Fighting the urge to succumb to pain of my aching legs, my shaking arms, and the immense amount of adrenaline surging though my veins, I finished all three hours of the workshop. Not thinking that I had placed or had won any awards from the judges, I began changing and packing my dance shoes into my bag. As my team and myself began walking out the dance floor doors, my name was called. I had won the best overall dancer! Still to this day I cannot forget the joy and pride that overcame me. It was then that I knew that Julliard wasn’t as far out of my reach as I had …show more content…
After each section the instructors in the room would dismiss a handful of girls and regretfully tell them that they would no longer be considered for admission. The first section was barre, or rhythmic ballet stretching and warm ups. Barre exercises showcase each dancer’s technique… or lack thereof. I began each class in my studio with a twenty-minute barre warm-up, so I breezed through it. The first cuts were made, bringing the number of girls in the room down by ten. The next section was a ballet floor movement. An instructor dictated the counts and the motions for each six count, totaling twelve six-counts. We split into groups of five and performed the instructor’s dictated counts. This time five girls were cut, leaving us to only twenty-nine girls. Next came my weakest style: modern. Modern or contemporary dancing could almost be considered as interpretive dance due to its loose counts and generalized movements. To my amazement, I wasn’t included in the group of fourteen dismissals, leaving our group still smaller with a total of fifteen girls. Next came pointe. Pointe shoes worn by professional ballerinas are comprised of wood, glue, leather and silk, and are able to support the arch of the foot and toes just enough so that the ballerina wearing them is able to stand on the tips of her toes. By the end of the thirty-minute long pointe movement that our instructor had given us, I had suffered a later confirmed three