Traveling for Dance

Friday 11:00 pm 

The air is live and everyone is happy. Meeting people from across the nation whose college lives and journeys fall along such a similar path of your own accounts for incredible feelings. My whole dance troop and I were in the heart of College Park, Maryland attending a mixer for the competition we were to attend the next day. The music was loud, the games were fun, and everyone was spirited to be there. I looked forward to more excitement and the same cool feeling.

Saturday 4:00 am 

No, that time stamp is no typo. Yes, my whole dance team arrived back at our motel at 4 o’ clock in the morning the day before our competition. After we attended the mixer for teams that traveled to be there, we snatched a room in the business building at the University of Maryland where our comp was being held. Our makeshift rehearsal went all the way through the whee hours of dawn all while we had to be up and getting ready at 7 that morning. My feelings of exuberance were quickly replaced by stress and exhaustion. I was going to be a long weekend 

Saturday 6:00 am

My friend jostled me out of bed, “Wake up! We have to get ready.” With only 3 hours of sleep we bustled out of bed and started attacking each others’ hair with pins and clips. The process resembled a small hill: it started when everyone was half alive and very slow then heightened with stress as we began to rush to meet our schedule for the day, and finally eased down as we were rounding up the last of us and we grabbed some surprisingly good breakfast at the motel’s kitchen. 

10:00 am 

“We have 20 minutes- we’re doing two run throughs!” shouted my captain as she walked across the stage checking the dimensions. The dress rehearsal flew by and before we knew it we would spend the next few hours anxiously waiting for our time on stage.

Saturday 6:30 pm

We entered the stage, the music was cued, the lights shined bright, and everything after was a blur. Applause echoed throughout the crowd and we walked off.

Saturday 9:00 pm

We stood surrounding the judges along with the various other teams that competed as well and watched the envelopes pass between their hands. The envelope with a 3 labeled on it was opened. A team name was announced and cheers fled the crowd. The number 2 envelope was being undone and before I know it my team is clapping and cheering; we won second! We received our trophy and exited the stage.

Saturday 11:30 pm 

The bar was lit as if though only brown colors were present in it. The dim yellow lights made the place feel like an entirely different world to step into. Soon enough strobe lights disrupted the sepia palette and the party music started to pop. The after party for the comp was something my fellow teammates and I were especially excited for. My captain handed me and another freshman girl a bottle of orange juice and said “Drink, or else.” Celebrating with my team was filled with free spiritedness and proved the opposite of the stressful weekend we all had endured. In a flash of a moment all I could think was "Wow, I'm going to do this all over again and then, all over again once more for the next 2 weeks." I was feeling a mixture of feelings of excitement, anxiety, and was already exhausted.