My Performing Arts Journey

Hey guys. Thank you so much for all the love on last week’s post. I hope my sleep habits have helped you in some way.

I put up a poll on my Instagram last week. I asked if anyone was interested in a post about my journey as a performer. I got a huge amount of yes responses, so grab yourself a cuppa, and get comfortable because you’re in for a story that spans eighteen years. 

I broke this post up into sections based on where I was in school and my age because it’s easier for me to remember that way and, hopefully, will make more sense. I hope you enjoy it!

Early Elementary School (ages 5 - 10)

So I started off in TBJ (tap, ballet, jazz) when I was five. According to my mum, I always danced around the house and walked on my tip-toes often. I truly don’t remember much about my early dance years. The memory that sticks out in my mind the most was when I was ten, I took one Ballet II class and was moved up to Ballet III by my instructor, Justine (who would, later on, be the reason why I became so successful as a dancer). Ballet III was complex, but I loved it and stuck with it. I did that level when I was eleven as well.

Middle school (ages 12-13)

When I was twelve, I took a year off dance classes, and to be truthful, I’m not sure why. I think it was due to the apparent favouritism in class (with the elite team being given more attention). 

During that year off, I did a play called Aladdin Jr, where I was cast as the Genie. What was cool about this was that all the roles were double cast, and the older actor (me) got to perform on opening and closing night. I remember singing in front of people being the hardest thing for me. I’ve never been particularly confident in my singing abilities, but apparently, I was good enough to be in a lead role.

I went back to dance in eighth grade but at my elementary school. There was a dance P.E. option, and I was so excited that I wouldn’t have to do traditional sports for P.E. I quickly became the teacher, Teena’s, demonstrator (dare I say, favourite) because of my past dance experience. We performed dances at different school events, and I always had a small solo part. 

After school, I also participated in Project Dance, the Senior Project for two girls that Teena knew. I was in many dances in various styles, from contemporary to my ballet solo to hip-hop (my favourite dance even though I was too graceful for hip-hop). 

Early High School (ages 14-15)

The summer after I graduated eighth grade, I decided I wanted to return to dance classes with Justine, so I did. I quickly discovered I was years behind everyone else, but that didn’t matter. It’s what I wanted to do. I was also invited to join the competition team. That meant five+ hours of dance classes after school, which was a surefire way for me to get up to the level of all the other dancers in my class (who were at least three years younger than me). It was hard A.F., to say the least. I was either given a ton of not-so-nicely-said corrections or ignored in class - two things that I still hate today. I was put on pointe about five months after I started dancing, which was a huge surprise and honour for me. In my first year competing, I did a ballet solo called Tocatta. I won several overall scores and had a wonderful time competing, even though it was a massive trigger for my (undiagnosed) anxiety. I did a pointe solo called Raise Your Glass the following competition season. I won 1st Overall at the two biggest competitions that season which I never in my life would have expected to win. 

During my sophomore year, I was also dancing pre-pro ballet school near where I lived. This school was affiliated with two professional companies who did performances with us. In my first year with them, I did The Nutcracker, where I danced as an Angel. It was a wonderful experience, even though it was super stressful. 

End of High School (ages 16-17)

A lot happened in my junior year. First, I danced solely at the ballet school I mentioned previously that year. I did The Nutcracker with them in the fall and Snow White with them in the Spring. I was a Candy Cane, an understudy for Waltz of the Flowers in The Nutcracker, and an Owl/Bunny in Snow White. While I still loved ballet, the instructor I had in class wasn’t the nicest person. She really challenged us, and sometimes her corrections felt like personal attacks, and I was very sensitive to criticism back then. Needless to say, dancing with her wasn’t the most pleasant experience and was a massive source of stress for me. Things got better when I dropped to a level lower so the instructor I had for privates could be my primary teacher. She really took my love for ballet and made it whole again. She was the one person who always believed in me and said that I was special and that I could actually dance professionally if I worked hard enough. She’s one of the reasons why I didn’t quit ballet that year. My next story is about the second reason.

While doing Snow White, I also worked on being in my childhood dream ballet, Fairy Garden. Remember the teacher, Teena, that I mentioned earlier? When I was growing up, she did these two incredible ballets, Fairy Garden Ballet. The performances were on Mother’s Day. In both years, the storyline was similar and different. She decided to do it again and asked me to play The Mother Nature Fairy. I was over the moon with excitement. It was also a huge privilege and honour for me because she could have asked anyone in her studio to dance that role, but still, she chose me, someone outside her studio. And not only was I dancing the lead, but I also helped run auditions and choreographed the dances, and I became a teacher at her studio as well. 

We also did this super cool Halloween-themed show at a local amusement park. This was an incredible experience because we were dancing outside, at night, up close with the audience. For example, in the vampire dance, we got to move around the audience, growl/hiss at them, and do all the scary Halloween things. The mental hospital dance was my favourite because it had many dark, morbid, twisted elements. We had girls in straight jackets, a girl being stabbed, people biting themselves, and a very scary nurse. We did a total of 16 performances over two weekends. 

I didn’t quit ballet because so many dancers at the studio I did Fairy Garden with looked up to me, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I wanted them to see that even though dancing at this ballet school was extremely hard for me if you love something as much as I loved to dance, you shouldn’t let anything get in your way.

In my senior year, I was still dancing at the pre-pro studio, but fewer classes, a was I not doing The Nutcracker. I instead went back to dance competitions because I wanted to go back to what made me fall in love with dance in the first place. This year was different, though, because my old studio closed down and was reopened by one of the dance moms. I could have my favourite dancer, Kelsie, from the elite team before mine, choreograph my solo (little 10-year-old dream of mine come true). I went on to once again win 1st overall at the two biggest competitions of the season. 

Early college (ages 18-21)

When I was eighteen, I was taking classes, but that’s when they began to feel like a chore. It wasn’t fun anymore because the teacher we had repeated the same combinations every single week. And they weren’t even hard for a Ballet IV class. I could have done the whole class in a coma, it was so easy. I slowly stopped taking multiple classes a week until I just stopped lessons altogether. I danced often at home, though, so it wasn’t a full stop. 

This was when I started taking theatre more seriously. I was in this wonderfully hilarious show called Beauty & The Buccaneer, which was an original pirate retelling of Beauty & The Beast. I played Rosa, one of the Silly Girls. This show was great because the director knew me personally and wrote the character of Rosa for me. I also really enjoyed the rehearsal process, all the new friends I made, and reconnecting with old ones.

The summer I turned nineteen, I got my adorable puppy Bella and one day I was dancing on my front lawn and my ankle fell into a hole she had dug up. I went to a podiatrist and was put on crutches with a cast for three weeks and a boot for three weeks. It wasn’t a big deal to me at all. 

After that injury healed, I auditioned for a Christmas variety show called Believe In Christmas. I got cast and was going to be doing my own choreographed Sugar Plum Fairy variation. I was also asked to create a Clara variation which was a huge honour for me because (like most ballerinas) they want to dance Clara at some point. Being in Believe In Christmas was amazing because I also got to participate in whichever songs I wanted to. It was an incredible show and experience for me. We did four shows a week for two weeks which was the longest-running show I had ever been in. I loved being able to interact with the audience. 

On Opening Night, I was in my bathroom doing my hair and makeup when I got a call from my academic advisor saying I had gotten accepted into the University I had applied to transfer to earlier that year. Needless to say, I was thrilled. When I told the director of Believe In Christmas, he told the audience I had been accepted to this college after my Sugar Plum Fairy dance. I remember being very confused when audience members asked me about college, what I wanted to study etc. It wasn’t until my mum told me about the announcement, did everything make sense. 

The following Spring, I did another show with the same theatre company I did, Beauty & The Buccaneer with. This show was called Framed! A Fairytale Mystery and chronicles Prince John from Robin Hood, a reformed prince who is no longer evil. He wants to be good and live in the land of fairytales, but none of the other fairytale creatures thinks he is reformed. And when the Red Ruby, a critical piece that keeps all the fairytales intact, goes missing, all eyes point to Prince John. In that show, I played the very fitting for me FIT (Fairy In Training), who was the co-narrator of the story. Even though she was a narrator, FIT was also her own character. All she wanted to do was dance, but she could because of a broken foot (which happened during the rehearsal process and was written into my character). FIT is me to a T; she was such a fun character to play. 

After Framed! I had to take some unfortunate time off performing due to health issues. At school during the Spring of 2019, my friend Jesse (who was Prince John in Framed) was holding auditions for his senior project, a self-written play called Camping. I auditioned and was cast as Regan, the girlfriend of the main character’s best friend. This show was very dark, and to respect the writer, I’m not going to detail too much about the show. I enjoyed this experience because it was a massive challenge for me as an actor who had mainly done comedies before. I also go to work with one of my favourite theatre actors (love you, Beast Beard/Prince Charming). 

Where I’m at now + future plans (present day)

So ya’ll know how obsessed with musicals I am, right? If you didn’t, I am the crazy musical theatre girl. What if I told you I got to be paid extra in the Netflix movie version of my favourite musical? Well, yep. That happened earlier this year, and let me tell you, it was an exhausting experience, but it was also so cool to kind of see how a movie was made. During one of the rehearsals, all of the extras were outside the space we were filming in, but we could still hear the songs, so I sat there and was quietly singing along. Quite a few people asked me how I knew the lyrics already. I told them I’ve been obsessed with this show since it opened on Broadway and had seen it in NYC the previous Spring. I can’t share more details, but when this movie comes out on Netflix this fall, I will add a link and maybe a timestamp of when you see me.

I am currently working on a show roughly called Shame in Society. It’s about exactly as it sounds. Shame in society. Due to the dark material in this show and because rehearsals are closed, I am unable to provide more information on the content, but I can say that I am also dancing in this show, and I am super excited for the day we get to perform it. Since it’s a collaborative show, we’ve been in the creative writing process and rehearsals since the end of January, we moved to Zoom rehearsals when the shelter-in-place began, and we hope to perform in August/September (as long as it’s safe to do so of course). 

As far as my future plans go past graduation in December, I will continue to look for shows to audition for, and hopefully, one day, I will be consistently doing theatre in Seattle.

I hope you all enjoyed hearing about my journey thus far as a performer. I know this post was crazy long but it does span almost two decades so…ya’ll had that coming for you when you said you wanted to hear it.

Make sure you follow me on social media (listed below) as well as like, comment, and share this post. As always, sending you all the light and love in this world.