Showcase and Trophy Ball

If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear? - Stevie Nicks

My sister and her husband successfully performed their dance routine at the Showcase and Trophy Ball at the beautiful Murat Temple last night. Quinn said they made some mistakes, but I sure didn’t see anything wrong…it flowed beautifully from start to finish. Here they are (plus my mom's head :-) )

For those of you that don’t know, this event is combination of an elegant dinner-dance, student testing, and dance routines…kind of like a recital for dancers. Quinn and Ralph’s routine was fabulous; a 50’s inspired number with lots of cute moves that matched perfectly with the music, a testimony both to them and to their teacher, Melissa Smith, who is Gary and my teacher also. And speaking of our instructor (the best in the world, by the way), she and her husband Mark did a rumba that was awe inspiring and HOT…exactly as a rumba should be. Wow. All of the routines were good. Another accolade to Mark and Melissa and all of the staff. Quinn and Ralph’s was the best.

Well…it WAS.

Anyway. Think for a minute about what a “routine” entails; for a 3ish minute song that means every beat of the music is choreographed. Every beat, in other words, has a prescribed movement, facial expression, flourish, or hesitation. Every one. Can you imagine how hard that is? And not only do you have to learn that, you also have to practice what to do if you miss a step…you can’t go back to the beginning.

And that leads me to what I really wanted to talk about. I could go on and on about how good my sister and Ralph are. I could speak volumes about their costumes. I could comment about their technique. All of those things were spot on. But more important than all of that was the doing of it. Both Quinn and Ralph have overcome much to accomplish this. The learning and the practice, of course. But also curve balls and difficulties. They were supposed to do it last year, but Ralph injured himself. And Quinn, like me, does not like public performance.

But they did it anyway. Ralph could have gotten discouraged after he couldn’t do the routine last year. Quinn could have decided it was just too scary. But they persevered and did whatever it took to obtain this lofty goal. It was so wonderful to see them afterwards; Ralph looked happy and proud. Quinn was like…champagne is the only word I can use to describe her…bubbly and effervescent.

As Stevie insinuated, perhaps for magic to happen there must be some kind of dragon to slay. If anyone could just go out there on stage without practice, fear, the threat of injury, or other personal demons a performance wouldn’t be special.

Sigh. And it was.

PS. That was MY SISTER out there!!!!!! WhoooooooooooHoooooooooooooo!!!!!

OK. I’m done now.