Personal Narrative: The Basement

My chest physically hurt from being flustered and cramped in the small, hot room in “The Basement”, a rental studio in Hollywood. All 75 of us dancers stood hoping to dance the part of the 5 that were featured in Brie’s “M.B.A.D.” commercial. Brie is an upcoming entrepreneur and owns a dance studio in southern Florida. Everyone already knew one of the 5 spots is going to Jazmyn, Brie’s daughter. The rest of us stood and hoped to dance the part of the lucky 4. Brie lined us up by height and looked at the shape our bodies. Just by the way they looked, about 20 girls already got cut. The studio continued to stay even more heated than before; since the tech crew persisted setting up the huge lights.
Not soon after that, Hannah and Phil, both directors, started yelling for certain people to go on different sides of the room. “YOU!” Hannah screamed, pointing at me, “Go to the left side of the room.” I slowly walked over and saw Jazmyn standing over there too. Suddenly, I got a way better feeling than I had before. At this point, there stood about 15 of us on my side, and 40 on the other. Phil walked over to my side and started to explain what was going on. “You 15 are the ones we are considering for the commercial,” he explained, “We
are going to see how fast you can pick up the choreography that you will be doing.” He rushed away without another word.
As per usual, the choreographer arrived late.
After about an hour of waiting, he finally showed up. It remained utterly miserable inside, so I put my hair up before learning the dance. “5!..6!..7!..8!” he shouted before started teaching us the combination. I could already tell this dance was going to be harder than what I am used too. He taught us the full dance in about 10 minutes. Afterwards, we had an hour to perfect the routine before the directors made the semi-final cut, then Brie had the final decision. I set off for outside, considering it persisted to swelter inside, and about 4 others did the same. I drilled the dance routine in my mind until I knew it perfectly top to bottom. When our time was up, the directors called us back
in.
All 15 of us dancers walked back in timid. They had us each do the combination one at a time. It was finally my turn as I walked to the front. I can't remember how well I performed the choreography, but I do know it went better than I expected to go. Finally, after all of us had gone, Brie filed us into one long line and stared hard at us for a tense couple of minutes. She took a deep breath, “Harper, Alexa, Riley, Chloe, and Jordan…” The room was dead silent, “I’m sorry but you guys are cut.” I breathed out a sigh of relief. There were only 10 of us left, I had a 50/50 chance of making it. “Riley, Victoria, Paige, Jazmyn, and Bella…”
“Shoot,” I thought to myself, “I was so close.”
“You guys are it!” Brie finished with a smile.
I couldn't believe what I had just heard. I did it. I actually made it. I had made it through the hardest part, now we just had to film it. I’ll admit, it is pretty stressful while filming. The directors yelled at us a ton, but they just wanted everything to go perfectly. Also, they made us do the dance at least 15 times to get the perfect shots for only a one minute commercial, but all directors are perfectionists. But in the end, the commercial turned out great and everyone was very supportive. It was a great experience and I hope to do it again someday!