One minute, thirty-eight seconds. That's all the time I have to change costume, shoes, and hair piece between my second and third numbers.
As the group ends the second number, we hold our poses and catch our breaths as the audience cheers. Once the lights go out, we slip offstage. I dart to the dressing room where a team of devoted volunteers wait to strip one costume off and whip me into another.
Then it's back on stage. Places. Lights. Music. Dance! Never do I feel more alive than under the blaze of the stage lights, catching glimpses of the faces in the crowd who follow every movement I make. Never do I feel more invincible than when the seized by the adrenaline of a performance.
We all feel it. I see it in all the faces of those I dance with. As we cross behind the curtain to the other side of the stage in preparation for the next piece. As we help each other in and out of costumes, no thought to modesty. All thought to the show. The performance. The dance. In this moment, it's all that matters.
But it is so much more than those moments before and after the performance. For those few minutes on stage, so many hours are required. Endless rehearsals beginning months before a recital or ballet. Classes and warm-ups. Costume fittings. The breaking in of new shoes. The wrapping of blistered feet.
Dress rehearsals the night before performances so often feel like a carnival to me. Workers set the lights, the backgrounds, rehearse curtain and musical queues. The director sets the choreography on the stage. We run the numbers again and again until they're right. Often the night ends with tears and nerves stretched beyond belief. How many times did I worry that I wouldn't be changed and ready in time for my next number? Or that I'd misplace my hairpiece? Or find myself on the wrong side of the stage?
And yet, the performance night comes, and all is well. I lose myself in those lights, in the familiar movements, let my body tell the story I rehearsed so many times. And though it may not come out perfect, at the end of the night, the audience still applauds, their faces gleaming with smiles.