BALLET

Dance [is my passion]. I used to do ballet when I was way younger. I started ballet around either four or five years old, and then ended around eight years old. So when I was doing ballet around five years old … and there was this one performance we did … We had fake guns … we had to point [them] at each other. I think, like, the whole point of it was we were bunnies or something, and we were just hopping around and everything. And the guns made me laugh so much, just because we had to point them at each other and point it at the audience. And at the end, we had to fall with the gun and shoot in the air.

COVID’S IMPACT

At first I, stopped … because of COVID and since obviously we couldn’t be dancing around each other, and you had to stay six feet apart. So it was very hard for the dance teacher to make us all dance together and in group dances … I stopped and then we went back to school around seventh grade, and then I stopped dancing [in 7th grade], and I went right back [into dance] when I hit eighth grade. But then I left it, and then now in high school, I got into the Dance 1 program, and I started to enjoy it more.

FOLKLÓRICO

I also, my [old] school had this program. It was a Mexican type of dance, and it was called, Folklórico. And then I have this [memory], I performed at Arden Mall one time.  Since, like, everyone goes, and it was on a Saturday. So, it was really busy … and my shoe almost fell off … They were heels and [they] untied, it wrapped around my leg and it untied. Like, it almost slipped off of my foot when I was dancing, but thank goodness it didn’t. 

LYRICAL JAZZ 

But I think now my favorite [genre of dance] is jazz. I’m taking Dance 1 right now but I used to do hip hop, jazz, and lyrical. I did that for six years, but I went on and off. I have this memory, my dance teacher taught us choreography. It was kind of like jazz, but also lyrical. I went to my performance, I think it was in Elk Grove, and none of my classmates showed up. So it was just me, and I was so nervous, because I was kind of, like, looking at the other people dancing. It was just so embarrassing, because there was a lot of people [there] too. It was at a park and then I had to go on stage by myself, and I had to still perform the dance. I had this hat on, and it was also really windy, so when I was dancing, my hat would fly off, and I kept going to pick it up, and they were just telling me to leave it. …My parents were like you should have just left the hat … But I think I still did really good. My teacher told me that since none of my classmates showed up, I still did really good. And I kept my focus straight.