Lazy me and English Class

WELL. I OBVIOUSLY suck at blogging. But I'm hoping it will get better, I am going to start uploading some of the papers I am writing for an English class because they are mostly personal narratives about me and the people I surround myself with. Perhaps someone will find them interesting! The first one I will attach is about dance, and how I've felt on stage through the years!

“Mr. Smee, Thats Me!”

    I spent a lot of time thinking about a time I’ve been different or pretended to be different than who I am. At first when I couldn’t think of anything I thought maybe I wasn’t being honest with myself. When I thought about it, I have always tried my hardest to be myself. I’m not saying I never have, I don’t think thats possible in adolescence. There were surely times in middle school, when I was trying to find a group I fit into, where I tried to crack some funny or “inappropriate” inside joke, but nothing that stands out. Racking my brain for a story I could recall details of, I soon realized there was, or were, times when I was continuously pretending to be someone else.
    I have been a dancer all my life. Even before I started taking lessons, I was a dancer. My mom would teach me the basics, because she was once a dancer too, and I’d take off twirling around the room, spinning in my own little world to the music playing in the background. After I began taking lessons, I climbed the ladder of levels quickly. I started preforming in ballets, first as a duckling in “Peter and the Wolf,” then a pumpkin and a firefly in “Cinderella,” and next I landed my first lead role! I got to dance as the Apprentice in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” At the time, I was in 5th grade, heads shorter than everyone else, and was the scrawniest stick figure you’d ever seen, but when I set foot in the studio for rehearsal, I got to be “The Apprentice.” I put my heart and soul into rehearsals, hoping to get each and every pas de chat, chassé, and pirouette just right before the many members of the water danced their way around the stage only to throw me in the fountain before I could be saved by the old Sorcerer. On the stage magic happened when I truly became The Apprentice. The lights felt hot on my skin as I stole the Sorcerer’s wand and found my way to the center of the stage where I soon fell asleep. I was no longer pretending to be punished for causing a disaster with brooms and water, I had actually caused it, and I was actually in trouble. This was the first time I ever truly became someone else. You can feel the role take over your body, a magic that can only happen when the curtains rise and the lights heat up your skin, and you realize you are on display for everyone in the audience, like a lizard in a tank.
    My favorite role to play was not a lead. As Mr. Smee in “Peter Pan” I got to dance an evil, squeamish, side kick pirate, who perhaps wasn’t ready to take on all that was thrown his way. This character was so far from who I had grown to be, as a now 18 year old soon-to-be-college student, but I completely fell in love with it and grew into the part. I distinctly remember performing opening night, on a small stage in Dover-Foxcroft, hearing the audience laugh as I comically struggled and put all my weight into pushing the cage filled with lost boys onto the stage. The whole show allowed me to be a comical character, something you don’t often get to perform in ballet.
    I played with the cues from the audience as I mimicked other dancers, or was thrown across the stage by the commanding Captain Hook. When Hook’s hat was accidentally thrown off in the thrilling fight scene I crept in from the wings, and claimed the hat for my own head! I didn’t need to use words to tell the audience that timid Mr. Smee was going to be as cool as Captain Hook one day!
    At the end of the show when I heard the applause and laughs as I took my stumbling bow, I knew I had successfully become the character, not just played the part. This feeling was reinforced by my ballet instructor approaching me after the show and exclaiming, “Holly, you ARE Mr. Smee. You commanded the audience like no other person on that stage.” So, maybe I should have let Wendy or Peter have a little glory, but the audience had become my friends, and I wanted to show all the little girls with big dreams of becoming ballerinas, that it is more than tutu’s and tight buns, (although I did have a very tight bun stuffed under my bandana!) It is about playing a part so well that you become the character, and have the time of your life on the stage.

SMEE PICTURES!
This first one is a scene on the pirate ship where I chased around MY personal side kick Starkey.

And here I am with Captain Hook!