Stuff that Happened at the Old Dance Studio

Yesterday, my dance studio of the past six and a half years moved locations. The owner, one of my biggest inspirations and revered mentors, held a workday to clean out the old building and move its belongings into the new one.

I couldn’t go. I would’ve been freaking useless. Dancing and laughing and basically anything that would inhibit my ability to cry.

Don’t get me wrong: I am super excited about our new home. It has a front desk, and dressing rooms with stalls, closets for costumes and giant studio spaces. It’s epic.

But I’ve practically lived at the old location since I was 12. Stuff happened. Some of it was expected. Some of it slapped me across the face. But it was all worth every second, and I’m going to miss being surrounded by those memories all the time. The studio was my haven, was home. Its inhabitants were my adopted family members.

It’s hard to move on.

So, today, right off the top of my head, I’m listing all that stuff that went down at TP 1.0. It’ll probably be an incoherent mess, but at least it’ll be live.

• My first audition
• The original Training 1 class
• Lyrical/Worship 11+
• Pizza Club
• Laughter
• Observation weeks
• The “Training 1” poem by Emma Sachsenmaier
• Christmas dances
• The Stop Game
• The Recital shpeel
• Studio switches
• Costume weeks
• Picture weeks
• Progress Report parties
• The youngest Training 2s
• I became a modern dancer
• Cecchetti class
• Mock Cecchetti exam
• “Just keep breathing”
• The human ramp
• My first job as a Teacher’s Assistant
• Ballet intensive
• Partnering (aka getting dropped– gracefully)
• Pointe shoes
• Unsolicited Nutcracker rehearsals
• First triple pirouette
• First quadruple pirouette
• Sick days
• “Love Take Me Over” (Ugh, I’m going to start crying now.)
• Dancer of the Month
• Training 3
• Coffee flash mob
• “Daylight”
• Leaps and Turns
• Parking lot warm-up
• Firebird days
• Platter tutu
• Tears of joy
• My first internship
• That one time we didn’t jump into the orchestra pit until dress rehearsal
• The death of Achilles tendonitis
• That nonexistent time when no one got hit by a bamboo staff
• Senior solo rehearsals
• Prayer breaks
• Snow breaks
• Save the spiders
• Hugs
• More hugs
• Worship

Here’s to TP’s new home, to be filled with learning and laughter after Christmas Break, and to my dance fam, who knows exactly what each of those bullet points means.