We had finally made it. It was the day of the final performance. The hundreds of WeChat messages discussing every last minute, unclear detail, the countless hours spent on garage band editing song after song, the numerous formations I had to create and recreate every time a kid added or dropped or added my class again, and the who knows how many times in rehearsal I spent telling my girls to SMILE, had all led up to just this one day. This was it. And after all the effort the students, the number nine faculty, and us had put in, I expected the day to go nothing short of perfectly. Everyone had done what they were asked to do and then some! But boy was I wrong.
It all started with the safety pins.
The night before, I had planned to go get safety pins for my students’ skirts in the morning because the girls were literally swimming in them since they were so tiny. I thought I knew where to go, but as I was walking there I saw a student and asked them if I was correct. I was disappointed to find out that I in fact was not correct and needed to walk an additional 10 minutes to go get them. Ten minutes of which I did not have. So, I reluctantly went to school instead, out of fear of missing the bus, and I hoped that someone had some safety pins to spare or else my girls would be pantless onstage. Luckily no one had any extra pins! So we ended up calling Karen’s host mom and she pulled through for us just in time.
After that minor issue was solved, we were thrown a major curve ball in that the video backgrounds we had so painstakingly prepared decided not to work! There was no way of knowing this before, so thank goodness for that morning run through. We found out that the computer could only play videos under 100mb and could not play PowerPoints at all. So in an hour we all had to figure out how to get our videos to play in the first place and then play correctly. For Bryant's and my performance, that meant cutting our 7 minute video into 5 different parts and then making sure we could get them onto the flash drive to transfer to the actual computer and then making sure the tech people knew when and where to play each video so that they didn’t loop back to the beginning again every time (especially since our music was attached to these videos). Once all of that was figured out, there was the lighting issue.
After the first run through we recognized immediately that the lighting was not at all what we had asked for, which was fine, but we heard that this could be fixed, so we asked to get some time with the students on stage so that we could at least get a few blackouts. We had many transitions with lots of students moving on the stage and knew it would look especially messy if the lights were on when everyone was throwing themselves around to get to the next spot. So we waited 10 minutes, then 30, then 45, then an hour, then an hour and a half and still only one group had had a turn at testing lighting options. Bryant and I were desperate to make this happen for our group, so we went into the booth ourselves. After another group got a chance, it was finally our turn, and our students were ready to take the stage to practice. But at this point the teachers were now filling the stage to practice something else. When we asked for just 2 more minutes since we had waited so long just to try 4 simple blackouts, we were told that it was no longer about us.
This seemed completely unfair because I had never thought it was about us in the first place. I wanted all this to work out completely for my students' sake because I wanted them to have the best performance they could possibly have and leave the stage thinking, “Wow, that was incredible. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” So to be told that we couldn’t get just 2 minutes on stage after waiting 2 hours for the purpose of making our students feel like superstars was frustrating and a little hurtful.
But nonetheless, we still were able to make it work. Our amazing team stepped in and took on the role of directing the video and lighting people on our requests. I went backstage with my fingers crossed that the video would even play in the first place and that the lights would at least turn on, and as soon as the music started I knew it would be an absolute perfect performance (which it was). Special shoutout and thank you to Evan, Elizabeth, and Yanan for all of your help on that. It truly meant so much.
So after all that trouble, our 7 minute little dance ended being some of the greatest 7 minutes of my life. Standing in the wing watching my girls dance and thinking about how much they had grown from the first day made me so incredibly proud. It was such a special moment knowing that some of these girls had never been on a stage, let alone danced, before, and here they were doing so with such confidence, bravery, and joy. It was something I will never forget.
As for the rest of the show, everything ended up coming together so beautifully. All of our hard work had most definitely paid off, and you could see it in each students' face as they walked out of those stage doors. It made all of the stress and confusion and anxiety and exhaustion of the day and last few weeks completely worth it (at least in that moment haha).
After it all though, as I was saying goodbye to my students for the last time, it didn’t feel real to me. I kept thinking that I’ll just see them again on Monday or in a few days or next week or something. It didn't feel like I’m leaving yet at all. And that’s the worst because I know it’ll all hit me as soon as I’m home. I’m a pretty emotional person and on my list of top 5 biggest fears, goodbyes are number 2. So that says a lot. But for now, it doesn’t feel like a goodbye. I’m terrified to leave my host family because that might be completely different being that I’ll have everything packed and ready to go at that point, but right now, I can’t seem to comprehend that this is the last I’ll ever see my kids again maybe ever. Sounds crazy but I wish it would just hit me now so that I don’t go home wishing I could give a more meaningful goodbye:(
On that note, I’ll end with something that Yanan said to us today that I think that I really needed to hear. She said, “Let the feeling create the event, not the event create the feeling.” Basically a more concrete and understandable way of saying: "live in the moment." This is one of the most important things that my time in Zhuhai has taught me.
It’s funny to me how we live life forward but understand it all backwards. And looking back at my time in Zhuhai, I now better understand how precious each and every moment is.
