Dancing with My Mom

A Dance Fest Summary

By Nicholas Johnson

Dance Fest this year was my first time entering as a competitor, and by volunteering for the weekend, I think I got a pretty good feel for the event as a whole. Well, two years ago (holy cow) I was the less-proficient in a mixed proficiency rumba, which was technically my first time competing, and it was at Fest, but definitions get wonky with mixed events like that. Also, I’d rather not have that performance on my record, so we’ll say I started later.

Anyway, back to Fest! Between our contingent of college kids who showed up just as the sun was rising (on a Saturday morning, no less!) to arrange desks, drapes, flowers, and registration, the prep for the weekend finished up rather smoothly, just in time for the Latin heats to begin. After some minor problem solving on the part of the coordinators, carpets sprouted up between the ballroom and the dressing area/practice floor/seminar space, enabling dancers to leave their performance shoes on without worry of the soles being incompatible with sidewalk cement. With that walkway established, the deck captain and other logistical volunteers ran the event more precisely than a Swedish watch for both days of endless number-calling and cat, er, dancer corralling.

Something that really surprised me about Fest this year was the other competitors! Two years ago, I was honestly scared of the other leads who’d been doing for years what I’d only known about for weeks. The follows terrified me uniformly, regardless of experience. This year, with a few other competitions under my belt, and the knowledge that follows are people, too (as opposed to ferocious painted dervishes), I found that there was a lot more fun to be had. The faces around me were friendly, jovial, and amicable even, standing on deck and trying to figure out how to do … what was this dance again? Oh, right, thank you white bowtie'd fellow! With the general air of helping one another, even if a mental state alone, made more people excited-happy-nervous instead of worried-stressed-nervous, at least as far as I could tell. There’s always going to be stress with callbacks, and live audience, and judges (oh my!), but it’s much easier to deal with when one’s partners and team and friends (even families, for some!) are there to support and cheer and use mystical things like bobby pins and hairspray to fix problems I didn’t even know could exist.

Finally, one simply does not end a Dance Fest anything without mentioning the social dances and strictly competition! Dancing with people from other schools, other cities, even my mom was a blast! If it’s a dance you don’t know well, just fake it and have fun! (Or West Coast, but I’m a tad biased there) Even after a weekend of shouting, correspondingly hoarse voices, dancing, correspondingly sore feet, and sore everything for the Latin dancers, everyone was still smiling and having fun doing all those crazy lindy hop moves, West Coast wonders, hustles, and Argentine(I still don’t quite understand that one yet, but eventually, right?). It keeps coming back to how awesome everyone was at Fest, as coordinators, as competitors, as judges, as people in general. I guess you could say Dance Fest brings out the best in us.