What: My Journey to Become Justin Bieber's Backup Dancer
Where: Capital Hill Arts Workshop, SE Washington DC
Why: Why Not?
In the name of my perpetual life crisis, I decided the next
obvious step after accidentally dying my hair brown, was embarking upon a hip
hop journey. A 'hiphop journey' as I explained to my parents, J and A, is my
latest attempt to be an overnight YouTube sensation. Like most of my life phases, this one stumped
them, only confirming my intuition that being trendy is not genetic.
My hip hop journey truly began in high school, fifteen minutes
into watching the movie Step Up. Inspired by the ripped abdominal muscles of Channing
Tatum, I needed to be on a Step Team. Since hip hop culture was non-existent within
the manicured croquet lawns of my all girls’ boarding school, I convinced the
Dean of Activities to let me audition for the local high school’s Step Team.
Eager to get me off his campus, he agreed to let me try-out. However, the results
were less than favorable, with the rejection email saying something along the
lines of, 'We’re sorry …but even the team manager position is filled"
And with that somewhat foreseen rejection, I assumed the hope of
my hip hop career was reduced to the inverse relationship between glasses of Prosecco
and dance floor intensity. I had all but
forgotten about my unfilled life passion of hip hop dancing until watching an
episode of “Dancing with the Stars.” The next day as I was practicing how I
would dance with Bachelor Chris, my co-worker suggested I take hip hop lessons.
So I took the $150 burning a hole in my pocket and hired myself a coach, Gigi.
On our first day of friendship, Gigi, who moonlights as the host of a lesbian burlesque show (which is a WHOLE other story), asked me my goals for my lessons. I told her I had two goals. First goal: to look cooler online, especially in terms of beefing up my LinkedIn Profile. Second goal: to be back up dancer in Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande’s next music video. I also told Gigi that, worst case scenario, I would settle for winning every initialed dance contest without dislocating either a body part or pants' seam.
Six weeks of lessons later I can officially say, I am 5 million Instagram video page views away from my budding future as JBeib’s back up dancer and much closer to get banned from a U Street nightclub for "incessant dance floor challenging."
My coolness quest continues.
xo
B
No comments