Behind the Scenes

Sydney Carlin, Staff Writer|December 20, 2017

via GIPHY

A lot of people have a misconception that dancers are these delicate and calm girls who barely eat and are constantly in class, and while we are constantly in class most of these preconceived notions are entirely false. As a dancer who focuses mainly in ballet, I can tell you that the majority of dancers, myself included, are extremely outgoing and engaging people.
Throughout the training, rehearsals, performances, and fundraisers are priceless memories that I will keep for the rest of my life, and while I do enjoy everything mentioned above, what goes on behind the scenes is even more amazing.
My favorite aspect of dance, besides the actual dancing, is being backstage preparing for spacing rehearsals, dress rehearsals, and the shows themselves. You see, when my friends and I all get together in the dressing room there is chaos, but in a good way of course. To be completely honest, my friends and I are quirky, and a lot of crazy things happen because we are constantly joking around and doing things we aren’t supposed to; we tend to get in trouble for these things, but we don’t care.
One of my favorite backstage memories was when someone mentioned the Macbeth Curse; saying “Macbeth” in a theater supposedly brings bad luck. Of course, everyone starts saying Macbeth and the only person affected by it was my friend, Nicole. You know those people who always have the worst luck? Nicole is one of those people. First, her headpiece wiring came out and cut her finger, then she found a random piece of glass in her pointe shoe, and last but not lease, she forgot her choreography on stage. However, Nicole isn’t the only one who has forgotten her choreography. March 23, 2015, the matinee show. I forgot my choreography on stage while performing the role of White Cat. To say the least, it was traumatizing. However, having been two years, my mishap has become a common joke that even I partake in because it is funny.
As all dancers have their superstitions, we also have a lot of traditions, my favorite being Secret Santa. Every year when we perform the Nutcracker, everyone in the level participates in the drawing of each other’s names and picking out a gift, sometimes a gag gift too depending on who you get. This year, I got my best friend, Kayli. Kayli and I are pretty much the same person because we both have the same sense of humor and relate to each other on so many levels. My gift inspiration this year came from a shopping trip to Target on Black Friday; my sister and I were looking through the dollar section, and I saw all of these Hannukah themed objects. It hit me. I was going to make all of her gifts Hanukkah themed! Kayli is not even Jewish which is why it was so funny to me. I purchased her some dreidels, a sign with some Hebrew words on it, candy, and some other random stuff.
Since Kayli and I shared a dressing room, I brought her gift in a Publix grocery bag and walked into the dressing room. As I walked in, I put the bag on the ground and started talking to my other friend, and Kayli being Kayli, looked in the bag. She looked in the bag, and asked, “Why do you have dreidels?” I cannot believe she just did that, such a fool. I just looked at her and started uncontrollably laughing because she ruined the primary purpose of Secret Santa for herself.
Secret Santa isn’t the only part of Nutcracker that I look forward to though, being in the dressing room in general and doing our makeup is a blast! We are always just doing odd things and messing around like 12-year-old middle school boys, like turning off the lights when someone is in the bathroom, making “Your Mom” jokes, or filming pointless vlogs for our viewing. Kayli is tech savvy and is always making Flipagrams, Musical.lys, or Vlogs. My personal favorites are Flipagrams. Last year, we made two Flipagrams that I still watch to this day because they are hilarious. The first one was created to the song “Caroline,” because I am a bad thing, and the second one was our holiday edition, choreographed to the tune of “Santa Baby.”
Once Nutcracker is over we return to our regular class schedule, but last year our level decided to switch it up a little bit; we put on our version of Nutcracker, “Nutty Nut” as we call it, but I prefer to call it “Buttcracker. Buttcracker is where we put our twist on specific scenes and excerpts from the ballet to make them funny; we typically add our choreography and switch characters around. Last year we chose to do Snow Scene, but this year was even better. We choreographed our rendition of Battle Scene, including characters from Dracula, a show we performed earlier in the year. Unfortunately, I could not participate in this year’s Buttcracker because I had to take the ACT, but I was there in spirit supporting my peers.
After Nutcracker comes our spring show, The Wolf, the Princess, and the Swan. The show is a compilation of excerpts from Peter and the Wolf, La Bayadere, and Swan Lake. As dancers, live performance brings excitement and sometimes chaos. Last year, my dear friend, Ghirardelli, was wearing one of the worst costumes known to man, Czardas. This costume consists of long pants, a coat, and a furry hat. Unfortunately, Ghirardelli did not properly nourish his body before the show and suffered from a heat stroke; he nearly passed out and had to put his feet in buckets of ice. It was really funny.
I used to only view dance as a hobby that I would do after school; but over the past few years, it has consumed every fiber of my being. Up until Sophomore year, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life as I grew up being told that school is more important. It didn’t hit me that I wanted a career as a ballerina until I received a scholarship two years ago to attend a four-week summer intensive through Youth America Grand Prix. Just this past summer, I received another scholarship to a summer program, this time being five weeks. I danced almost everyday for thirty days, and it made me realize that what I was doing was too big for me to give up after high school eventually; too much time and commitment had been invested for me to not continue with it. Now that I’ve decided to pursue dance, I am focusing in on performing arts universities, and I am given questions like these to help me write my essays, “What does dance mean to you? How does it make you feel? What does dance signify in your life?” I don’t fully understand what dancing signifies in my life or how it makes me feel other than that it’s the only hobby I’ve ever truly enjoyed doing and I have a lot of fun doing it. I’ve never excelled at any subject in school and because dance has always been my number one priority.