My journey as a dancer!

Hello and Welcome!

I’m so excited to be giving you all a glimpse of my life as a dancer and really digging deep into this whole journey of mine!

In June of 2014 my mom’s amazing best friend gave me a set of magazines and newspapers. She told me that some had info pertaining to the arts with workshops and classes pertaining to dancing, acting, and singing. I automatically was excited! I had not done any classes for dancing, acting, or singing. The only arts classes I did were in school which were not a bunch.

As I looked through the newspapers I saw a church called West End Assembly of God Church. At the church there was arts academy full of all type of classes from acting, vocal, and all styles of dance. The church was nearby and I decided to sign up for all of the workshops throughout the whole summer to keep me busy. One hour for each class really skyrocketed my creativity and ability as a performer. Through those workshops, I started to understand what a performers life could be like. At the end of summer, Ms.Kathy, the director for the arts program asked me to audition for their Christmas production of “Under the Same Stars”. My answer was Yes with a big beautiful smile:)

That day at auditions, my stomach felt like spaghetti, I was so nervous. During auditions we had to perform a small piece of any song choice, learn choreography for ballet, musical theater, and tap dance, as well as “cold read” a small part. The dance auditions intrigued me more and caught my eye, although I may have messed up the whole routine in front of the judges. After auditions, there was a waiting process and that process took 2 weeks. For the show I was cast for the singing ensemble, and just a few small parts.

On December 2014, we performed 14 shows- 1 show each evening of the week, 4 shows on Saturdays, and 2 shows on Sundays. Honestly, this whole production of shows was A LOT! When we performed the show, there were so many beautiful dancers and every single one of them mesmerized me. The angel costumes and all the ballet dancers danced so gracefully. Every step of choreography blew me away and I told myself “I want to do that someday” Throughout the whole 2 weeks of shows, I could barely take my eyes off of the angels, backstage I would try to mimic there choreography and see if I could do the same.

January 2015- This year I took a big step and decided to start taking dance classes. The dancers in “Under The Same Stars” were just amazing I truly had my mind set on trying out dancing and seeing how I would feel. Ms.Kathy recommend Tap, Jazz, Ballet, and Hip Hop to start out but I just decided to take Ballet and Tap. In the course of 1 and a half years, I took Ballet and Tap and moved my experience from Beginner to almost intermediate. In May of 2016, I performed my first dance recital at the church and I only performed in 2 scenes for my ballet and tap class. This was truly a joy! Unfortunately, in December 2016 after recital my mom and dad talked to me and told me that there unable to take me to class anymore. This decision really saddened my heart because I was just getting started in dance and I was really having a fun time.

Over the next 2 years from January 2017-2019 my decision was to just learn dance as much as a I can. YouTube became my best friend over these years. A countless amount of my knowledge came from teachers and mentors on YouTube. I took an online YouTube ballet class almost everyday and learned new tap steps. Kathryn Morgan and United Taps were the two main YouTube sources I learned from. In each video, I learned about nutrition and wellness, strength, terminology, and what determination and hard work truly takes to become successful. I also realized that dance has become something that I really love doing and I couldn’t go a day without it. Dancing in my bedroom on late Saturday nights just became a small hobby I enjoyed before I dozed off to sleep. One day, I just posted a video of improvisation for fun and I really enjoyed the feedback and audience that watched. Although social media was not a big deal to me, I decided to continue posting and it has given me great pleasure.

In the course of those 2 years, I learned and used my creativity to choreograph. In this time, I truly got a sense of what choreography is and how to use it with other dancers and cast members. This is when I got my first big opportunity to choreograph. In 2018, Faith Landmarks Ministries had a Christmas play going on and I decided to audition. Ms.Angie, the arts director hadn’t realized I could dance until I asked her if I could choreograph something for the angels. I wanted to see the angels in live action and truly having a spotlight on them. Ms. Angie trusted me and lead me to this choreography opportunity which I took at full speed.

I really had to think one day about what I wanted to do because I couldn’t turn away the feeling of not taking dance class anymore, and not performing. I just could not allow that. I was way too hungry to stop at this point. In that brief period of time, I really had to think because I love dancing but I did not want to just improvise to a song each night and watch YouTube all day. I told myself “you have a job, you can save for a car, do it and you can take classes”. From then on, I saved as much money as I could as fast as I could and in 2018 I finally bought my first car. This day was one of the best days of my life. My dance training and performances began to launch after.

In those next few weeks, I got a text from a long term friend who used to attend Faith Landmarks and she lead me to someone she knew who was holding an event. This event was for Black History month and she wanted to have entertainment. She contacted me and asked me to dance. Of course, I was smiling so hard, I was too thrilled. “She wants me to dance at her event?” I choreographed my own routine and performed at the event and during that time, my family and I made the decision to make business cards. Within 4 weeks from that event, a family member contacted me and asked me to dance at a birthday party. Performing at these events were really helping my dance career and catching more audience attention. I couldn’t stop here. I needed more!

Performing my first dance solo in FLM Christmas play as a Ballerina in a jewel box was an amazing experience. I loved having this part because I got the chance to show my passion for ballet and inspire all audience members. I’m truly grateful for every opportunity I have had to dance, its a beautiful gift from God.

My eyes lit up when I saw dancing angels dancing across the stage a few years ago and I sure hope to capture the audience attention just like they did mine.

Thank you.