Show Time

In honor of the Olympics, I want to write about one of my personal moments of triumph. I have had so many in my life that without sounding vain, find it hard to pick just one. Upon looking back on my life, it amazes me how many times I've risen way up to catch gold. Now in saying "gold" I mean the top or the best or even placing in something, but allowing the word "gold" to be a "golden moment of triumph". I've had such huge moments in education, performing arts, culinary, professional, personal & still find myself continually reaching for yet another gold in some fashion or form. Of course I've had just as many flops, falls & complete heart break..but...I best leave those for another time.

One of my favorite professional, educational & personal golds happen back in 1994 during the first half of my Junior year of high school. Now, for all those of you that don't know a lot of my history, I have been signing in choirs throughout my educational years. I was good enough to get a place in our school first show choir & I was ecstatic! We had learned our first 3 songs & was chosen by my peers to choreograph our first number "Show Time". Its a very show tune type of song so I decided to go very Bob Fosse with big movements & ended it with a 3 person lift, very cheerleader type ending. It took a while to teach non dancers how to dance but just knew that this...the song, the movements, the voices & personalities...was going to be really big!

We performed it for the first time to standing ovation. So after the excitement of that performance, ended up keeping it in rotation for the year in what soon became THE song we were known for. We were asked to perform it for the school body, then went on to perform it for district competition. Each time we performed it, it got better & better then before we knew it...we were performing it at the state festival. That day we took home 1st Place! After getting our medals, the President of the Board along with one of the judges came by to personally compliment me on the choreography. We then found out that because of our winning State, Disney offered to have our group come in & lay the tracks for two of their songs! Then at the end of that school year, I got a personal bow & ovation for my choreography at our final performance.

I had NEVER choreographed a number before "Show Time" & never could have expected it to take our little show choir so far! It was truly my first taste of what would become a long career in choreography. Since that song, I went on to choreograph about 60 other things both in big & small performances. Although I never won anything else for choreography, shows that I choreographed have gone on to win awards but those are for other blog moments.