Ever wonder what goes on behind the red curtains before the bright lights hit? You may think, ‘Oh, anyone can do that!’ Trust me, it is way more than perfect slicked-back hairstyles, amazing sparkly costumes, and effortless-looking routines. Try drilling the same eight-count fifty times while mentally writing an analytical paragraph or nailing a front flip while trying to solve algebra equations in your head. As a Year 7 dancer, I can quite honestly tell you that life is exhausting. Pure chaos! But I love it. So, grab your sneakers (or your pointe shoes!) because we’re pulling back the curtain for an all-access pass into our secret world.
Behind the studio doors, creating a three-minute, trophy-winning routine takes months of hard work before we ever hit the stage. When I first signed up for the William Clarke College Dance Team (Studio 1) alongside my outside-of-school dance group, I mistakenly thought it would be all slow, easy lyrical routines. I thought, perfect, I can breeze through this and focus on my homework. Wow, was I mistaken! It turns out it’s a high-speed game of human chess. We spend weeks in “learning and cleaning” mode—polishing every arm angle, pose, and head tilt so we don’t accidentally crash into each other! It’s a challenge, but working together to make it look flawless is exactly how we become so close. I love our school team so much because it’s wildly energetic, the choreography is brilliant, and I’ve made amazing friends with older students I never would have met otherwise.
Surviving the studio is only half the battle; the real chaos starts when the school bell rings. For a high school dancer, a school bag isn’t just full of textbooks. It’s a survival kit crammed with back-up stockings, math worksheets that are slightly crumpled from being jammed next to my hip-hop shoes, and I also have stray bobby pins scattered all throughout my bag. Balancing our Studio 1 rehearsal schedule, and my outside of school dance team rehearsal schedule, with mountains of Year 7 homework means turning every spare second into a study session. My friends always spot me practising my pirouettes in line waiting for science to start, and saying maths equations to myself while going through my hip-hop routine. It uses up almost all my brain power, but learning how to smash a spelling test right after nailing a triple pirouette feels truly amazing.
But the craziest part of a dancer’s life isn’t even the studio or the homework, it’s what happens on competition day that will really surprise you. The dressing room is total, high-energy chaos. Imagine a room packed with people, loud music blasting, the overwhelming smell of hairspray and make-up filling the air, and a frantic hunt for a missing pointe shoe. Backstage, we all nervously run through the choreography in our heads, helping each other with annoying zippers, and giving a last-minute costume check. It’s an amazingly ridiculous mix of nerves and excitement, but just as the stage manager whispers, “You’re up next,” a silence falls over the room, but our heads start spinning even faster. We look at each other and prepare to step out into the bright lights. In these tense moments, I always look to the older members of our school team. It’s comforting to know that even the older students get nervous, too. Having so many different grades above me means I never have to face stage fright by myself. Someone else always feels the same way, and it makes me realise I am never truly alone. That’s the thing about a dance team, you are never alone.
In the end, all the crammed schedules and backstage chaos lead up to the exact moment the curtains open, the crowd cheers, and the music blares. Whether you are into the sharp, fierce hits of hip-hop or the slow, emotion-packed lyrical routines, dance is so much more than just a sport or a school elective. A dance team is a family. So, the next time you see the WCC dancers looking flawless, synchronised, and fierce on stage, remember the wild, beautiful chaos that happened behind the scenes to get them there. And who knows? Maybe you’ll even consider swapping your school shoes for some pointe, contemporary, jazz, or hip-hop shoes and joining our crazy world next year!
