Folk dance part almost the last: PAC1

After an amaaaaazing SPAC tour and staying at home for one totally random summer, out came the PAC list.


Rewind to the middle of Winter semester of SPAC when we all had individual interviews with Delynne. She asked me when I was graduating. I said I could graduate in one year or I could drag it out to two years. She said, "Oh good, because even though Ed thinks he already knows who wants on PAC..." and then she didn't really say anything else specific. But she was clearly alluding to the fact that she wanted me to make PAC. This made me think, okay, I'll definitely make it eventually, but probably  not next year.

During tour, Edwin came a few times to judge er, watch us. In fact, Talmage Spackman and I had tour history the day he came and in our history we called him The Arbitrator. Fantastic. I remember he came and everyone was nervous out of their mind and I decided to pretend he didn't exist and just remember that really, I was here to perform for the kids. So that I did.

Now, I'm going to be honest, by the time SPAC tour had ended I had already planned PAC into my schedule. I somehow knew already (Holy Spirit anyone?) that I would make the team. But at the same time, when I saw that PAC list after getting a helpful text to check my email from Mike Romney (always got my back bud) I still couldn't believe it. I would check my email multiple times to make sure it still existed. It was a really bright spot in a really tough summer.

And then the emails started coming! I cherished every email I got from Ed about dances or rehearsals or anything. I'm pretty sure I probably had them all memorized. When he sent us a video of Lyndsey Wulfenstein (his teaching assistant for the first half of the year) teaching us Romanian, I worked on it in my house and then Christina Craven's kitchen when I had arrived in Provo for rehearsals.

The best was the randomness of having classical Indian rehearsals with a new choreographer Divya in South Jordan in her basement. And riding to them with Brittany Christensen. I felt so cool. And I'm pretty sure it's the only reason I ended up in Classical Indian. :)

I came to BYU two weeks early to start rehearsals for folk dance and to start working at the TMA office (yeah!) and stayed at the Craven's because I didn't have an apartment yet and they are lovely people. :)

That first day of rehearsal was ridiculous. For some reason I didn't have any of my folk dance shoes, just my SPAC sneakers which  were problems for two reasons. 1.They are too narrow for my wide feet and 2. I didn't have any socks. So I danced Hungarian all day with no socks in these beastly shoes. And un-coincidentally about four months later during Christmas break both of my big toenails came right off. Gross.

It was also hard because those who had been on the team had just gotten back from Nauvoo with the old team like, days ago. So they were having a hard time adjusting to a new team and missing their old friends, and all the newbies were crazy nervous. But we made it work!

A couple of days into rehearsal more newbies came, David Lewis and Tanner Pearson came off their mission right into dancing Hungarian. those. poor. things.

Then as we went to our retreat at the end of the week (tubing down the Provo River which I ditched on for a close friend's party and a sleepover at our costumer's house) another random came. Tyler Walker! We now had an extra boy and for some reason this boy was custom asked by Ed to be on the team. He didn't even try out. It's cool. :) But really I'm glad Tyler was randomly on the team.

That first semester I got really close to all the other new girls, especially Liahona. For some reason Liahona and Jessica Philbrick (now getting closer to being Shepherd) always asked me what was going on, as if I knew more than them. Haha. But it brought us together. I also got fairly close to Emily Bills and McKenzie Keene because I was next to them in lineups a lot and they were really sweet in helping me with things I didn't know.

I especially ended up getting close to Liahona because we're very close the same person but she is scientific and Maori, and I'm liberal artsy and white. We were study buddies on the bus rides. AKA the only ones who successfully studied on mid-semester. She even finished a class while on summer tour! So we always sat next to each other on the bus.

We always made quite sure our bus partner was realllly there.

World of Dance was an awesome experience. We did a Hungarian Suite, a Romanian Suite, and a clogging number. The Hungarian Suite I did twice out of four times, switching in and out with McKenzie. I am super glad I was taken out of that dance. The only reason I made it through was because Shua (Josh Park, aka, the Honor Code Ninja - who, ps, my bff and I from freshman year wanted to be Honor Code ninjas so when I realized it was him and I knew him, I almost had a spasm) is the best partner ever and leads so well the girl doesn't even need to know the dance. Coolio. Romanian Suite was so fun, one of my favorite dances of the whole year. And clogging. Well. I was the last one on and the first one off. Awesome. I think I did 5 steps total.

And gotta add this gem from WOD that ended up on the BYU website.

This is some serious Vogueing. 

Then came Christmas Around the World. I remember the day I found out I got the little leaping solo in Israeli I was ecstatic and felt so super cool. And then that same day my ankle kind of twisted and I was sitting out for a second (my twisted ankles tend to heal in like..5 minutes). Edwin came up to me and said, are you going to be okay? Honestly he's not usually that concerned about injuries because people get injured all the time. But then he proceeded to tell me that he wanted to make sure I'd be fine because he and Lyndsey had just put together the CAW lineup and I was the only girl in all the dances, so I needed to be healthy. Well heavens to betsy. Technically I didn't feel like this was true because Emily DanceFish and Brittany Christensen/Carter were alternates in Romanian so technically they were cast in all the dances. Anyway. Not importante.

CAW was wonderful. Oh and horrible. Did I mention I had a terrible sickness the entire week? Like I went to the urgent care on campus, broke down in front of Delynney, and had her leave rehearsal for me to get me Gatorade and Immodium? Yeah. Not good. Somehow as soon as the run-through or rehearsal would start I was workable. But as soon as I got home every day, I couldn't leave the couch! I'd never had to rely on the Lord so heavily. And so it was a real growing experience for me - and got me to really begin to connect folk dance with spirituality in a way that became very important. Oh and PS, the moment the last show ended on Saturday night I was absolutely fine. Like I could eat nothing but plain rice and crackers all week and after the last show I ate Denny's at 11:00 at night like a champ. Ridiculous.

The next summer was RIDICULOUS. Because.

1. I was the TA for SPAC! A dream come true. I love teaching dance more than anything. And I even got the chance to choreograph a Slovakian dance with Mike Romney (never mind the fact that it was supposed to be Czech) and re-stage a Classical Indian dance. I came to adore everyone on that team. And I spent a lot of time with Emily DanceFish, David Lewis, and Mike Romney. Especially Mike, we were paired as teaching partners most of the time. But this duty meant that every Saturday not spent in PAC rehearsal or doing a PAC show, I was at SPAC rehearsal. I had one free Saturday. All semester. If I recall correctly it was beyond glorious.

This will always be my FAVORITE picture-memory of SPAC ever.

2. The copious amounts of PAC rehearsals and shows. Because our first show was the third weekend of the semester, we had only two weeks to learn all the new dances for our full show as well as having tech/dress rehearsals before we took it on the road. If you want to read about our first show (and you do, believe me) check it here. That semester we had four weekend shows, as well as a mid-semester for 10 days (which took up two weekends) and a sizable amount of shows during the week. In fact, we had so many performances that semester that we weren't even allowed to perform in Spring Festival of Nations. Haha. I came to despise rolling my dang costume box to and from campus.

But Mid-semester was the bomb-diggity. Did I never blog about that? Blast it all. We went to California via Nevada. We almost died on the way in blizzards. Our driver was a champ. We had put chains on the bus multiple times and thankfully made it to our first show on time. Amazingly. Here are some picture memories of mid-semester because I'm maxing out my words (I should give myself a daily limit...)

Teaching precious Elementary girls (and a few boys) to dance after an awesome school show where we got to eat lunch with the kids afterward! Dream come true!

Performing at the Oakland Stake Center on temple grounds in front of maybe the most beautiful temple of all time.

The entire weekend spent in Paradise, CA where Alina and I's host family had extended family who hosted about a third of the guys on the team and we spent alllllll weekend with them. And then our host mom (Brynn) put Alina's hair on everyone in this awesome picture. And I can't even tell you how great this weekend was. 

As for the summer tour. Um, I'll simply remind you once more of Hungary, Slovakia, Prague, Zagreb, Porec, and Vienna.