Amalgamation 2019

If you’ve been reading these for a while you might have seen that one of my highlights for 2018 was meeting/hugging/opening for Misty Copeland (and Complexions Contemporary Ballet) in last year’s staging of Amalgamation by Plie for the Arts. 

This year, there were a number of dance celebrities performing, instead of a full company, which made for an interesting and very varied show.  And as part of the Plie Dance Collective (a group of dancers from different dance companies and backgrounds) we performed in the show, opening each night with Virtuosi, as well as reprising last year’s piece Confrontation…both by the amazing Renee I. McDonald.

Dancers like Dusty Button (who I’ve followed for years), Terk Lewis, Autumn Miller, Michael Dameski, Osiel Goueno, Nikisha Fogo (half-Jamaican half-Swedish) and so many others graced the stage along with some local dance companies like NDTC and Movements. In addition to performing, many of the international guest dancers hosted masterclasses giving us a chance to be taught by some of the best in the industry globally.

(L-R) Dusty Button, me and Terk Lewis at their combined masterclass

I haven’t really danced all year, so it was good to get back into classes and rehearsals as we prepped for the show and, of course, the energy of show weekend was absolute bliss. This show kicked off the active dance season for me and between now and December I have two or three more shows to go!

For the first time ever in life I took a day off (from school or work) the day after the show and I’m so glad I did. So often with shows you go so hard until it’s over and then just go straight back to business as usual (which often leads to me getting sick), but this time I’m happy I took the time to rest and recoup before getting back into the thick of things.

Virtuosi by Renee I. McDonald, shot by (IG) @button_built from in the wings backstage

I got to hug Misty Copeland and now my life is complete

As a dancer and a black dancer at that, Misty Copeland is our idol, heroine and flat out #GOALS all wrapped up in one petite frame, so when it was announced that she was coming to Jamaica to perform, the dance community (and even the non-dance community) was thrilled.

Plié for the Arts is a local organisation that has been staging shows and bringing international dancers to Jamaica to perform and host workshops while offering scholarships to Jamaican dancers. When tickets for this show were announced in April both nights sold out almost immediately, however I was excited about the show for other reasons. I’d been selected as one of the 14 dancers who were going to be featured in the Jamaican segment that would open the Gala show on Friday Night before Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Misty Copeland performed.

If you know me well, you know that when it comes to dancing I’ll never be as good as I would like to be, and that becomes an even bigger concern as I get older and my body gets more and more decrepit lol. And then especially after badly spraining my right ankle last year (days before my final ballet exam) and having to recover and build back from that, I didn’t go into the February auditions hoping for much.

Fast forward to August 31, after months of classes, choreography and rehearsals, dancing with some of the best dancers I know, we killed it, leaving everything on the stage. When you come off the stage crying, you’ve either just done the best performance of your life, or the worst (I’ve now experienced both in my life) and in this case, we executed Renee McDonald’s choreography flawlessly. Everything came together, the dancers, the dance, the music, the lighting, for a magical moment.

The Plié Dance Collective, Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Misty Copeland