"there" is not where you think it is

This last weekend, Mason attended his last regional dance convention of the year. (He still has nationals in NYC this summer.) Convention weekends are always intense. With studio rehearsals on Friday night, and classes beginning usually at 7:30 am Saturday and Sunday, he ends up dancing 20+ hours in one weekend. The competition segment typically ends about midnight on Saturday, not leaving much time for sleep. 

Exacerbating the physical intensity is the constant mental and emotional stress of the weekend. Dancers have to learn at least 5 different choreographer’s dances each day and make sure they are rocking their dance and getting noticed by them even though there are hundreds of dancers trying to get their attention! Add to that the stresses of competition: quick costume changes, not messing up, bringing high energy or the appropriate energy to the dance, projecting emotionally, connecting with the judges and the audience.... There is also an element of overstimulation to the senses and to the body when you listen to loud music for hours upon end. At some point during the weekend there is always an audition (for various convention awards) that takes place in small groups of dancers in front of steely-eyed faculty.  At the closing show late on Sunday afternoon, all the dancers of different ages and levels, and their teachers, and their parents and siblings crowd into one large ballroom and anxiously await the final awards. Relatively few dancers are recognized out of so many who are passionate about dance, creating excitement and celebration for a few and disappointment and sadness for many. 

On Sunday evening, Mason returns home from these weekends fried to a crisp!  (Ironically, I do too. It typically takes me a full day or two to recover.) He has so acutely streamlined all of his focus into dance for two days that he finds it extremely difficult to shift into school mode in one evening.

Even considering all of this, the benefits from attending conventions far out weigh the cons, at least for Mason they have. He has been exposed to countless different choreographers with unique styles and techniques helping him to grow as a dancer, he has made several connections with choreographers, and he loves to perform on stage and gets the experience of deeply touching people with his self-expression.

Five years ago, Mason and Connor first started attending conventions. I experienced many quiet drives home from Denver while the kid’s were doing their best to process their disappointment, their hurt feelings and their insecurity and doubt in themselves. Sometimes we would talk about the elite dancers, those few dancers who won the top awards at every single convention. Of course, those elite dancers had been dancing and training far longer than my kids had, but we also recognized that there were many kids who had been training just as long and still weren’t receiving any recognition. (At that point, my kids weren’t looking for or expecting top awards, they just longed for some positive recognition.)  In our minds, those few elite dancers were THERE, wherever there was. To us, they had attained the “all” and the “everything” in the dance world. 

Last night my almost 17 year old son asked that I put him to bed, which meant that he wanted to chat about and process the weekend. Mason reflected upon this dance year and realized that at every event from October to May this season, he received the top award. He literally could not improve upon the awards and recognition he was given. He could not deny that he had reached the elite dancer status that seemed unreachable five years ago. And at the same time, he acknowledged that it feels completely different than he had imagined it would. It does not feel like he has reached the “there” of his vision a few years ago or some end result, but rather only a rung in the lofty ladder to becoming a successful professional dancer. He acknowledged that the years going forward will be just as grinding and stressful and intense as the last five. With this new awareness that “THERE is not where he thought it was” he stated, “I want to learn how to enjoy the journey and process!” Amen to that Mason!