Let It Go

Dancing Without Thinking

By Kaylee Anderson

I hurried down the steps of the St. Paul Cathedral, hiking up my choir dress as I tried to make it to my mom's car without tripping. "Thanks for coming to pick me up," I said as I opened the door and slid inside.

"It's no problem," she replied, beaming. "I'm just so excited I get to see you dance!"

Ah yes. Dancing. Dance Fest. Mixed Proficiency. I smiled, nerves twisting my expression into a half-grimace. "We'll see how it goes!" I said, trying to be cheery. "I'm just glad I don't have to try and take the bus there." Being a freshman, I had yet to master the wonders of public transportation, and so my mother had offered to drive me to Dancers Studio after my choir rehearsal at the Cathedral. My weekend was so packed because of impending choral performances that the only time I had free to dance mixed proficiency was Saturday afternoon, so I was grateful for the ride.

When we got to the studio, my mother and I were floored by the number of people in pretty dresses rushing from place to place, and others in snazzy bow ties and slacks practicing forms and moves. I had never seen so many rhinestones and fancy dance gear—not even at Ballroom Blast the previous semester. After nestling my awestruck mother between some couples watching the competition and promising I would be back soon, I headed off to the dressing room, which was every bit as packed as the dance floor. I had to pull some fantastic floorcraft to make it to an open area where I could change, but eventually I managed to slip on my blue knee-length waltz dress with minimal stress. I looked through the bag I had been given to check on the time that my heat was supposed to happen, and was pleased to discover that I had nearly an hour and a half before we were scheduled. Perfect. More time to get in the right mindset, right? "Oh!" I exclaimed excitedly, reaching further into my drawstring. "They have mints!" I immediately flushed, realizing that: a) mints were a perfectly normal thing to give away at a dance competition, and b) that I was being excited about dumb things, and promptly exited the dressing room before anyone could give me crap about my excitement for breath fresheners.

I spotted a couple of my friends from the U of MN Ballroom Dance Club sitting nervously on a bench in the hallway, and I sidled up to them awkwardly. "Hey," I said, rocking back and forth on my heels. "You guys go on yet?"

I was met with a chorus of nos and nodded resolutely. "Alright. Cool. Nervous?"

The girls looked at each other, then at me, and nodded, a tinge of fear in their eyes. "Yeah, I feel that," I muttered, hoping my stage fright wouldn't be too bad. It was waltz. I could do waltz. Waltz was great. Everything would be fine.

Maybe.

I passed back out into the main room to check in with my mom. "How is everything? I feel bad leaving you here by yourself for so long."

"Oh, don't be," she replied, almost gleeful. "It's so much fun watching everyone dancing and having so much fun! And such pretty dresses. It's so exciting!"

I smiled, glad she was enjoying herself. With two daughters who both strongly rejected the idea of sports in high school, she never had much of a chance to cheer on her kids from the sidelines, so she seemed thoroughly enthusiastic about the whole thing.

I saw my partner sitting across the room, watching the rounds pass by with a scrutinizing eye. I wandered over to try and make some conversation, but, as with the rest of the competition team, he was already thoroughly wiped from the day's exploits on the floor, so words were a little on the difficult side. "Everything going okay?" I asked, putting my hands on his shoulders.

"Yeeep," he replied. "You nervous?"

"Nah."

He tilted his head back to make eye contact. "Liar."

"Shh. Let me save face."

"You'll be fine," he said, patting one of my hands. "You've learned a lot, and fast. Just don't think about what you're doing, and it'll be fine."

"Yeah, just like we practiced." All of a sudden I was regretting getting here this early. I had too much time to think.

Cue half an hour later, and my partner was nowhere to be seen. "Crapcrapcrap," I muttered to myself, pacing like the nervous wreck that I was. "I thought we were going to practice, just like, once. I just needed one time through." I tried to run through the basic steps in my head, but to my absolute horror, I had managed to forget how to waltz. "You forget the one dance you're doing today? Really, Kaylee?"

My frazzled brain managed to pick one bright detail out of the crowd of people hanging out in the lobby, and my eyes focused on a head of well-styled red hair. "Kyle!" I exclaimed, latching on to him as his eyes grew wide. "Oh my God you have to help me."

"What?!" he exclaimed, feeding off of my frantic energy.

"I need you to lead me through, like, the basic waltz steps."

"But I'm not good at—"

"Doesn't matter. I forgot how to waltz and my mixed proficiency partner is nowhere to be seen, and we go on in twenty minutes, and—" I paused for breath and he cut me off.

"It's fine, I've got you," Kyle said, grabbing me by the shoulders as firm resolution replaced his confusion. "Let's do this."

We stole a small amount of space in another room to run through some basic moves, and I was finally able to breathe normally again. "See, you're fine," he comforted. "You know this. You're just freaking out a lil'. You'll be fine."

"Yes. Yes. Okay. Cool." I gave him a quick hug. "I can do this!"

"And she's back!"

Glad that I had remembered how to dance again, it was soon time to line up, a very no-nonsense lady arranging us all by the lead's numbers in a small hallway. "Just remember to smile, okay?" my partner said, smiling himself. "That's the most important part. The rest you already know."

"Okay," I replied, confident—or at least pretending to be. The announcer invited us all out onto the floor, and I followed my partner, letting myself be invited in, just like we had practiced. I was leftward, I was stacked on one foot, I was ready—and then a waltz version of Let it Go began to play through the sound system. Of all songs, I was dancing to this? "Dear God," I whispered through a plastered smile, and my partner made a small, forced sound of agreement. We started to move, and everything was going great—until I remembered I should be smiling. I tried to lift the corners of my mouth, but to my absolute horror, my face began to twitch. What was happening to me? Come on face, cooperate! But alas, my nervousness had somehow decided the best way to manifest itself would be in my face, and I could not smile without it looking like my cheek muscles were at a rave. It was then that I decided that if my head refused to cooperate, I would make the rest of my body obey my every will down to the last letter. I responded to my lead's drive, kept my frame up, and even managed to perfectly execute a move that I could hardly do in practice, all while only paying attention to an intriguing music choice the competition organizers had decided was a fantastic waltz. I walked off of the floor ecstatic, besides the twitching face thing, and relieved. I was just glad that I wasn't actually being judged on my performance, like at Ballroom Blast.

Later, I went up to my partner and asked him where the critique sheets were for our dance, and I was met with a blank stare.

"Aren't there critique sheets?" I asked.

"Of course not. Dance Fest is a competition. We get judged and ranked."

"I…what?"

Ah yes. Leave it to me to not realize that I was competing until after my round was over. I had unknowingly gone through the whole thing thinking I was going to get advice on my dancing, when I was really being ranked against the other dancers. Surprise!

It was finally time to announce the winners, and I gathered with my partner and the rest of my friends, to see who had done things of note that day. When it came to announcing the placements for waltz mixed proficiency, I could nearly hear my heartbeat. They announced the last place, and to my surprise, it wasn't me! My partner leaned over and made a snarky comment to me about us "at least not being last" and I shoved him, adding in a good eyeroll. To my astonishment, we had managed to make it all the way up to third place! I was so ecstatic I could barely speak. "Ohmigodomigodohmigod," I panted when I ran up to my mother afterwards, letting the ribbon speak for itself.

"You did it!" she screeched, hugging me and then insisting on a photo. I acquiesced, dragging my partner in as well.

I'm still incredibly proud of how I did at Dance Fest last year, especially with all of the anxiety I had about doing mixed proficiency. This year, however, I'll be tackling Dance Fest from another approach. Since I made it onto the competition team this semester, I'll be doing a lot more than just one dance, and I'm very excited for that challenge. My confidence has definitely grown since then, and something tells me if I'm out on the floor for long enough, my face with eventually stop twitching from nervousness, which is always a good sign.

What I feel I need to remember most for this upcoming competition, is to not think, which sounds a little strange. The less you think, the more your body takes control, and the better you do out on the floor. I don't seem to be the only one who works that way, and that's nice to know. Until I can get to that stage, though, it'll be practice, practice, practice, and then we'll see what happens when it's showtime. As long as I don't have to dance to another terrible remix of a Frozen song, I'm sure I'll be just fine.