I just got back from the Blackpool Dance Festival in the UK. (might be worth it to look it up if you don't know what it is) I went with the Bay Area Elite Dance Company to compete as a formation team in the most exciting 6 minutes of my dancing career. We got 5th place behind the 3 teams from China, and the team from Germany. Given the level of dancers at Blackpool and that all sorts of things were a new experience to our team, it's not surprising at all that we got last place in our event. But it was an honor to be on that floor and be well received.
For starters, we were all first timers to Blackpool. And only a few of us on the team have competed in individual couple events in dance at all. The environment was unfamiliar. In fact, the outside of Winter Gardens looked so different than expected, when we first got out of the taxi we thought we got dropped off in the wrong place. (think of going to a world class dance competition, and getting dropped off in some ghetto shopping area like the Eastridge Mall parking lot to find out there's a giant historic event center hidden away in there) The rules for an international event are different. The audience was probably more knowledgeable about ballroom in general compared to any other competition or performance we've ever been to. Some dancers who might watch us include people who coach our coaches... or even their coaches.
Floor time to practice was limited to 15 minutes and every team watched every other team. We'd find out that our director needed to make lighting cues for overhead lights. We'd have to decide on landmarks from the stage in order to figure out the formations without our director's help. We'd have to make up some extra choreography for getting onto the stage on our own. Performance order was drawn and we were the last to perform. Extra pressure to make an impression since we close the event. We found out that the judges don't sit on the same side as the audience. Therefore, we had to choose which direction to perform towards. This was important and new to us because all the past competitions we've been to, we've faced the judges and that also tends to be the best view our routine. The judging staff mentioned that experienced teams tend to perform to the audience, but they didn't pressure us either way because they understood we were first-timers. We decided to perform to the audience with the judges watching us from the back.
As some of us watched the other teams prep and do their practice runs, we saw how each team had different dynamics, how each team pulls from their culture, how some teams incorporate other styles back into their ballroom routines. The first Chinese team that went up to practice had elements of theatre, modern dance, ballet in the weirdest (in a good way) and most intrieguing ballroom formation routine I've ever seen. It was awesome! I've always been one to be greatly inspired by other people's excellent performances. So stepping on to floor for practice after watching the others, I felt pretty excited and energetic. (On the highly unlikely chance that Yael from elementary school ever stumbles upon this: After watching your violin skills in action at a school talent show, I went home and finally got to play a song through without having to stop every 2 notes to adjust my fingers.) On the other hand, I could tell some of my teammates were nervous.
We had a pretty bad start to our practice time on stage. Partly because people were still unfamilar with where to be on a floor of that massive size. Partly because we were being watched by the other teams. Partly because some people were nervous. Partly because we couldn't hear the counts and we were trying to quickly mark through the routine at a much faster rate than normal. We followed it up with a decent practice run with music and a botched pinwheel trick. I was actually pretty pumped up for the 2nd practice run and pushed myself hard on some of the choreography. Hard enough to pull something in my chest underneath my ribs and cause some pain during our taxi ride back to the hotel to finish preparing.
Arriving back at Winter Gardens that evening, we changed, fixed up the lighting, tested everything out, waited for our turn, and then stepped onstage. And we danced the best performance of our routine we've ever danced before. From the moment we finished our walk on, the reactions from the audience really helped us connect with the audience and the routine. That people responded to various patterns and tricks with applause and comments made us more daring to expand the lines and really push ourselves to the limits.
After we finished, numerous people came up to us to congratulate us on a performance well done. "Where is your team from? You all have great potential." One of many who, in sincerity, thought that we deserved to be out there.
It doesn't matter that we came in last in our category. It matters that we really did dance our best and the audience enjoyed it.