Dancer

By: Caroline Walker

When I was 12, I saw a dance competition video. I loved how the dancers moved around the stage in sync, and how their bright costumes made them pop. Their precise movements made watching them dance mesmerizing. I knew that I wanted to be able to do that. So, I started taking classes at the dance studio where I had been taking acrobatics since I was little.

When I got to my first class, ballet, I was so excited, but by the end of class, I wanted to quit. I had a hard time catching up with the rest of the class because I was joining in the middle of the year. It was also hard because I was the youngest in my class. After a couple of months, I was starting to catch up, and I was able to get my leaps higher than anyone else. Even my balance was much better.

After a year, the Spring Showcase was coming up, and everyone was excited. We were learning routines that tested our limits, but I was catching on. The dances were looking really good, we were in sync, and everyone had mastered the choreography.

The morning of the showcase, I woke up late. I jumped out of bed and threw on the flowy pink dress for my first performance which was a ballet number. I scrambled to get all of the parts and pieces of my costumes together. I ran down the hallway to get started on my make-up. Nothing was coming together. I accidentally used the wrong shade of foundation; I had to wipe it all off and start over again. 

When we eventually got in the car to go to the performance, my little sister forgot her costume bag and had to run back inside the house. 

As we arrived at the venue for the showcase, the show was already starting and my number was beginning soon. I ran as fast as I could to get backstage. When I got there, I was relieved because had made it just in time so that I had 10 minutes before my first dance number began.

As I was setting up my area, I looked in my bag and shrieked. I jumped up and ran out to the audience to get my mom. “Mom! My ballet shoes aren’t in my bag!” I explained.

She asked, “What should we do?”

Desperately I asked, “Can you drive me back home? I still have a few minutes before my dance starts.” Together we ran out to the car. 

On our way home, my mom asked, “How did you forget your ballet slippers?”

“I didn’t pack my bag last night,” I said sheepishly.

“Don’t you think you should have done that?” she remarked.

“Yeah, I probably should have,” I admitted guiltily.

We got back to the studio with a minute to go and I sprinted to the entrance. I got to the side of the stage and watched as the group before us performed. A stagehand told me that I was on next. I got onstage and as the lights brightened I felt truly in place looking out into the audience with my friends standing next to me. The music started and I didn’t have to look around to know what to do next. It was as though my body knew what to do I just had to put on a smile. When we struck our ending pose we all had big smiles on our faces. The lights went off, and we scrambled off the stage whisper-shouting in excitement about how well our dance had gone.

We ran backstage to change into our costumes for our next dance. It felt like forever waiting out in the hallway for all the other dances to go. When we finally got on stage, there was obviously something wrong. The adrenaline rush that we had after our last dance was gone. I looked to my right and saw that the girl that was supposed to be front and center was missing. The lights came on, and I exchanged an anxious look with my friend standing next to me. We knew that this was bad. 

We were determined to do the dance the same as we had practiced, but without the girl on my right, our formations were completely messed up. The music started; we tried to make up for the missing spot, but everything went wrong. No one knew where to go, and we were so thrown off that we didn’t dance well either. As I panicked, my mind went empty I didn’t know what to do. I tried looking around, so that I could copy my classmate's movements, but they didn’t know what to do either.

As we staggered off the stage, we were all so disappointed that we had ruined the dance that we had been working on for weeks. We performed our last dance, and it went better, but we were still upset with ourselves for messing up our previous dance. 

As we walked out to go home, we were greeted by a crowd of our family and friends. One of the dancers walking out with me asked, “Should we perform again here?” Everyone agreed and someone played the music for our dance on their phone. The backbeat of the song started, and I forgot that everyone was standing around us. We performed and everything was right. As I danced, I remembered why I dance. Without the stress of performing in front of lots of people,  we were just having fun doing what we loved, dancing.

I identify as a dancer because, dancing is when I feel free, and happy. The years of long dance classes, and late nights are all worth it because when I get on the stage I feel the most like me.