So, I just got back from a last minute trip to Vegas for an audition. Literally less than a week before, one of my good friends told me she was going to go audition to be a dancer on a cruise ship. This has been something that has always fascinated me, so I thought, "What the heck.. why not? yolo, right?" So I quickly rearranged my work schedule and tried to get everything ready for the trip. I love it when scheduling works out! The joys of working at a restaurant.. flexibility! (Side note: I randomly found the cutest little lost kitten on a run in the brush the next day and had to find her a home fast, the poor thing, so it was a busy few days before the trip). Anyway, I flung all my clothes into a bag and drove to my theatre show with unpainted nails and made it to my friend's place around 11. We packed everything and were alseep by 1. Alarm goes off at 5.....5am. Road trip time! We are exhausted and running on adrenaline, but we do in fact make it to Vegas. Phew. We got to the studio in time to stretch and she reconnected with some dancers she knew from school.
Let me preface the next portion of the story by saying I have never been to a professional dance audition in my life. I had a general idea of how things would be run, I mean, it has to be structured a little similarly to an acting audition, right? I knew we were auditioning for a cruise ship. In my mind, that meant we would be doing a lot of show chior type things... musical theatre styled dances... no sweat. Well, as more and more girls began to arrive, it was obvious one of these things was not like the other... mostly becaise I was one of the only ones not in booty spandex and a bra... why did I not get the almost naked outfit memo?? Literally, girls butts and boobs were all over the place; way more skin than I bargained for. But, whatever! I'm an entertainer!!! I can rock this!!!And my D-cups are bigger than any of their wanna be A-cups anyway... Too much? Inappropriate? ... Sorry, just being honest.
We file into the dance room after checking in and providing our headshots. Still, doing okay, feeling pretty confident. Then it went south SO FAST! The instructor gave us a 24 count and went through all of the steps so fast... Thats like 20 different moves in 30 seconds.Then those around me all began to move so effortlessly and gracefully as if the moves were verbalized by the teacher and immediately absorbed through their skin through osmosis. What?? You've got to be kidding me! I was trying to get the counts down and running steps a few times, but everyone else in the room seemed to have a perfect memory. We did that three times before adding another 24 counts and another 24 after that.. All the girls were working on the finalizing touches and I was proud of myself for having the first 16 counts down pat. I was in waaay over my head and I was waay out of my element. I didn't have the dance background to know what all the steps were called and I wasn't trained with the muscle memory to learn dance combos in ten minutes. I also bumped into a few girls when I was a step behind; they were gracious enough to smile. I was at an audition with girls who have devoted their life to dance, who have been dancing upwards of 18 years, so I was obviously struggling. It was so embarassing!!!! I wanted to shout so loud, "This is my first dance audition of my life!! I'm really an actress!! That's why I am so terrible!" Then it occured to me that I will never see any of these girls again (outside of my friend who already loves me), so why make excuses. And besides, they don't care. They're probably so glad that I was awful, so they could think things like, "well, at least I'm not as bad as that girl" or "there's one less competitor." I know reading this might sound slightly dismal, but in the moment, it was so funny! Like sooooo funny! I was laughing so much on the inside as I wabbled about like a penguin among so many swans. "Well, I'm definitely an actress," I smiled to myself.
I decided instead of running out of the room and hiding, I would do what I do best and act through the combo. All the showgirl smiles and glances were there and I exuded the most incredible confidence for how much I was lacking in dance knowledge. I wasn't going to make excuses, I wasn't going to quit. I was going to give the best audition I could.... and then the kicker.... we auditioned in groups of three. Ugh! Really!! We couldn't do 5?!!! It was painful to watch the glimpses of myself in the mirror that I did see, but I powered through and did my strong finish smiling. Relief. It was over. This was a big challenge for me and I was so out of my comfort zone. It really stretched me a lot. More than any recent acting auditions I'd been to. And I wasn't surprised to be cut in the first round. Thank God, because the second round was all this leaping and c jumps that I literally just couldn't do haha.
I was stoked my friend got to do the callbacks! She's amazing and I had never seen her dance, so that was fun, but no more professional "dancer" auditions for me! I better stick to the scripts. It's what I love anyway. This was a random whim and great adventure.. all the more confirming where I really belong.
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