Pointe

Usher's Concert, Sydney, Australia

All ten dancers in the older dance crew plus the four of us younglings are currently leaving the bus to go into the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia where we will be performing for the one and only Usher. We were excited, to say the least. The older crew was calmly making their way into the building throught the backdoor while Peyton, Ivy, Maddie and I were bouncing around everywhere. We spent all night in the bus and our muscles were a little cramped but we're too hyper to really care. We go backstage and the four of us get our own dressing room. We are wearing our tracksuits, carrying our three costumes over our shoulders and dragging suitcases behind us like the amazing multi-taskers that we are.

In the dressing rooms, we all change into our black exercise short shorts, a black t-shirts and zip up our light blue sweaters on top. We put on our tan foot undies and step out in the hallway and follow the signs that leage to the stage. When we step out, our breath catches in our throats as we stare out at the thousands of seats that will be filled tonight.

"It's quite something, isn't it?" Ushers himself asks and we all jump, turning to look at him wide-eyed.

"Yeah. I'm already nervous and the concert isn't even until tonight." I tell him since I'm the first one out of the four of us to recover from our starstruck moment.

"Don't be. If you're 14 and already able to book events like this and be on an international dance team then you know that you're good. You guys are the youngest people I have ever had dance for me." He comes closer to us and I look away, thanking him. "So what songs are you guys doing?" 

"His Mistake, OMG, Scream and Yeah!" Ivy tells him and he nods.

"Cool. Those are some of my favorites." He says while another man comes up to us.

"Hello, girls. I see you have already met Usher. We are just about to start rehersal so if you could please just go back offstage and once we let the fans in, we will start." He walks away and we freeze. Let the fans in?

"Don't worry, there is only like, 20 people watching at dress rehersals." Usher tells us with a wink and walks away. We let out a breath of relief and leave the stage. In about half an hour we are told that we can start. The girls are screamin and I laugh as we step out on stage as a stage-hand directs us to. Portia comes to us as she tells us that Usher learnt parts of our dance in all songs other than His Mistakes so that when he comes to dance with us to let him. Our formation was made to already have room for him but we need to keep an even bigger distance in between each other.

"Alright, Vienna you are center right, Ivy you are center left, Maddie you are side left and Peyton you are side right. Go position yourselves. We are starting off with Scream then we are going to switch with the older group." Portia runs offstage and Usher stops talking with the crowd to come position himself with us. The music starts and we run over the dance. They stop us every once in a while to correct us and we do it one more time all together with the new corrections. The older group comes up and does a dance, then it's us again. We do OMG and we have a break while they other group dances again, then we do 'Yeah!', the best one. That is a fun dance, very upbeat and we get to have our bodies painted with glow in the dark paint. I've never done that before so I can't wait! After another performance from the older team, he finish with His Mistakes and that is the one that takes the longest to perfect since we do so many tricks and stunts. Every one seems to be impressed by our performance, which boosts our confidence a little bit.

***

We are done! The concert went amazing and we got a picture with Usher to put up on the wall in our trophee room back at the studio. Now, we are back in the bus and headed back to Melbourne where we are dropping off the older dancers then we make the one day and thirteen hour long trip to Perth.

At least we have a TV and a lot of eletronics.....