leo was neon pink) and "I Won't Dance" (Ironic right?!) (black gold and silver leo for this one, with the shiny tap shoes of course...). I still can't believe I genuinely FORGOT about the deal with my mother and went through with the entire year AND the recital, once again, touche mom, well played.
The next year I ironically decided that I wanted MORE! I "auditioned" (everyone made it...) for one of my studio's competition teams (jazz & lyrical) and ended up on the lyrical team. (We danced at local and statewide competitions and weekend-long conventions). I spent the year running across the stage to the song "Only Time" by Enya and "Once Upon A December" (yup, the one from the movie Anastasia) (and yes, that was a hint that even the newbie that I was, knew it was terrible choreography and song choice, even back then...), but I made it, and went back for another year...
*A bit of background: our teams were divided in to two groups for each team, we called them the "biggies" and the "littles", I was a "little"...*
Year 3. The lyrical team ("biggies" and "littles") was combined due to lack of dancers. I also got on to the jazz team, which posed a sort of a problem... All the girls my age were now "biggies" while because of my lack of experience (they had all been dancing since they were 3, meanwhile Emily is on year 3 of dance), I remained a "little". I watched all of my friends dance fun, exciting choreography while I was stuck with girls much younger and inexperienced. This forever ruined the songs "I Love Rock 'N Roll" and "Get This Party Started" for me (first visualize shiny red pants and a pleather half-top with the word "ROCK" on it... now try black baggy pants and a dew-rag and Emily attempting to look "ghetto"... if you visualize correctly you should have at LEAST chuckled if something didn't come out of your nose...). Whilst suffering through being a mature "little" (I was fortunate enough to step in once as an understudy for the "biggies" when a girl broke her foot before a competition) I was also placed on the brand-spankin'-new tap team, which was another great experience (of which I met one of my favorite past-time personalities... Donae [if you danced with me at this time you will know who I'm talking about, if not, just imagine the most absurd facial expressions known to man, multiply by 27, put them in stage makeup and under lights and wallah! You think I'm kidding... I'm not.]).
The next year, along with the 3 competition teams I was involved in, my parents convinced me (they seemed to be doing this a lot now that I think about it...) to tackle the art of performing solo. I wanted a lyrical one, parents wanted a ballet one, and in order for me to agree to ballet I threw jazz in to the negotiations and ended with all 3. I got around the classical ballet solo my parents wanted by choosing the 007 theme song en pointe (those hard shoes ballerinas wear...). First year with a solo and I did 3... still can't decide if that was crazy-good or crazy-insane, but I made it through. I almost forgot to mention, I was upgraded to permanent "biggie" during this year, life was good.
These pictures aren't my first solos, but they're back at Foothills so I thought I'd post them. The tan/yellow dress was my 2nd year (when I decided 3 was too many, I settled for just one), green dress was actually a group dance (but a solo picture haha) that same year. Red shirt pictures are from my solo the following year, I believe I was a freshman or sophomore in high school at this point.
I will spare you the agony of reading through the rest of my life, year by year, until my current age of 21, but summarize that I spent 6 years total at Foothills Dance Studio, 5 competing and winning many large shiny trophies for the trophy shelf that ran out of space and expanded to any other surface in the tiny studio, and now reside in the possession of the new studio owner who tried to give them back to me 3 years ago when I came to teach a summer intensive because she felt bad throwing them away... (sorry, I do realize that was an extremely long sentence, hopefully you took a few breaths) The last two years our teams sort-of fell apart so I usually performed my solos at various competitions around our area. Once again, the 'rents convinced me (gosh I'm easily swayed apparently) to start taking classes in the city at a very well known dance studio. This is when dance became a big deal...
I started taking ballet from Deirdre Hawkins at Hawkins School of Performing Arts once a week. Deirdre asked me to be an understudy for an upcoming performance for her ballet company and I accepted in order to make friends at the new studio. (Who knew a dance related to a clock could be so helpful?!). The next year I was placed as a principle dancer on the Folsom Lake Civic Ballet Company (FLCB) along with (after an audition) becoming a principle on iMPACT Contemporary Dance Company, both of which are under the umbrella (along with Sound Out Tap Company) of Stages Northern California Performing Arts, the only non-profit pre-professional dance company in Northern California. This commitment required about 30 hours per week of technique and rehearsal classes for me, added on to a full load of my junior year of high school, (oh ya, fun fact: I also got mono in the beginning of that year... that was just a hoot) but I LOVED every minute of it. We put on a full length ballet, "Coppelia", and all the companies came together for "Evening of Dance". We also danced at random functions such as the grand opening of a shopping center, Macy's community day, "Light the Night" fundraiser for Leukemia & Lymphoma, Stein Mart's grand opening and many many more. It was a great experience for me and opened a lot of doors to expose me to the possibilities of dance.
My senior year of high school I decided to enjoy being a high schooler so I cut back to just one company, iMPACT. This, surprisingly, only cut about 10 hours out of the equation but I was at least able to go to my senior prom and sporting events (as a spectator! geeze) (although, I did forget to mention, one of those "in-between" years I ran high school track... sucked at everything but hurtles because I was the only one flexible enough to do the splits over every one.). ANYWAY, this year I was paid to choreograph a solo for a student that was an apprentice on iMPACT and also received the "runner-up" position to a hefty dance scholarship through audition. We produced our full length contemporary show "eMOTIONal Destinations", which was the best show I have EVER been a part of. Oh, and I also got to take a class from MIA MICHAELS (my FAVORITE choreographer in the entire world), she looked me straight in the eye and gave me a critique and I will forever cherish the moment she hugged me.
ya, that's Mia...
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