My True Love
In my mind, my life is divided into three parts:
Grade School - the era of singing (when I was a member of the children’s choir)
High School - the era of acting (when I joined Repertory Philippines and was part of the school drama club–where I was pretty much typecast as the innocent-girl-about-to-be-married)
College - the era of dancing (when I was part of the Company of Ateneo Dancers, or CADs, and the Blue Babble Battalion)
I think I fell the hardest for dance—it was always inside me, I just didn’t have the venue for it in my younger years. If there is one thing that I regret, it’s that I never underwent formal dance training when I was younger. My parents put me in a ballet class, but pulled me out after about a month (I never really understood why). Friends say maybe it was a good thing, because otherwise, I might not be able to do street now. But it would’ve been nice to get some solid technique.
It saddens me sometimes that I don’t get to dance as much as I’d like to. Whenever the opportunity comes, I tend to grab it. Case in point: the last CADs concert entitled Denouement. I was the oldest one in the Street Alumni group (thankfully, there were older alumni in the Jazz group, which I chose not to join this year), and I’d constantly hear jokes about it. Bu hey, whatever. For the love of dance.
A few years ago, CADs held its 10th anniversary concert, and I, along with other past presidents, was asked to write a message. I don’t think our messages ever actually saw print, so allow me to post it again here…
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Majoring in Dance, minoring in Comm. That’s how I often described myself back in college, and never was this more true than in my senior year. Aside from the time I spent at workouts and practice, there was the matter of running on org, which was made especially challenging by the fact that we were not accredited that particular year.
That we weren’t accredited may have been the mother of all obstacles then. Practice and concert venues, as you could imagine, didn’t fall easily into our laps. A loss at a major annual competition proved to be another challenge as well. But we managed to pull through—we were able to hold auditions, attract a new breed of talent, and hold the requisite two concerts. And towards the end of the year, we placed first for the very first (and to date, only) time at JIG, another big annual competition.
In retrospect—after the stress and tears and tempers have cleared—I wouldn’t have given up anything that happened that year, even if I had the chance. I can see now that I became a better person because of it all. That year taught me how to better deal with the growing pains of a young org, of a family. It taught me to pick myself up (with a few helping hands of course) after I’d fallen. It taught me to have faith–in other people, in myself.
I’d like to think it taught everyone who was there with me a few things too. And whenever I come home to CADs and see just how far they’ve come, I think I’m proven right.
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To read about exactly how far my org has come, read this review of Denouement here.