My heart was warm

Standing back stage, crying because the piece was so beautiful, realizing that this was the last time that I would be here, with the ballroom dancers, performing in this concert. A show in the audience is a very different show from back stage. The two dimensional becomes three dimensional as you watch each person enter and exit, go into character and out of character.

This would be the 5th time I participated in this concert. A year ago today I was silently crying because the night before I had broken up with my now fiancee. Its funny how I feel the same until I remember where I was at in the past and how far i've come since then.

Dance started out being ballroom for me. It had rhinestones, feathers, and gelled back hair. It was nothing more than dance moves, figures, and perfect technique. I've danced that dance since I was nine and it is now becoming something more.

Last night it became a story, emotion, artwork, culture, and friendship. Last night it was no longer separated by style and figure. Last night dance became a love for movement and expression. It became something I longed to do with my heart instead of my limbs.

Standing in the wing, watching two ballroom dancers express themselves in their dance piece, watching as everyone gathered to watch, sitting on the ground, standing by the light tree......feeling the electric energy run up and down my skin brought by dancers supporting, I felt that change was beginning. I could feel the walls between dance genre's being torn down.

I close my last performance in that concert with ballroom dance hopeful, happy, connected, and satisfied. Hopeful for what dance is going to become, happy that I could be a part of something bigger than myself, connected to others in a way that I have never felt before, and satisfied because I left more than just technique on the floor.