1. English 9
Block A (Period 2)
Kaitlin Walashek
My Dance Experience

2. Getting Ready to Go
3 hours before I’m on stage at the start of the dance competition, I’m in the bright bathroom cautiously doing my stage makeup and hair. The bathroom is filled with the scent of makeup and hair products by the time I’m finished. Before I walk out of the bathroom I spray my hair one last time with hairspray, covering my face to avoid getting it in my eyes and then packing it into my already cluttered dance bag. I take my costumes that I’ve laid out onto the bed and carefully put them onto a hanger and bring everything downstairs. I’m already starting to get excited, almost jumping up and down waiting for my mom to come downstairs. I finally heard her footsteps as she fled down the stairs. We don’t want to be late, especially since we need to arrive an hour prior to the start of the competition. I walk out the door, my bag and costume brushing against me. I can hear the jingle of the keys as my mom locks the door behind me and off we go.

3. Arrival
As I get out of the car slowly, trying not to brush my hair up against the roof, I take a deep breath and start walking towards the entrance of the large building as the small breeze blows against my face. The automatic doors quietly slide open and I walk in. It is always clustered with so many people and like a mouse in a maze I start to head towards the dressing rooms, careful not to crash into anybody. As soon as reach the dressing rooms I can here the loud chatter of everybody preparing to perform and compete against the other groups. When I walk in I start to search for the others in my group that go to my dance studio. When I find them I go over to them attempting not to trip over any dance bags that were strewn across the floor of the crowded room. Everyone then falls silent as the voice of the host comes on the speakers announcing the start of the competition. Then everyone falls back into chatter and its time for us to start warming up.

4. Preparing to go on Stage
We exit the dressing rooms trying to search for a big enough place for us to warmup. When we find a spacy enough spot we turn on the music for our routine and start slowly going through the dance, making sure that we aren’t messing up any parts. We run through the dance over and over until we are sweaty and out of breath. I can feel the heat radiating off all of our bodies as we begin to stretch. One of us runs to find a schedule or one of the staff to see if we are up soon. As we wait I can see the excitement in my friends eyes but I can tell that they are nervous at the same time too. We are called up back stage and we flee up the stairs. I can feel the excitement building up in my chest as we wait behind the curtains. We silently watch the performers that are on stage trying not to get intimidated but not overly confident. The group comes off the stage panting trying their best to say, “good luck” without completely losing their breath.

5. The Performance
It’s time to go on stage and we are almost jumping with excitement. They announce our group name and we snap into character walking onto stage. People clap and a few cheer. We stop at the center of the stage and the audience silences and the music comes to a start. No matter what style of dance I’m doing its all the same. We have to keep out dancing clean, and sharp but we also have to stay in character. I don’t even need to try to smile because I’m already smiling because just being out on stage and doing what I love was a blast. As I dance I can feel the bright lights shining on the stage and changing colour. It’s dark in the audience but there’s enough light to see the judges studying us with serious eyes and occasionally jotting things down on the papers in front of them. We end the dance, the audience claps and the lights dim.

6. The Awards
We run off the stage out of breath and excited to know our score. Once we are off stage we gather around and discuss how we think we did. We go back to the dressing rooms that are starting to empty out because people are getting ready to go after the awards. We change out of our costumes and organize all are stuff so it’s ready to go when we leave. Then we head back stage again to wait for the last of the groups to perform and then everybody as a big group walks onto the stage and finds a spot to sit down. The host comes out with a smile on his or her face, thanking us all for participating. When the sound of wheels rolling onto the stage fills our ears we all quiet down because we know that must be the awards. The host starts to name out all the groups and what they placed and everyone on the stage is clapping, and cheering and I can occasionally here some “good jobs” here and then. That is my experience with dance and I hope its something that I carry on with for a long time because I always feel so much freedom dancing, almost like a horse running in the fields. Dance is my passion!