Shadows to Stages

4 Feburary 2016

Dear diary,

Today is the third day at internationals and today it's trios. So that means it's me, Maya and Abigail's time to shine. We've practiced so much so I think we are ready.

All dance captains were called for a meeting because we found out there's a twist for the trios. The manager said 'So to decide the line-up your team will each select their best turner and whoever lasts the longest has the most amount of time to rehearse. One more thing. This round is no longer trios.' When she said that it wasn't trios anymore I was bewildered. We've worked so hard and know it's not even going to happen. She then said 'It's a 5 person dance.' We all stood there and then she shouted 'Go.' Everyone scrambled of the stage to tell the teams.

When I got back I explained to everyone the situation and everyone was shocked. Mrs said 'Okay, who's our best turner on the team?' Everyone looked at me. 'Bella, you have to do it, the whole team is counting on you.' I agreed. Then I remembered 'But what about the trio, we have to make a 5 person dance.' Maya said 'So we keep our trio and add two people.' Mrs said 'No, that trio was only for three, and making changes now will confuse everyone.' I then remembered something. Before Abigail fully enrolled me, Maya , Scott, Luke and West (he's this really cool hip hop, breakdancing guy.) all created a 5 person dance. We could easily put Nathan in Scott's place. I told the team my plan and everyone agreed.

We then headed to the turning competition and I got really stressed and nervous. Nathan came over and said 'Hey, are you okay?' I said 'I really don't want to do this, it's really stressing me out.' He said 'Bella, you're the best turner on the team, we need you. You literally don't have a choice. Okay. If you win this, I'll take you on a date.' It really motivated me. I really really want a date with Nathan, so I was going to do this and win this. I started to stretch and get warmed up for what was going to be my toughest challenge at internationals yet.

All the teams started getting into position. Sasha came over 'Oh, we meet again. You know I was really impressed with your performance. The school finally must have taught you something. You know we could use something like that at Beldovere.' I looked at her and said 'What are you saying?' She said 'Oh you know,Beldovere would love to have you on a winning team. This team doesn't even improve their students. I've improved so much and so could you. This joke of a team, I don't know why you're on it, you're on a higher level than everyone else. Just think about it.' She laughed and stood beside me. I had Sasha on one side and Nathan on the other. I was ready to win this.

The competition started and everyone was spinning. For this competition you can do any type of turn but you can't switch feet or let both feet touch the floor at the same time. If you fall out first your team will have to improv on stage without anytime to practice. It wasn't long until someone fell out. I felt really bad for them but it's really all their fault. More people started dropping out, I was really happy with how I was doing.

Then Sasha fell out. She came in third. She was holding her leg up and she tripped and fell out of the competition. I was really happy. After she fell out it seemed to be looking good for Oatfield. It was only me and another team, so I now know we will be going against them in the 5 person dance but I want to win so we get longer to practice. We've been going for so long and I just wanted it to end. The other teams turner finally fell out and I fell to the ground in exhaustion. The team ran over and picked me up off the ground. I ran into Nathan's arms. If it wasn't for him, i mightn't even had done this. But this now means I get a date with him. Don't tell Nathan, I'm really excited, but also nervous. I mean dates I had with Scott are history. I like Nathan now. The team were chanting and it was amazing.I was so happy with how I did. Now we had to go practice our 5 person dance.

We went into the orange blossom room to choreograph our new routine. I said 'Okay guys. Our 5 person dance we already have prepared is perfect, but it needs cleaning up, this needs to be so energetic, so full of power.' I absolutely love our routine. It's a really fast hip hop routine, with tricks incorporated. There are a lot of fast, movements in the dance. I do this really cool move with Luke where he lifts me up and I'm in the splits. Pretty much it's a split upside down. It's really scary but when it's over you're relived nothing happened during it.