Whatever You Do, Don’t Stop

It’s really not funny, but if we don’t laugh at some of the nonsense we’ve had to endure in 2020, we’ll go even crazier than we already are.

Like every dance family across the globe, our competition season was cut tragically short by COVID. As a matter of fact, our studio did not attend one competition with their groups (some of us did one-offs for our kids’ solos/duos/trios, and we squeezed one convention in at the end of January, but that was it). We were scheduled for a National event in Ocean City, Maryland, in late July; knowing that we would only perform just one day with the revamped format, our studio owner (rightly) withdrew us from that one and rescheduled one closer to home.

Just one week prior to the event, we got word that our governor would not allow the competition to take place. The venue was moved to Connecticut, so we dance parents began scrambling to make other arrangements. But as more details emerged regarding what we would have to do to make it happen (jumping through hoops is an understatement), it became clear within a day that it would not happen. We received a text message from our studio director, and I imagine she must have felt a bit like Jack Sparrow here as he ran for his life in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Needless to say, our dancers’ reactions ranged from resignation to devastation. They’ve all worked so hard this year, despite all of the obstacles thrown their way. But hopefully, they will soon get to grace the stage again soon, and we (and Jack) get to live another day.

Work hard, have fun! – Danielle