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My Nicest Dance Compliment Ever

I was nervous. I’d be sharing the stage with a very talented dance company, and juxtaposed with some amazingly beautiful choregraphy. They would have a whole troupe; I would have only myself and my partner. I had no fancy entrances and exits. It was just dancing.

And I think we did great; I’m grateful for each of my partners.

Sure: I was a “filler” to make time for costume changes. But I had a great time and received one of the nicest compliments ever. Technically it was an indirect compliment, meant for one of my partners… but it was really nice nonetheless.

Preparation

Last-second changes (other dancers getting sick, etc.) to American Dance Studio’s line up forced me to get ready on very short notice. I had nine days to prepare our Salsa piece, five days to prepare the Cha Cha, and only twelve hours to prep the West Coast Swing.

I danced at least 2-3 hours every day leading up to the performance. Most of that time was spent choreographing our salsa number, a 3-minute cut of Tiziano Ferro’s “Perdona“. My partner, Chelsea, worked incredibly hard and gave up a lot of her time and energy to make it all come together. She strives for excellence - even when it means putting up with me several hours each day to rehearse, choreograph, and then forget what I’m leading (over and over).

Brianna, my cha cha partner, was gracious enough to dance with me even after I opted to do the salsa with Chelsea instead of her. We chose a shorter (1:50) segment of the end of a high-energy song and only two sections were formally choreographed. The rest was all lead-follow and she quickly picked up a couple of new moves I showed her to get us to travel the stage a bit more. She’s been dancing and performing since she was little and was a lot calmer than I going into the whole thing; her experience meant she also had a great stage presence, which was fun for me to try and match.

The west coast was the hardest - I volunteered to do it the night before the first performance. With dress rehearsals beginning in the morning we only got one hour of actual practice. The whole piece was lead/follow (no time to choreograph!) to a 2 minute cut from Daniel Bedingfield’s “James Dean (I Wanna Know)”. Fortunately, Kristina and I have been dancing west coast together for a while and hitting the breaks and playing with the music wasn’t difficult at all. The piece came together amazingly well, especially considering the short time we had to prep.

The Performances

Waiting in the wings is the most nerve wracking. Knowing that in less than four minutes it will be our turn to take the stage. I take three breaths and suddenly the piece is half over - two minutes to go, now.

I try to stay calm but anticipation for “the moment” is unavoidable. Blackout. Clapping. The scurry as people rush off stage.

My palms are already a bit clammy. Adrenaline mixes into my system like nitrous oxide into a fuel stream. The stage clears and we take our marks. One breath. Lights and music come up in sync and suddenly: we’re on.

All eyes are on us and my body has to go with what it knows - every lesson, dance, competition, rehearsal, and practice that I’ve ever done determine what I do now because there is no thinking, no remembering, no fixing: my brain simply can’t do all of that at this point.

We just move.

Then, four breaths later, I spin her into a dip. I slow her down and hold a moment, then two. The song fades. Lights go out. Clapping. We scurry off stage - elated, out of breath, exhausted, and smiling. Remarks of “good job” and “that looked great” pass us in the hallway even as I wonder, “What did I just do?”.

I was more ready for the whole experience by our second performance. Still just as nervous, waiting in the wings. But I hit every mark, every break, every bit of choreograpy with each of my partners.

I loved the rush of performing. The adrenaline. The challenge of remembering so much on so little time. Switching dance styles every song. I’d gladly do it again.

Compliment

After Sunday’s show was over I went out to say hello to some friends in the audience. A little girl, about four years of age, slept peacefully in a row near the front.

Her mom said to me, “My daughter didn’t understand most of the dances she saw today. She kept asking ‘Why are they doing that?’ with a lot of the choreograpy. But with you, dancing with your partner… her respsonse was, ‘I wanna be her when I grow up.’”

Wow?! Indeed?

It sounds like she enjoyed it as much fun as I did.