“And we pay to do this!”

With tongue in cheek, the words in the post’s title become a familiar refrain this time of year, because dance competition season has officially arrived.

Just like a school year, the dance year has its own calendar. September through December is all about new schedules, getting back into shape, refining technique, and beginning the season’s competitive choreography. Just before music choices are decided upon, there comes the inevitable mixing and cutting at the computer to suit the number and to satisfy the competition’s time limits. Large groups, small groups, lines, trios, duets, solos and the requisite production are planned, choreography timetables adjusted, and every so often a flip through the dance-wear catalogues for costume ideas.

With all of this neatly behind us, yesterday saw day one of competition number one.

Luckily - at least that’s how I see it - we were local, and at a venue that I’ve always enjoyed, purely for its accessibility and the fact we’ve competed at various competitions there over the years. The younger ones normally start off most competitions, cute four, five, and six-year-olds, dressed impeccably by mothers whose emotions range from nervous excitability to overwhelming pride. Their official initiation into competition, they stand together, coffees in hand, wearing team jackets with emblazoned studio names, and pins that might say, “Dance Mom,” or some other slogan that identifies them as part of a team.

I never did wear a ‘dance mom’ pin, but I was indeed one of those that stood those first couple of years excited, yet semi-terrified, at seeing my daughter and her group perform on stage. I honestly had no idea what to expect, but there she was, strategically placed with the rest of her group, in a bouncy, pink-sequin and crinoline skirt, matching bodysuit, her ponytail a flourish of tight, blonde curls, pink bow atop her head, and sporting beige, Cuban-heel tap shoes.

If truth be told, they all looked like they’d just shuffled and time-stepped their way out of a Shirley Temple film. Looking back, it was, without question, our bona fide, ceremonial initiation, our six little girls, identically dressed, practised and ready to perform to win pins, ribbons, and if the gods were good, a trophy.

Unfortunately, nobody told us the trophies were 100%, honest-to-goodness plastic, and never mind their shamefully fake, sprayed-on gold sheen and minuscule marble plaques, these were coveted badges of honour, and damn it, we wanted ‘em. We novices were unabashedly in awe of those tall, pillared, Empire State-looking structures that needed a couple of dancers just to haul them off stage.

Now that’s what we called a trophy!

In the early years the kids would tote along mascots - large, stuffed animals covered in pins and ribbons and special awards won at previous competitions. Stephanie was given one of these by one of the senior dancers, a toy almost half her size, but she lugged it with her, on-stage for every adjudication.

Today, it’s different. The stuffed animal has long been packed away, the tightly-curled ponytails have disappeared, fluorescent crinoline skirts given away, and she hasn’t danced in Cuban-heeled tap shoes since the cows came home.

Now she is collected from high school by a teammate and they drive together to the competition early afternoon to support the younger ones. And that’s another thing, even the cheers have evolved over the years. These days they sound more like howls, sounds that only teenagers, I swear, are able to generate from their throats, but still, they’re mixed in with loud clapping, the calling of dancers’ names, the wolf-whistles… you get the picture.

As I arrived at the venue yesterday afternoon, my daughter was applying eye make-up to an eight-year-old at this, the little girl’s first competition. I recalled applying stage make-up to Stephanie at the same age, ahead of time and at home, years ago, when I’d have cartoons playing on TV so that she’d sit still long enough for me to attempt a form of face painting that any sensible parent would deem frighteningly garish. Ah yes, up close, perhaps, but from the audience she would look good - you’ll see, we promise… and so I was led to believe.

“Really,” they said. “It’ll look good. Trust us.”

It was half-true, though I might have believed them completely had I some training over and above the studio lesson given by one of the senior girls in the large studio filled with almost 100 other girls, mothers, aunts, and sisters. We were told to come prepared to learn: make-up kit, eyelashes, glue, all of the necessary paraphernalia… they would provide the diagrams.

Diagrams??? What the….

The rules of make-up application were strict, and strictly-adhered to, sadistic twists on time-honoured themes of colouring inside the lines. This was no elementary paint-by-numbers I can tell you. I broke out in a cold sweat, and all the swearing was done under my breath.

What in hell had I got myself into?

Then came the false eyelashes for which we certainly weren’t prepared - I’d never even held them before. The creepy, glued-on, #105s, these spider-like hairs were a nightmare to stick on anyone’s eyelids, let alone a squirming seven-year-old. Not enough glue, too much glue, try this, try that, freakin’ (no pun intended) things that could pass as dead insects. As any dance mother knows, one’s first foray into this glue-n-stick (please, God, let them stick this time, and I promise I’ll never lose my temper again) ritual can bring tears of frustration to even the most hardened of dance moms among us.

Fast-forward to present day… now my sixteen-year-old, like all in her group, expertly applies her own makeup and lashes, rivalling the talents of any Hollywood artiste, in my opinion. Her hair is sleek after the repeated clamping of a straightening iron, pulled back into what we refer to as a nape of the neck, low pony, and clasped with an elegant rhinestoned pin. The senior girls have paid their dues; they all know how to look good for on-stage performances for adjudicators and audiences alike.

Friday afternoon the entire team performed the production number. Beforehand, there may have been chaos in the change room - someone forgot this, someone forgot that - but as they come out on stage, these children (and legally, they are) become, for three minutes, other beings. Gone are the squabbles and heated words with mothers, and their hormone-induced, pre-teen, and teen, mood flashes have all since disappeared… hell, these are dancers, pros, wonderfully sophisticated beings - but set your stopwatch, they’ll come off stage either laughing or ranting, and with any luck, it’ll be the former.

Their ages range from about eight-years to eighteen-years-old. I looked at my daughter and the other senior dancers and thought how adept they all are at performing, their technique undeniably polished. I thought the same of our intermediate group, most of whom I’ve watched since they were four and five-year-olds, some now entering high-school. The little ones, entering their second year with just one competitive season under their belts have also changed, refinement evident already.

With almost ten years of competitions behind me, I can, like any seasoned dance parent, identify what’s good and what’s not so good, predicting quickly and fairly accurately the final outcome. One can see right away ‘who’s off’ and ‘who’s really on,’ who has good expression, those great stage-faces, as we say.

For about three minutes we watch, smile, laugh, gasp, cheer and clap for the kids. There will always be a prop that fails, or is dropped, hairpieces that fly, screws that come loose from taps, and other various and sundry ‘wardrobe malfunctions,’ but in the end I remind myself that these are kids, after all.

Sitting in the theatre yesterday, it all came back… the now-funny recollections of years gone by, the “do you remember when…” stories, the fabled wins and losses, the justly-won right up there with the questionable adjudications, away-competitions and the “joys” of overnight stays in hotels with lots of kids, and adults imbibing after a long day behind them… all the memories of the past. I looked at a friend yesterday and said for the first time this season, “How many numbers ’til we’re up?” and realized that it’s all begun yet again.