Thoughts from a Delirious Dance Auntie

I spent March 28th-March 30th and April 5th-6th at dance competitions.  These are thoughts I had:

1. Just because you wear white does not mean you are invisible.  We cannot see through you! Not only should people sit down while dancers are on stage, people should not get up and walk through the aisles while dancers are on stage--only in between dances.

2. Speaking Spanish (or any other foreign language) does not mean everyone around you can't hear you.  You can be heard! And you are being disrespectful and interfering with our enjoying the songs and routines.

3. I will choreograph dances to every song I hear for at least the next week. I wonder how it would do if I did create a routine & someone performed it.

4. If you have prom or dance teachers know their dancers have prom, do not register for a dance competition that weekend. 

5. Bring in my heavy coat no matter what. It doesn't matter if I look silly or wind up not needing it.  Those competition rooms are cold. 

6. Audience members should be mindful of their comments when sitting directly next to someone. You never know if the dancer belongs to them or not.  (An older lady made a negative comment while my brother and other members of the studio were setting up props. Her husband said, "That was interesting!" after one of the hip hop routines from my niece's studio finished.)

7. Children & the elderly should not be at a dance competition after 8:30 pm.  (My niece and others her age did not even do their first dance until after 9:00 pm yesterday.)

8. I would love for dance competition companies to outlaw pelvic thrusting, chest pops, & booty shaking. It irritates me even more when those are the routines winning and scoring higher and good, clean routines are not.

9. Never should a dance routine involve pretending to shoot up the audience. (A hip hop type routine that involved several genres of dance actually had a stage full of dancers make guns out of their arms and hands and then point them at the audience and move them across their bodies to the machine gun sounds of shooting bullets in the music.) I was APPALLED!!!  I don't let any children in my presence every play like that.

10. Just b/c there are few boys in dance, they should not get favoritism. 

11. Dance competition companies need to cap how many routines can register. These last 2 weekends have been far too crazy, far too many people, cramped changing rooms, and not enough seats in the audience. 


12.  I LOVE watching my niece dance!  Her solo pictures from today were amazing.  I just LOVE her to pieces!