Sam and His Dance

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The dance competition season is over! We're both relieved and perhaps a little disappointed.

Sam participated in three dances throughout the season--large group tap, large group (line) Musical Theatre, and Line/Large Group/Production Tap. (I don't quite know all the division and it seemed that in each competition the names changed slightly.)

In this last competition Sam danced his very best. What made us so tremendously proud of the entire troupe is that when they did their large-group tap (to the tune of "Bare Necessities") there was a complication. The music stopped in the middle of their routine. This is a bad, but not unprecedented glitch in proceedings. However, what made it worse is that the music picked up again after they had continued their dance for another minute or minute and a half, so they had to finish their routine out of time with the music. And they did--beautifully. There was never a false step or hesitation. They went right on through to the end. Best of all, when listening to the tap sound the entire group was synchronized--not one foot out of step. Needless to say we were very, very proud of the entire team.

The experience has been both stressful and wonderful. During it we have been able to watch Sam bloom as a dancer. And more importantly, we've come to discover Sam as performer. He was following one of the older boys around during his second competition. He followed right up to the time of the dance. The school dance master took Sam aside and told him that he really had to give the boys time to prepare. Sam acknowledged this. Then he later said to me, "I don't understand. I always do better when I have my fans around me." And it is true--piano or dance, he really does much, much better with an audience.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on April 8, 2009 7:32 AM.

How Disappointed Stockhausen Would Be was the previous entry in this blog.

The Rest is Noise--Alex Ross is the next entry in this blog.

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