My journey with dancing started with my local dance team, which was formed for the parades and celebrations hosted in my neighborhood. I began dancing at eight years old with my two older siblings. It was fun learning how to dance in formations, dance, and march in a parade, and learn more about how to count in dance. We had done a lot of routines featuring a mix of hip-hop, cheer, and Latino dances.
After two years my mother took me out of the local dance team as she seemed to think that I was not doing well and was worried about my health as I was very skinny. However, my school had provided a light dance class that taught hip hop, Salsa, Merengue, and Bachata. I had so much fun especially when I had to perform them at school dances and events. The emotions I had felt when I had first gone on stage; it was so scary but also so fun, as I got to show how much time I had spent making it as perfect as possible. Ever since, I have grown a love for it.
As I had graduated my middle school, my high school did not have a dance team and I had to find another time to dance. This is when I began learning K-pop dances in my free time, alone in my room. It started off going great and I had tons of fun learning many different dances, but a lot of the dances required many people as they often make group dances. This made me feel a bit alone and it was hard to find others who also liked dance and K-pop.
It was not until I got to Lasell that I got the courage to dance in front of others again. I had tried out my sophomore year and had not gotten on the team, but I do admit that I had not danced in over two years. However, I did not let that bring me down and started working on some of the basic skills and began dancing in my dorm room again.
All my hard work paid off as this year, my junior year, I got on the dance team. We had begun learning a routine to perform at the first basketball game this upcoming season! I am having so much fun with everyone on the team and it feels less lonely as we can talk about our journeys to dance and how we started. I cannot wait for our first performance! Also, we are going to be doing off-campus competitions, which would be a first for me as I never had danced in a competition before, just mostly for fun.