A Chapter - Auditioning for the High School Dance Team
When I was a freshman in high school, I decided to audition for the dance team. I don't remember much about making the decision to try out, but I remember who I was well enough to guess. I probably heard the phrase "dance team," and decided that sounded good. I didn't know a single person who was on the team, I didn't know what the team DID. (I asked. Someone told me they danced at basketball games.) I didn't know what kind of dancing would be involved. I didn't care. I needed more dance in my life.
I remember that the gym was crowded on the first day of the audition process. There had to have been more than 100 girls in there. The coach told us we would have 4 days of rehearsals to learn a routine, and then we would audition at the end of the week. She was a seriously intimidating person. I remember her talking about what life would be like if we made the team. We would have practices every day. (This was a shock to me. I assumed after-school activities were like a twice a week thing.) We would be expected to hold our behavior to a certain standard at all times, because we would be representing the team, even when we weren't dancing. If we ever got visible hickeys, she would personally castrate our boyfriends. "If you feel the need to suck on one of my girls," she said, "have the awareness to suck somewhere that ISN'T visible when she's wearing her uniform." I remember thinking this advice seemed contradictory to our abstinence-only sex ed class, but I made no comment.
Though the coach was intimidating, she was nothing, I mean NOTHING, compared to the choreography. That first day of rehearsal, I almost walked out. I could barely keep up. I don't remember much about the specific moves, but I do remember that we did some kind of slide down onto our stomachs on the floor. I remember that because I was wearing this pair of panties that had little rivets on my hips. And my hips got disgustingly bruised from landing on those rivets. I didn't notice pain of it, but the blooming purple shadows on my reflection when I undressed that night shocked me so that I almost screamed. I also remember that the routine ended with us lying on our backs, and that was nice, because by then we really needed the break.
I went to the next three days of rehearsals. I practiced the routine in my back yard when I got home each night. There were parts of it that I really had no idea how to do. Some of the other girls in the rehearsal seemed to get it easily, but I was too shy to ask them to walk me through it. I thought it would seem bothersome. And besides, why would they teach me? It would only hurt their odds of making the team. I loved learning the choreography, though, despite the challenging parts. I really wanted to do it more.
When the day of the audition came, I just went home after school. I believed with absolute certainty that I would not make the team. I still believe this today. I had worked hard, and improved considerably, but anyone watching me alongside the other girls would be able to tell I was lost. At that point, I hadn't had a dance class in 10 years or so, and I never learned how to learn how to dance. It would have been a huge blow to my ego to have to hear the coach confirm it.
But, I should have gone. I should have tried and failed. I might have made a friend or two out of the other failures, and we could have tried again the next year, together. I might have made an impression on the coach as a hard worker, and she might have offered to help me the next time around. I might have avoided a 6+ year stretch of life with no dancing in it. It's taken me this long to realize this. It's taken until I'm the one holding the notepad with the pen in my mouth during auditions, until I'm the one deciding who makes the cut, to realize that it's important to audition for teams you can't make yet. I wasn't good enough to get on to that high school dance team, and I should have tried anyway.
I remember that the gym was crowded on the first day of the audition process. There had to have been more than 100 girls in there. The coach told us we would have 4 days of rehearsals to learn a routine, and then we would audition at the end of the week. She was a seriously intimidating person. I remember her talking about what life would be like if we made the team. We would have practices every day. (This was a shock to me. I assumed after-school activities were like a twice a week thing.) We would be expected to hold our behavior to a certain standard at all times, because we would be representing the team, even when we weren't dancing. If we ever got visible hickeys, she would personally castrate our boyfriends. "If you feel the need to suck on one of my girls," she said, "have the awareness to suck somewhere that ISN'T visible when she's wearing her uniform." I remember thinking this advice seemed contradictory to our abstinence-only sex ed class, but I made no comment.
Though the coach was intimidating, she was nothing, I mean NOTHING, compared to the choreography. That first day of rehearsal, I almost walked out. I could barely keep up. I don't remember much about the specific moves, but I do remember that we did some kind of slide down onto our stomachs on the floor. I remember that because I was wearing this pair of panties that had little rivets on my hips. And my hips got disgustingly bruised from landing on those rivets. I didn't notice pain of it, but the blooming purple shadows on my reflection when I undressed that night shocked me so that I almost screamed. I also remember that the routine ended with us lying on our backs, and that was nice, because by then we really needed the break.
I went to the next three days of rehearsals. I practiced the routine in my back yard when I got home each night. There were parts of it that I really had no idea how to do. Some of the other girls in the rehearsal seemed to get it easily, but I was too shy to ask them to walk me through it. I thought it would seem bothersome. And besides, why would they teach me? It would only hurt their odds of making the team. I loved learning the choreography, though, despite the challenging parts. I really wanted to do it more.
When the day of the audition came, I just went home after school. I believed with absolute certainty that I would not make the team. I still believe this today. I had worked hard, and improved considerably, but anyone watching me alongside the other girls would be able to tell I was lost. At that point, I hadn't had a dance class in 10 years or so, and I never learned how to learn how to dance. It would have been a huge blow to my ego to have to hear the coach confirm it.
But, I should have gone. I should have tried and failed. I might have made a friend or two out of the other failures, and we could have tried again the next year, together. I might have made an impression on the coach as a hard worker, and she might have offered to help me the next time around. I might have avoided a 6+ year stretch of life with no dancing in it. It's taken me this long to realize this. It's taken until I'm the one holding the notepad with the pen in my mouth during auditions, until I'm the one deciding who makes the cut, to realize that it's important to audition for teams you can't make yet. I wasn't good enough to get on to that high school dance team, and I should have tried anyway.