Dance+Competition+by+Caroline+Thirkill

Caroline Thirkill Composition Mr. Bouton 3/29/09 Dance Competition Already it is dance competition season. Here is a look at a normal competition. Imagine the stereotypical Pageant atmosphere, with little girls running around with their hair done up in tight curls, older girls standing in cliques and staring disdainfully at anyone and everyone else in the room, and screaming mothers sprinting back and forth with a costume, hairspray, or lipstick, trying to get everyone ready to go on stage. Now add to that the clunking of tap shoes, point shoes, and the sound of bodies thumping on the wooden stage above our heads. Sometimes, the thumping is actually in time to the music. As you can imagine, I, as the independent and quiet witness, always feel horribly out of place. While competitive dance is considered a team sport, it is always a struggle to get in perfect sync. Many dancers are divas, so things can get tense when we are told to tone down our individuality. I spend more than fourteen hours a week with the girls on my team, but we are not exactly friends. We get along well enough to be stuck in a room together for such an amount of time, but we really don’t know each other. I first joined the studio at about thirteen years old, a few years after we moved to New Hampshire. They have been dancing together since they were three and four years old, so even that young I was treated as an outsider. Although I’ve been there for a while now, that first boundary between them and me still seems to hold. Also they all go to either West or Bedford High, so they see each other and interact during the school day. Once again, I am seen as an outsider. Along with that, my personality differs from theirs. I’m interested in information, in learning all that I can, whereas they don’t seem to care about their intelligence at all. Most of them are smart enough to be far more knowledgeable than they are, they just don’t seem to care. My usage of my intellect tends to set me apart. Maybe I come off as snobbish, but I try not to act pretentious. This difference in our personalities distances me from the other girls. The sociality of getting ready can be considered the most awkward part of competitions. Around seventeen of us plus mothers are crammed into a little room together, along with another team and their helpers. We are required to get to the theater almost two hours early, to make sure we are ready on time. This means we spend a lot of time sitting around, trying to be polite and sweet with mothers and other girls that we don’t even know, whom we are about to compete against for a prize that we have practiced very hard for. The interactions are usually rather strained as a result. Most studios will train for a competition for months, since the summer at least. My dance team is unique in that this contest is not a top priority for us. This year, we only spent about two months learning our routines, which is very little time to perfect three whole dances. While this may make it seem like we don’t care as much, it’s not true. We spend more time at the studio per week than other teams, to help make up for lost time. We put on about nine company shows per year, six around Christmas and three at the end of the year on top of competition. Most dance studios put on one or two per year, if any at all. So we spend more time dancing, and dedicating ourselves to the sport than they do in the end. After the long wait, it is time to go back stage. This is a formal procedure in and of itself. We walk in a group up three flights of stairs, past other teams and groups. They all wish us good luck as we walk past, in a sugary sweet voice that tells us that they really hope we fail. We reply with a thank you, and return our “well wishes” as we go past. It is at this point that we start to really come together as a team, instead of the broken up groups we huddled in beforehand. We stand in a room, with cold cement floors and walls that constantly has a draft. It is incredibly uncomfortable. Here the girls partake in the ritual mocking out of other teams behind their backs, about how horrible their costumes were, and “oh my god, what did they do to their hair?” Then the doors to backstage open, and we file into the darkened wings of the stage. We walk about for a moment, examining our competition dancing out on stage. If the current performing group is really good, then we get determined about trying to beat them. If they’re really bad, we get excited about how easy it is going to be to sweep them out of the awards spots. Either way, we get “pumped up” about going out on stage. Then we have “circle up” time, where we all listen to a motivational speech from our team captain, stick our hands in the center, and on three, scream out the name of our studio. Then we get in lines to walk out on stage, and the real fun begins. At that point, it doesn’t matter if you’re an outsider, or whatever conflict we may have with each other. Everyone becomes an equally accepted member of the team. Once we begin to dance, everyone is examined for mistakes in the exact same way. This impartial, yet critical judging brings everyone onto an equal footing. This year I am involved in two dances, a tap and a jazz. Our tap dance is a crowd pleaser, with big smiles, fun outfits, and great music, but our jazz dance is always the killer. Other teams still remember our dance from last year, Pirates, and we are admired for it. That doesn’t often happen in a competition, that a dance was so good that we still get respect for it the next year. But what shows that we have gained recognition is the audience’s reaction when we stomp out on stage to the opening lines of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. As soon as we come out, camera bulbs start going off in the audience, recording certain moves, our costumes, and our attitude. A lot of them are other schools, trying to figure out what exactly it is about us that appeals to the judges so much. The moment we step into the light in our black tights, pink net skirts, black skull shirts, and skull bandanas, we own that stage and our audience. I personally believe that our greatest appeal beyond technical skill is our team’s chemistry. While other competing teams will get out on stage, and have people try to show each other up within a routine, we always manage to come together at the last minute and present a united front. There is passion and fire in our movements, but it comes from our love of the dance, and our attempts to make it look perfect rather than from any personal pride or sense of importance. This is the part that I love, when we get out and show everyone just exactly how good we are. Every second you are on stage, with the lights shining on you and the cheers coming in from the audience, you get more and more excited and energetic, and every move you make is that much better. Our legs are straighter, our feet are pointed more, our kicks and leaps are higher; it is an exhilarating feeling. A dance that would leave you lying on the floor on your back, struggling to breathe in practice is suddenly the most energizing thing ever. We are completely in the moment, nothing in the world is more important than making sure that this dance is the best it could be. This is the one thing that the other girls and I really agree on. After the dance, there is the walk back to the changing room. This is less of a set procedure, and more of an exhausted rush to get ready for the next dance, or to be ready for when they call the dancers up for awards. That is when the pageantry comes back. We wait in the wings for many songs, so that we are the first ones in line to get on stage. It is very important to save a place at the front. There are so many dancers, all trying to fit onto one space, and if you are not careful, there could be very little room for your team. As soon as we are allowed on stage, everyone scrambles for a place. Because of how early we arrive backstage, we usually get a prime spot. While the MC announces the various teams and dances, there is an undercurrent of hatred flying between the dancers of different studios. Our studio plays a game during awards that the audience finds amusing, but makes the other teams very nervous. Every time an award goes to another team, we clap a certain number of times, as determined by one of the girls on our team. So for example one team will get an award, and we will clap simultaneously exactly ten times. Then the next team will get an award, and we will clap another ten times. Then the next team goes up to get their award and we clap only once. While the MC and the audience love our teamwork and “enthusiasm”, it really freaks the other dancers out. Then whenever our team wins an award, we go crazy, filling the theatre with our cheers and celebrations. Awards ceremonies can last for quite a while, sometimes over an hour. By the end, it becomes very boring and monotonous, but we do quite well. So far this year, we have participated in two competitions, winning 1st place for most of our dances in each separate category. Overall, we have ranked 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th, between the two competitions. Those are very good rankings, especially for a small studio like ours. At the end of a competition, everyone packs up their stuff and heads for home, and a well-earned nap. So while competition can be frustrating, demoralizing, and scary, every time I get up on stage and realize what my hard work has produced, I know its all worth it.