A little over a week ago I got to perform with my dance studio in their hip-hop production of Alice in Wonderland. I was a crazy guest for the tea party.
We’ve been preparing for this for months and I basically had the attitude that if the baby cooperated I would do it. I wasn’t sure how realistic that plan was though since it was scheduled for almost exactly a month before my due date. How many people do you know who perform in a hip hop production at 9 months pregnant?
Yeah me neither.
But dance is my exercise as well as my passion so I learned the dances and just kept an open mind about things. I finally got brave enough to ask my doctor when I should plan to stop dancing (I say brave because I honestly didn’t want to be told I had to stop. Ever.) and got the amazingly hilarious, “when you’re crowning.” response so I fully committed to doing this performance.
I had so much fun.
Photo credit DLD Dance Center
I also clearly need to work on being more expressive.
Joel put together a little series of clips of my parts in the show.
I wish I could show you the whole thing in it’s entirety but it’s not my choreography or my music. The songs we danced to were Tea Party by Kerli and Outta Your Mind by Lil Jon feat LMFAO if you want to use your imagination.
Dancing at nine months pregnant is not something I recommend for the faint of heart. After dress rehearsal the day before and then the performance I was in a lot of pain for few days. Like, walking like a 90 year old woman, pain. I also felt completely ridiculous with my giant belly. Luckily as part of the crazy tea party I was supposed to look ridiculous so that worked out.
Funny side story. Backstage was nothing but concrete floors and metal chairs and I knew my back couldn’t stand hours of that on top of the dancing so I brought my own comfy lawn chair. I was supervising some of the kids back stage and of course they gave me a bit of a funny look when I pulled my own chair out so I said something along the lines of, “growing a human is hard.” Later I grunted or something while standing up and one of the little girls said, “Was that because you’re growing a human?” with a look of concern. I about died laughing. Kids are the cutest.
Anyway, I only had one person tell me that they were worried my water was going to break while they watched me perform so I guess, win? I hope I inspired someone or at least made them smile with my ridiculousness. If nothing else I had a blast and did not give birth on stage. That is a definite win.