MESC - Dance Troupe 

MESC DANCE TROUPE

This year we started up a Dance troupe comprising of year seven and eight students. Mid-term 1 we decided to have a goal of performing on stage in a competition, so we practised every week to compete in a national competition called Dance Life Unite. We made it to regionals, and then to Nationals held in Sydney during the September school holidays.

On the second Monday of the school holidays we all woke up nice and early and met at the airport for our 8am flight to Sydney! When we got there, we were all so excited. We checked in at our accommodation (YHA The Rocks) and caught the ferry straight to Luna Park where our competition was being held for the next three days.  We signed in and did our first of many professional workshops, the first of which happened to be Hip Hop. It was a new but very difficult experience for most of us, however we persisted and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, learnt some new skills and had a great time.

The following day we came back to Luna Park to join in on a contemporary workshop. We all felt more comfortable whilst doing this but it was still challenging as we were amongst 200 trained dancers. Some of us stayed to do the Commercial Jazz workshop which we enjoyed very much as it was high energy and something new, and even Ms Manning joined in too!

On the day of the competition, we had to wake up bright and early (5:30 am!) once again to prepare for the big day. We all went downstairs to get our hair and makeup done and caught the ferry to Luna park by 7am. Once we arrived, we check in did our last preparation and warm ups before the big performance.

Our wonderful helpers, Lotte and Mikayla took us backstage to have a pep talk. We were all getting very hyped up, although many of us had nerves kicking in as this was the big moment.  We all knew we had one performance before ours and we were getting ready to watch from the sidelines, when suddenly our schools name and song was called over the loud speaker to perform now.  We all freaked out and ran onto the stage, however that didn’t bring us down. We gave it our all, and we performed so much better than we ever had before. Everyone overcame their nerves and managed to have a great time in the end.

After our performance we collected our envelope onstage and gave it straight back to the dressing rooms to open together. Everyone crowded around Ms Manning as she read the results aloud. Our troupe had managed to get a score of 88.4/100 at National level! We were all very proud of our achievement as it meant so much to get so far and to make it to nationals in 6 months.

We all celebrated with a day relaxing in the sun at the park and sightseeing the opera house.

We would like to thank Ms Manning (now - Mrs Bell) for all of her time and effort for making us the confident and capable dancers we are now, especially recently with her wedding being just around the corner, Ms Lombardi for giving up her holidays and her birthday to come on the trip and for all the support and encouragement she had given us, Mikayla for giving up her time as a year twelve VCAL/VET student at Berwick to not only come to rehearsals but to travel all the way to Sydney to support us, Lotte for being not only an amazing assistant but being a great friend to all of the dancers, Mrs Manning (Ms Manning’s Mum) for adjusting our costumes and making them perfect for our performance. And finally, a huge thank you to all of the other wonderful teachers, students, friends and families for their ongoing support and time to help us with our trip. Without you all none of this would have been possible.

Overall, Sydney was an amazing experience for us all and we can’t wait for jumpstart where we have the opportunity to do dance as a subject.

Jess Leatch and Chelsea Rix (Dance Troupe Members)