The curtains open, the music floods through the theater, months of rehearsals converge into those few minutes on stage which every dancer works tirelessly for, a chance to show the audience their story, to play the character, to embody the music.

Dancing has always been a part of my life however although I had taken part in a few performances at my old ballet school I had never performed in a show of this scale. Grace Glory presented by my teacher Mrs. Niomi Rajaratnam was held on the 17th and 18th of August. With a relatively small cast of 16 dancers, the show was a compilation of 22 dances with some pieces having two dancers performing different styles to the same piece of music which represented a celebration of diversity among the dancers while also showing how a piece of music can unite completely different types of dance with different origins. The audience saw combinations such as ballet with hip hop, jazz with jive, and contemporary with rumba.

I performed in 6 dances of which included ballet, jazz-funk, jive, chacha, and contemporary. Looking back at the start of rehearsals my goals were simply to live up to the expectations of my teacher and to work on my technique at every session. Further, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to work on my musicality since I often struggle with listening to the music and hearing the different tones and rhythms of a piece. This show also introduced me to Latin American dance which I had to learn from scratch. I did find that having learned ballet helped immensely in terms of placement but keeping up with music while keeping my movements sharp and clean was definitely challenging also dancing in heels was initially much harder than expected. Learning to partner and perform lifts for the contemporary piece was yet another experience coupled with a twisted ankle however it taught me so much in terms of teamwork and collaboration.

Training for grace and glory was tough, practices began at the end of 2017 that’s nearly two years of dancing 2- 4 times a week sometimes more. It teaches you the importance of consistency and although progress in dance can be slow and tedious seeing a difference when comparing videos from rehearsals to your performance is so satisfying. I learned so much from this experience not only from my instructor but from all the older more experienced dancers who had so many corrections and technique tips to give. All in all, I  believe that this show truly cemented my love for performing and dance and I hope to keep performing for years to come.