I was three years old when I first stepped into the mirror-surrounding walls of a dance studio. After this moment, dance slowly became my life. By the
time I was thirteen years old, I was in the studio six out of seven days a
week, eating my dinner in the waiting room between classes, and doing my
homework on the benches outside. I thrived on being onstage; I lived for the
glitter and glam. I was obsessed with rhinestones and the loud music that would
play as I performed. Throughout the course of my dance career, I took lessons
in tap, jazz, lyrical, ballet, musical theater, pointe, and acrobatics. My
dream when I was a young girl was to become a professional dancer when I grew
up. I loved everything about the life of a dancer.

It is hard to believe that Dracula, performed at Stockton College on October 24,
2012, was the first ballet that I have ever attended. Dracula was a performance
executed by the Atlantic City Ballet. The Atlantic City Ballet Company is made
up of dancers from nine different countries across the world.  One of the things that I found particularly exciting about Dracula was the fact that I knew what all of the dance moves were called that they were doing throughout the play. I knew when they had made a mistake or when their performance was absolutely beautiful. If I hadn’t been a dancer for
ten years, I would not have been able to pick up on such minute things like
these.

What was so different about this experience for me was that the entire story was told through dance and not a single word was spoken. I am used to watching television or musicals where the changes in intonation of the actors indicate the moods and feelings
of the actors in the story. Being that I do not know the story of Dracula, the
fact that it was being told without words made it that much more difficult for
me to understand the plotline. If I had known the story of Dracula like I know
Cinderella, or the Little Mermaid, I would have probably gotten even more out
of it than I did.

The majority of the dancing was spectacular, especially by the lead women in the show. They made every movement look so simple and so graceful, which is awe-inspiring considering I personally know how difficult those moves actually are. There were a few
points in the show where I noticed that the dancers weren’t synchronized with
each other. Most of the time, this occurred when the younger dancers were
performing.

As much as I wanted to see a beautifully executed ballet with flawless dancers with years of
experience when I was watching Dracula, I was very pleased to see that they
incorporated their younger dancers in the performance. I was a younger,
inexperienced dancer at one point, and I would have loved to have been given an
opportunity to dance in the same production with people as experienced as these
dancers.

I am very glad that I went to see this ballet because it brought back a lot of memories from my dance past. Seeing things like this makes me miss dance because I loved it so much.
However, I have moved on and I couldn’t be happier in the place that I am in
now. As much as I would love to go back to dance, I think it’s best for me to
keep it in my memories, and continue to move forward with my life.