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| My very first dance performance Christmas Eve 2006 |
Our first dance was to be on Christmas Eve in 2006. I was 11 at the time of our first rehearsal, but I turned 12 soon after we started. I was soooo nervous for our first performance together, because back then I was ridiculously & painfully shy. So to perform with the group at my church's 7:30 pm Christmas Eve service was a huge step for me; there's always a lot people there! Our first song we danced to was "O Holy Night". During our first rehearsal together I remember thinking "Oh my gosh what am I doing here? I'm gonna screw this up!" As expected, I made a few mistakes during rehearsals, but that's allowed and ok so it really wasn't that big of a deal. And also the routine wasn't that hard either, so mistakes were scarce. When it came time to perform, I was soooooo nervous and scared!! It went off without a hitch, and while I was dancing, I felt totally calm, totally at home. It was then that I realized dancing was my calling.
Over the years, we performed more and more routines, each of them a little more difficult than the last. And also over the years we added more girls to the group. I remember we had 9 girls dancing together at one time! And once there was only four. Some of the members go in and out with the dances, dancing when they can, because they have packed schedules. And then there's two of them, "the girl", & another girl who I'm not getting along with, that are just too lazy to get their butts to practice when they're supposed to be there. But there's always four of us that are there for every dance: Dee, Megan B., Jennifer & Me. We never miss a dance. Well, Meg did once because she broke her foot. But she had a good excuse to get out of it. Meg and I have both danced with sprained ankles & sprained wrists in the past, there's hardly anything that can keep us from dancing! In all four years, I have never missed a dance & I don't plan on doing so! I think even if I had a broken foot I'd still be dancing! Well, I've already danced with a broken foot before, but that was ballroom dancing.
But anyway, in February 2009 our church had its 50th anniversary, so Dee planned a big dance for the anniversary service. We had a big banner set up that said "Soli Deo Gloria" which translates to "To God Alone Be The Glory" in Latin, & it was also the song we danced to as well. We had the little kids of the church come in near the end of the dance carrying little balloon banner things and we dancers also picked up our ribbon batons at that point and started waving them around all pretty. Then, as the dance ended, they let their balloon strings go (they were tied to the wand so they didn't float away) & the balloons floated up to the top of the sanctuary. It was a beautiful dance, & I think it was our best dance to date. At that point, I didn't really get nervous for dances anymore, because we had done so many by then. But, for this dance, I was beyond nervous, because a bunch of Pastors came from all over our church region (I can't remember the technical term for that lol) & even the Bishop came! So since the Bishop was there I was even more scared & really worked extra hard to not mess up. There was over 250 people at the service, & our church isn't that big, so they were packed in there like little sardines! Lol. The dance worked out perfectly, & no one made any mistakes at all :) And when it was over, the congregation started clapping & it sounded so loud, because there was so many people there. I hadn't performed in front of that many people before that, so it was really cool.
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| From L to R: Me, Dee, Lisa, "another girl", Jennifer, Megan K. & Megan B. with the "Soli Deo Gloria" banner. |
After that dance we were all wondering how we would ever measure up to it, since that was like one of our most epic dances ever! Dee had set the bar very high with her choreography. I think our "season finale" dance last season was probably just as good as the anniversary dance. It was to the song "The Spirit's Coming", and it was a very peppy and upbeat song. We started the dance by doing the Charleston, and it just kept getting better and better from there :) By this point in our dancing we had 4 new members of the group: Meg. A., Abby, Danielle & Erin. Meg. A. is an adult, but Abby, Danielle & Erin are around 8-9 years old. The little girls really liked the end of the dance, because they got to sit on the big girls' knees lol. We all had a lot of fun with that one, I loved it :) It was for Pentecost, so we had to wear red, and I really think the red and white costumes matched the song and choreography really well. It was definitely a fun fun fun dance :)
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| Me with the "Come Holy Spirit" Pentecost banner in April or May 2010. |
A lot of our dances here lately have been pretty upbeat and peppy, but, as expected, we do a lot of slow dances as well. They are still lots of fun too. Whenever we're doing a slow dance, I try to take that as an opportunity to really express my somber, more serious side. Now that I've come out of my shell more I've developed a random, crazy & spontaneous personality, so I really enjoy the slower dances now than I did before, because I get to show people that I can be serious sometimes and not crazy all the time like everyone now knows me to be.
This next dance that we are working on right now is probably gonna be up there with the "Soli Deo Gloria" & the "Spirit's Coming" dances; it is really epically awesome! It's our Advent dance, so we're in our white skirts & leotards, with our blue capes over the leotards (like the red one in the picture above) & we have some pretty finger scarfs that we wear. We are supposed to perform this dance on Sunday November 28th. I'm excited for this one, because it starts off very slow and then progressively builds up to this amazingly powerful level! I think the congregation is really going to enjoy this one, hopefully as much as I am.
Then, after this dance, comes the Christmas Eve dance, which will be our four year anniversary!! We get to wear our white dresses with the pretty gold angel sleeves, (the one in the first picture of this post). Since we perform it at night, we dim the lights in the sanctuary and we dance with these plastic battery operated candles. So, since we dance with those candles, we have this little tradition for our Christmas dance: Every year, the finishing pose for the dance is a star. All the dancers come together and form a human star shape. It's usually the highlight of the dance, because by now the congregation is expecting it. And since the group's numbers differ from year to year, I'm sure they're eager to see how we will make it work. And we're also adding a new member! Starting Dec. 4th, our friend Lindsey will be joining our dance group! After that, we have our winter break, then we start back practicing in February 2011.
So you see, we have a really great dance group at my church. We are really close, and have so much fun in the rehearsals. We get really crazy and goofy during the rehearsals haha. We've been together for four years, and will most likely be together for many years to come.
