If you had told me when I was freshly 15 and had just quit dance after 12 years, that in college, my favorite aspect of St. Bonaventure would be the SBU Dance Team… you would’ve had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
When I got to St. Bonaventure, I hadn’t danced in three years. My tap shoes, my tan jazz shoes and even my steps notebook sat solemn in the blue sequin backpack that had been my dance bag for years.Â
My peer coach and SBU 101 teacher pretty much made it mandatory for me to attend the club fair at the beginning of September when I was a freshman. All of the little popup tables had two or three representatives behind them trying to convince new freshmen to join their club. One of the people I felt comfortable enough to say “hello” to during my awkward freshman phase was my peer coach Sara who was standing behind the SBU Dance Team table.Â
After a few minutes of talking that I effectively blacked out during, I was writing my name down for tryouts.Â
The Butler basement, which was actually surprisingly hard to find on my first go around, was packed with people excited to get dancing. It seemed like combos were taught and then magically it was over. Upon realizing that I can’t really remember it, I think I was so nervous I might’ve blacked out during tryouts as well…
I went to class after class until our very first show. I had gotten pretty comfortable with some of the people in my only class, hip-hop, and was talking with them excitedly in the Allegany-Limestone cafeteria (thanks to the flooding in the Quick Center).
Legally Bonas came and went, then Footloose, and suddenly freshman year was over. When sophomore year came, I couldn’t wait to join more classes, hear the next show, and go down to the Butler basement and have that “Dance Team” feeling wash over me again (I promise it’s a thing).Â
I piled up on classes from extra jazz, through hip-hop, all the way to musical theater. Classes felt natural and we seriously could not get through two minutes without someone cracking the most outrageous joke. Bueller at Bonaventure, my fall show sophomore year, was a hit and pushed me to where I needed to be to create my favorite dance memory: Dancing Queen, our show my spring semester sophomore year.
I had put on my big girl pants and joined my very first contemporary class. When I tell you my nerves were high walking into my first contemporary practice, that is the understatement of the century. The nine of us plus our choreographers, Meg and Riley, all sat in a big stretching circle, outlining what the dance would be.Â
I joined five dances the semester of Dancing Queen (our version of Mamma Mia). This was the most instrumental time in my whole career at Bonaventure. I made friends that I will forever cherish, wore costumes that might have been maternity dresses, pretended to get married to one of my best friends in a hip-hop dance and cried like a river when the seniors took their final bow.
Remember my choreographers from contemporary? They’re our team captains now. They led us through one of my favorite shows we’ve done so far this past fall: Back to Bonas.Â
Riley, Ellie (one of our amazing managers) and Claire (Dance Team’s number one supporter) are all my roommates now and will be next year too. Some of my best friends here started out as my choreographers or my dance partners. There is not one person on the dance team who doesn’t lift my spirits when I see them. Butler Basement is the place where I go to feel seen, heard, valued and loved for all I am.Â
The SBU Dance Team has truly changed my life and I will forever be grateful for that.