Try Again!

You might have forgotten due to my lack of entries on this subject, but I am still a dancer in NYC, who wants nothing more than to be a happy successful performer. That's why I bitch so much about my job it's not what I want to be doing! The last audition I went on was in November, until about a week ago when I attended the ever famous So You Think You Can Dance auditions. Well, I survived, which is not the same as actually having gotten through as far as I would have liked.



Originally I would have bitched about how I was wronged, but now that some time has passed, getting cut has made me even more determined to find the right kind of success for me. SYTYCD is not for every dancer. It's become a cookie cutter outlet for young, talented and immature competition dancers. Yes, that sounds like a lot of distain and judgment, but it comes from a place of admiration. The show offers the opportunity to work with some of the biggest and brightest in the industry, yet all that the show seems to want are 18 year old competition tricksters. I am not 18, and I am definitely not a trickster.  I think I have solid technique and a mature style of movement, but for whatever reason it's not the fit for the show.

Getting cut from something like this can make you feel a whole slew of emotions; envy, jealousy, frustration, guilt and the overwhelming feeling of failure. Everyone wants to be the success story, the rags to riches tale, the person who grows and changes in a few short weeks with the help of their idols. Obviously only 20 people get to this point, and I never thought it realistic that I would be one of those few, I just hoped that I would be given a fair chance to show my talent, skills and passion. Instead I was given the Elton John classic "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "All by Myself" to improv to. Needless to say, my quirky classical inspired contemporary choreography did not shine through when all I could see was Simba running through my head (the song was from The Lion King), and lyrics coming across a karaoke screen (This Bridget Jones' Diary song is one of my favorite songs to sing, not dance to).

I’ve studied and trained for years to be the dancer I am, and then sat outside at 5:30 am, in January, in NYC, in the rain to be given two horrible songs to showcase my style and technique to. I was just slightly pissed! But at the end of the day, as great of an opportunity as it would have been, it was an audition. I’ve been cut before, and I will be cut again; it's the nature of the business. The true test is do you let it get you down, or do you 'dust yourself off and try again?'

(I won't lie, I drank, then ate, then cried before I came to the point of 'trying again' but at least I decided to get back on the horse instead of letting the assholes get me down!)