Chapter Five: Time to dance.

This is just a side sequence about my dance and performing arts history...

My mom had enrolled me in a top of the line dance studio a few buildings down called The King Centre. This place was amazing. I went for tap and ballet with Miss Kim. She was so nice. I actually enjoyed it a lot and I surprisingly didn't have problems. It actually helped my arthritis astronomically. I don't know where I would be today without dance.

Our recital was Wizard of Oz themed. Our dance was a tap dance and we were the Mischief Bears. I know, there are no bears in that story, but that's what we were. It was the cutest thing though. We wore brown velvet leotards with pink frilly tutus and white ruffle tiaras, and we wore white ruffly socks with our tap shoes. I can still vaguely remember the song and parts of the dance. Hell we rehearsed it enough.

I had also taken an acting class at that studio with an ex-cast member of the famous soap opera Another World. We had so much fun in that class. i had a giant bear the size of me that my dad had won for me for Valentine's Day that I would bring to class and we would act with it and make up scenes. Fun class it was.

I had later on moved from Midvale Wanaque to my grandma's (on mum's side) in Glen Rock. Her house was beautiful. Anyway, I'll get into that later. This chapter is about performing arts.

I had attended a new dance studio called Miss Patti's School of Dance and had taken a jazz class. My instructor was a dancer for The Nets. Miss Patti's was a top of the line dance studio as well. It just wasn't like The King Centre however.

Our recital that year was 50's themed and we wore green poodle skirts and did a jazz routine to Bob Seger's Old Time Rock and Roll. Oh man, was my other grandmother excited. I honestly can't stand the song, but she loved it. Quite amusing.

My friend Cathy had gone to that studio as well. Yes, I had a friend. She was in Miss Patti's jazz class in the room next door and her routine was to Splish Splash and they wore cute frilly blue outfits.

Later that year, I had also gone for piano lessons down the street. I was quite stubborn in that class though. I wish I hadn't been. I was only 7 though. At least I learned how to read music and I learned some basic theory at an early age.

Soon I had migrated my way down to Fort Myers, Florida with my family. There is where I went to YMCA for hip-hop with Miss Isabelle, Irish step and clogging with Miss Kathy, and lyrical with Miss I don't remember because she didn't have much of a personality, and when my wrist was flared up she wouldn't let me dance, which that upset me because I was capable and that's what I was there for.

I had also gone to another dance studio down the street at the same time for ballet and tap classes. Yes, I've taken many classes at once. We could afford it because my dad had a descent job at the time and my mom was making a shitton waitressing. Dance has always been my passion, so they let me follow it. I'm very thankful for it.

A year later, we had to move to a boring town slash fourth largest city in Florida called North Port. There was a dance studio down the street that looked quite legit. It was a big building called Universal Dance Academy. What a joke that place was. I had gone there for two years. Well, perhaps a year and a half. The owner's name was Tony. He was a guido wannabe who knew how to bullshit. "Our ballet instructor is a silver medalist in Russia!" Mhmm, that's why the class was just a mediocre version of the basic classes I had already graduated from.

The jazz class however was okay. My dance instructor was hawt I must say. Her name was Miss Courtney. She tought us how to walk in heels. That's where I learned, and now I don't wear anything but heels unless I work out. I took her intermediate class and it was fun. Just at my level. The next year, I was ready for advanced. Tony had supposedly placed me in advanced, but it felt like beginner to me. So I left.

I also had taken an acting class there. It was fun, but we didn't learn anything. So it was pointless.

A year after I left, I tried a place in Port Charlotte. It was actually pretty good, but because these two girls who had been a threat to me attended, I left.

In early 2008, I had finally found a new studio to go to after three years of not dancing. It's called A Better Place. I was hoping it would live up to its name. It didn't. It only did because the breakdance class I had taken was beast! My instructor was a super fine latin boy named Javier. Most of the time, no one showed up to class, so it was like a private lesson! He was so cute!

I had missed several weeks though because I was sick. I missed recital photos because the staff there failed to call me to let me know. How responsible. The rest of the classes there were horrible. Javi tought the only good class. now that he left, there's no hope for that place.

I met his younger sister in my dance class at school. She was the shit. If only I knew how to spell her name I would tell you her name. Let's just take a stab at Lortice. Pretty sure. She and I used to dance together, and we would booty dance with Marquis who reminded me of Beyonce's choreographer. He was super gay. It was adorable. I mean, he was one of those guys who would snap in your face and hollar "Mmm gurl!" and start talking really fast and skip around.

I had fun, so I auditioned for the actual dance team. The auditions were so fun! I made it, of course. I knew I would. I was so happy. I'm not being cocky, I'd just had so much experience that I'd earned it. During the first couple of weeks, we were practicing a modern routine to Mary J's "Just Fine". It was a lot of fun. During a measure of the song, we split into groups of four. My group was two Jamaican chicks and another white girl. Each group had to make up something of their own for the measure. Ours was extremely Jamaican Dance Hall style. The other white girl said I looked black doing it. Quite a compliment that was. Amusing as well.

One day during practice, this preppy chick walked in on me changing. Instead of apologizing for not knocking first, she just made some hissing noise and had this hilarious look on her face. "UGH I did NOT need to see that!" All I could say was "Bitch you liked it." but I kept my mouth shut.

After a while, the dance team wasn't so much fun anymore. Everyone was so bitchy and competitive against each other rathjer than being competitive against whatever competition the team didn't have. It was patheitic. Dance classes weren't fun either. I was in the hospital for a week with pancreatitis. I came back still in recovery. To think the girls would ask if I'm okay, no. Instead they bitched at me to go full out. It was to the point where I held back tears and would rebel against the routine, which I would NEVER do. My attitude was fuck this. It's just one big socialization room for fat black chicks and for bitchy white chicks to have their "who can suck at dance more" competitions at my school anyway.

For now, I'm training my arse off in ballet so I can go straight to the advanced ballet and contemporary classes at Broadway Dance Studio in NYC. For how hard I've been training, I'd BETTER make it into the advanced or else I'll consider myself a complete failure and will never forgive myself. Sure you may think why is she being so hard on herself?, but if you were dancing your whole life and were training yourself all day everyday to get into a class and discovered you weren't good enough, you would feel dicouraged and give up too. I'm a perfectionist and completionist. It needs to be completely perfect in order to be near complete. Dance is the one thing I absolutely HAVE to be perfect in. No excuses or exceptions.

...on the the next chapter continuing where we left off before this sequence!