Personal Narrative: Monsters Of Hip-Hop

I’ve always dreamt of dancing in New York City and this summer I earned the opportunity to live out that dream. After auditioning and waiting months for a result, I was accepted into the Rockette’s Summer Intensive. The program was, in brief, intense. I went into the intensive not knowing anyone, first time in New York, and all while the stress looming over my head that I was performing with strangers the challenging choreography that was just thrown at me in seven days. The first few

Those girls were a division higher than my team; so, as I watched their arms gracefully swing from side to side; their legs kicking into the air in a beautiful battement; and, the nearly flawless transitions, I wondered how much hard work and how many rehearsal hours they put in to achieve those movements with such ease. The spotlight highlighting their every move had me in awe. The song slowly started to fade out and the loud, obnoxious thumping in my chest resurfaced. With shaky legs and uneven breathing I hesitantly made my way onto the stage and got into position. Looking into the crowd, I could see hundreds of faces staring back at me; some familiar, some I had never seen in my life. This gave me a feeling of nostalgia taking me back to that first day of dance class when all eyes were on me. I could not hear anything around me except my heartbeat in my chest. I remembered how aesthetically pleasing the dancers prior presented themselves on stage and told myself to get it together. I had to give it my all and not let my team down, but most importantly I could not let myself down. I looked at my friend, who posed just to the left of me, for reassurance and she gave me such a genuine smile. I could see it in her eyes that she believed in me. I looked at my surrounding and thought “This is what I’ve been working towards. This is where I want to be.” All the negative thoughts that previously invaded my mind faded. My breathing began to even out as the lights dim signaling that the song would start any

Suddenly My mom started to finally understand how nervous I was about this it was like a light bulb was on top of her head and it had just turned on. Then she explained how it won’t be as scary because I would be practicing everything with my dance teacher Mrs.Dawnell. Also, she told me that I would get to practice with my friends, But she also told me that we would have to practice doing our interviews. I was even more scared of that even though it was just going to be practice. I can’t even imagine what i’m going to feel when i’m in interviews with the judges.

It was a hazy morning, It was the opening day of rifle season. We had just sat down and we were getting all settled in, We were hunting on state land just outside of Tawas Mi. We had been hunting for about 3 Hrs and we were getting hungry so we decided to head to town and stop at a restaurant and pick up some cheeseburgers for us to eat for lunch.

No sooner than we came back with the drinks than one guy who I found was named Dan pulled out a baggie and rolled a couple of big joints. Those were passed around and it seemed like Jazz always had one in her hand as the guys kept passing them to her.

The show was starting in just a few hours and everyone was rushing around making sure nothing would go wrong. The dancers putting on the last of their makeup going through their check-list. “Pointe shoes hair sprayed? Check. Hair hair sprayed? Check. False eyelashes? Not check!". I found myself wandering away from the others to a place where I can get just a minute alone. A minute alone to collect my thoughts before heading into the chaos. My dance was relatively soon so I decided to head back to get ready early. Standing backstage will most likely be the most nerve-racking experience ever. My white dress sparkled due to diamonds sewed onto the bodice. A crown placed in front of my bun made me feel complete. "Listen, you have to seize the moment and stay in it. Use that adrenaline and make this the best you have ever dance. But most importantly, have fun while you are out there. I'm proud of you". With Olivia's words, I get a sense of courage flow me. "Don't worry," I tell her, "I'm not going to throw away my shot". She smiles at me encouragingly. The audience claps and the music ends. Oh dear god it's my turn next. My body goes on autopilot as the music starts. Grand Jeté after Grand Jeté I leap, twirl, and pose my way off the stage; a smile not leaving my face the whole

I took several beginning classes. I took classes with seven and eight-year-olds. For months, I dedicated hours of my day to dance. I’d dance from three to eight and on some occasion six to eight. Day and night I took classes and kept improving. My teacher Ms. Kim noticed and pulled me aside one day, “I don’t think you should be in this class anymore,” she said. “You need to be in a higher level class. Something more challenging.” I was in complete shock. I knew I was getting better; however, I never thought I’d progress that fast. I left dancing with the little kids and started taking classes with people my age and older. People who have been dancing since they were

It was a bright and early morning on a Friday, and I was doing my ordinary thing. Like brushing my teeth, getting my school supplies ready, and etc I then walked to the bus stop and waited, and waited, until the bus finally arrived. I got on the bus, sat down and listen to my music. I always listen to hard core Hip-hop/Rap. We all had finally arrived to school waiting for the teacher to call the kids to get off the bus and go inside. A few minutes later the teacher said to let the kids off the bus and I headed into the school.

Crash! Blake threw his scooter to the ground in frustration. The sun beat down on me and Blake as we sat on the gravel sidewalk thinking of what we could do. The roads had just been redone here at the apartment complex, and it was perfect to ride anything with wheels on. Our scooters were worn out from being used so much. The smell of the roads after rain smelled like rotten eggs, but it was a good day to go outside.

In Geoffrey Bennett’s essay titled, “Hip-Hop: A Roadblock or Pathway to Black Empowerment,” he speaks about the positive and negative effects that hip-hop has on the Black Community. Bennett goes all the way to the beginning of hip-hop, which he says took place in the early 1980s with rappers such as Run DMC, Public Enemy, Sugar Hill Gang and many others. The author then speaks about how hip-hop grew not only in the young black African American culture but also in the white youth culture as well. Finally, Bennett states that hip-hop has the power to influence positive and negative effects on African Americans

“Oww,” I winced as my knee buckled for about the millionth time that day as I tried to practice my pirouettes for the dance audition starting in a couple of minutes. “Come on” I thought to myself wondering why my knee chose this exact time, this was important, I needed to nail this audition so that I could earn myself a spot in Company 2 this year. It was heart wrenching to think that I could be in Company 1 in 7th grade! “Get in order according to your number,” the dance teacher noted and I did as fast as I could,everyone knew that auditions were a non nonsense matter.Finally, the audition started, the Dance Instructor lead the stretching routine and then told us to go across the floor, he taught us what we needed to show and turned on the music. I thought to myself ,”run, run arms rounded in first when you run; a brush

the people sitting in all these chairs I was nervous and did not want to go on stage but people were telling me to come on your wasting there time and also they said it was my turn so I got on stage nervously and thought that they would laugh at me when I started dancing. Then they turned on the music and I stood there not doing anything but then I saw my dad smiling at me with his thumbs up and I started dancing and sing and people were cheering me one hey this is not so bad as I thought I faced my fears And I was proud.

It was around 10:30 am when they started to announce the winners in each of the age group. I was in the 18-22 year old catagory. I was feeling anxious but at the same time

After I walked away and stood next to my friends, I started to have fun. We started learning our routines and doing a bunch of exercises. After a while, my teacher gave us assigned spots to stand in, I stood right across from Kourtney. We practiced our routine again, then we had a water break. I skipped across the room to grab my bag. I was so happy that I learned the routine! I had a big grin smeared on my face.

The rehearsals were great, I felt more present and did a lot of contributions. There were a lot of ideas that I proposed to my band, and most of them worked well with the song. Everyone was happy about it and this made me feel so too.