Its the day of the show, y'all!

Student Dance Concert opens tonight and I am SO. EXCITED.

A handful of friends and family will be there tonight, which makes me feel good knowing I have my crew there to support me. I'm proud of my dancers and all the hard work they have put into learning my choreography and dancing their hearts out. And, yes, I am proud of my piece.

Let me qualify that statement because I want to make sure you all know that this doesn't come from a conceited place... I know my choreography is not the most amazing thing on stage. I know I'm still learning and growing as a choreographer and artist. But this piece came from my heart. I did not choreograph simply because I have to or because I wanted to impress anyone. Yes, I hope people like it. Yes, I wanted to bring a bit of vernacular flavor to the CSU Dance Department's stage to mix things up, but there's a bigger reason why its important to me. Creating this piece was one of many steps of healing from something I'm working through in my personal life. One of my dancers, the only guy in my piece, represents a part of me that I tried to keep alive, but forces bigger than myself (represented by the other eight gals in my piece) were too much and I lost. But then there's a little surprise at the end to show that you can't keep me down for long - I will fight.

At one of our last rehearsals, I shared all of this with my dancers. I told them that if they don't get all the moves perfect or if they make mistakes, its okay - the most important thing to me is that they dance from their hearts. I asked them to dance their hearts out for me.

[Good grief, I'm getting choked up just writing this. I can't cry, I'm at work! Deep breath...]

SO. I am proud of my dancers for dancing their hearts out. I am proud of how the entire piece came together, choreography, costumes, and all. And I am proud of me for taking the risk to create something personal and put it on stage.