Dancing Through Life

I am in crunch time.  I compete on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, and I have rehearsal every day as well.  My body is breaking down, I am running on two hours of sleep, and I have never felt more on top of the world.  It is terrifying and stressful and one of the best feelings I have ever experienced.

I talk about dance competition a lot, but I was asked once about dancing.  I thought it was absolutely hilarious, but it seems that a lot of people think that dance class is just a bunch of people jumping around and making up their own routines.  But it is so much more than that.

My contemporary dance, Dripping, competed last weekend.  The piece was created by the brilliant, and rather eccentric, Davi Rodrigues, a ballet and modern dancer from Brazil who is not only extremely talented, but one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever met.  His idea for the piece that my troupe and I preformed was that we are catching raindrops to save the world.  You see what I mean about eccentric.  The dance itself is terrifying.  We have plastic garbage cans from IKEA that we ‘catch the drops’ in, and they play a huge role in our dance.  As Davi said, ‘The bucket becomes a part of your body.’  It is just a small cylinder of plastic, but I stand on it, throw it across the stage, duck as it flies over my head, and interact with it constantly.  You cannot imagine the amount of things that can go wrong when your dance become greater than just the movement of your body.  I have fallen or been hit during rehearsal way too many times to count.

Three weeks until competition:  The dance is completed, but it is not very tidy.  Timing is off, technique is a mess, and, though the intent is there, the passion behind our dancing is still very lacking.  The stress of competition is upon me, but I am not ready to accept that in three weeks I will be on stage, being judged on every move I make.  My hour rehearsal is spent tidying the dance and working to find that soulful place to dance from, where emotion takes over and my body just knows the steps.

Two weeks until competition:  My studio has a dress rehearsal on stage every year, so that we know the spacing of the piece on a large space, and to clarify entrances and exits.  I had seven pieces to rehearse on this day, but my contemporary dance is really the only one I can distinctly remember.  In my first few moments on stage in the dance, I collide with another dancer on my way into the wings.  Davi stops the music, and I fight back tears.  It is my first day on stage as an elite dancer, and I screw up to the point of the music being stopped.  The dancer I collided with begins screaming at me.  In my defence, we were both at fault, but he has a quick temper, and I am in a very vulnerable state.  His words sink into my mind.  It was my fault.  I was in the wrong place.  I screwed up.

I failed.

And I was in front of all of my teachers and the owner of my studio when it happened.  Davi has us gather around him at the front of the stage.  Some people are confused, some are sending angry looks at the boy who yelled at me, and some are sending me disappointed looks.  In my mind, they are all looking at me with disgust and disapproval.  My teacher finally speaks, saying that this is why we have rehearsals like this.  Obviously, I would never let something like this happen again, and because of this, I had a chance to learn from my mistake.

I would have preferred to just be yelled at by my teacher.  Her understanding makes me lose my composure.  Tears stream down my face.  The dance begins again, and I go through it on autopilot, letting my body do the dancing.  I can’t tell you what goes through my mind, as I myself am unsure of it.  I know that I somehow make it offstage, and I run to my dressing room where I collapse, bawling.  It was entirely my fault.

A week and a half until competition:  I am afraid to go to class three days later, but I should have known that everybody would be amazing about the whole thing.  It is hardly mentioned, and class goes on as usual.  It is an unspoken agreement that we simply forget it all happened.  It seems as though it has actually been forgotten by everybody, aside from me and the other boy.  We exchange sincere apologies, and eventually become even closer because of what happened.

Rehearsal goes well today.  We watch the video from the dress rehearsal, and we work on the things that went wrong on stage.  Everything is running smoothly, but spring break is coming up, and, although nobody voices it, we are all worried about what this might mean.

One week until competition:  I am in Toronto while the rest of my troupe is at the studio.  I can’t help but thinking how ridiculous it is.  I am the one who needs the most work.  I should be there.  I spend my time away letting my body recover from the stress of dancing, although I know that the second my plane lands in Vancouver, I will be back to the dance studio.

Two days until competition:  I am back in Vancouver, and as promised, back at the studio.  It is the final rehearsal before competition, and I am a basket case.  Lifts are falling, buckets are dropping, everyone is injured, and tempers are flaring.  I leave rehearsal that day knowing that Davi is disappointed, and I will be at fault if we fail at the competition.

One day until competition:  My back injury is flaring up, and I am afraid that it will present a problem when it comes time to compete.  My father doesn’t understand just how taxing it is on the body to dance on stage.  The power and execution needed is terrible for even a healthy body.  I spend the day resting, trying to give myself the best possible recipe for success the following day.

Eight hours until competition:  I wake up from a very restless night.  I had nightmares about everything that could possibly go wrong in the dance.  Every time, it was my fault, and every time I was the one who was hurt and ashamed in front of everyone.  I am too nervous to eat breakfast.  I put on my back track for the dance on repeat and go over my steps a few hundred times in my head, attempting to drill the motions into my bones.

Six hours until competition:  I am in my teammate’s car on the way to Surrey, and realization is finally hitting me.  I am competing today.  It is one of the most nerve wracking days of my life, and it is all beginning to pile up on me.  I turn up the volume on my music and continue to play my routine through my mind, ignoring the attempts by my friend’s mother to distract me.  When I am stressed, I am much better to just be alone with my thoughts.

Four hours until competition:  I am sitting in the audience of the theatre, watching other dancers.  They are going through the exact same thing I am.  I see the dancers who mess up, and I feel for them.  I know that pretty soon that could be me, and that brings on another wave of insecurities.  Am I good enough?  What if I screw up?  What if I cost my team a place in the finals?  What if I make us lose?

Two hours until competition:  Davi’s other dances have all competed and done amazingly.  What if it is my fault that my dance, the last one of the night, doesn’t do well?  I put on my makeup and false eyelashes and pin up my hair.  I get into my costume and stretch.  I keep busy, because if I stop doing something, I will go into panic mode.

One hour until competition:  My entire group has arrived, and we are warming up together.  Davi has us go through this ballet warm up which somehow involves push ups.  I go through the motions, but my mind is not with it.  I guess the panicked look on my face is apparent because Davi pulls me aside.  “You are only as amazing as you let yourself be,” he tells me.  Like most of Davi’s insight and words of wisdom, I never really know what to make of it, but I try my best to take this to heart.

20 minutes until competition:  I am standing backstage, clutching onto one of my friends like she is a life preserver.  I am on the verge of hyperventilating.  I knew this was going to happen.  The first time onstage after a big mistake is always terribly scary.  My knees are shaking and my body is trembling.  I can barely stand, let alone dance.

10 minute until competition:  I cannot remember any of the steps of my dance.  I know that the moment the stage lights hit me my body will take over, but I can’t comprehend that at the moment.  I am having trouble breathing, and my mouth goes dry.  I am sweating, but my body is freezing.

1 minute until competition:  I get together with my friends and we give each other a pep talk.  As the oldest in the group, and the most mature, I am elected to give the talk.  That would be fine, except that I am unable to think clearly.  “I know that the last rehearsal sucked, but Davi is counting on us.  He believes in us, and we all believe in each other, so we need to believe in ourselves and kick some serious ass.”  At least that is what I think I say.  I can’t hear my own voice in my ears.

Competition time:  It seems like time stands still.  The time between when the adjudicator rings the bell and when my music begins seems like hours.  Everything is moving in slow motion.  Then the song begins and my mind shuts off.  I can’t tell you what I am thinking about.  My mind is not dancing, heart and body are.  And somehow, everything seems to hit just right.

1 minute after competition:  I run off stage and into the arms of one of my best friends.  We are both in tears.  Congratulations are given, but it is all just a blur.  My main focus is the fact that I made it through the dance flawlessly.  Everything just felt right.

30 minutes after competition:  It is time for the adjudication.  We sit in a row, each clutching the hands of the people beside us.  And then cheers erupt.  My dance was given first place, and a score of 90.5 (which, if you are not a dancer, is a very high score).  And suddenly, everything makes sense again.

Now that was a very long way to give you a glimpse into my stressed out mind.  Take that whole situation and multiply it by my eight dances, and then add a benefit concert I am organizing, a ballet solo I must learn for the upcoming school play that I am understudying in, and choreography for my ballet recital in June.

This week, I compete at least on dance everyday from Sunday until Friday, excluding Wednesday.  I am going through this same panic for each of my dances, but I now have the reassurance that it will be okay.

And I think that that is what I needed all along.