Fabulous Two Years

This past week the BYU Ballroom Dance Company (BDC) held a special reunion gala to celebrate the BDC being in existence for fifty years. I was on the planning committee, and while that was a lot of work, every moment was worth it. For some people, they love their high school reunions, and can't wait to get together every five years or so to see their former classmates again. There were certainly people that I still cherish from high school, but this group of people from my college days are the ones I really feel connected to. I danced for two years on the tour team and traveled to Europe and Asia with these people. We had a blast reminding each other of pranks and crazy things and small details. And throughout rehearsals for the alumni dance number for concert and then the actual reunion itself, it seemed like we just couldn't get enough of being together. There was dinner at the Brick Oven, where we just kept cramming chairs around small two- and four-person tables in a narrow hall where we were seated; there were reunion-organized post-rehearsal and post-performance parties; I heard about other people planning to get together after the organized events had concluded following the final concert performance on Saturday night. And I invited over two families to our home on Sunday for lunch. We ended up visiting all afternoon. I don't know when our Idaho group actually made it home last night because they didn't leave our home until about 4:30 or 5 p.m.

These are just a few of the people who were on the tour team during the 1990's. Some people still look (and act) the same! I wasn't on tour team with all of them, but I know them all. Being on tour means being part of a fellowship, no matter what years you were actually on.

Tour memories:
Blackpool Tour: Linda doing our hair and spray-painting our hair matching black; slathering on layer after layer of tanning creams; trying to put on false lower eye lashes (UGH!); the ceiling caving in during a rain storm in the hotel room I shared with two other girls in London; seeing my first bidet in Holland (or was it Belgium?); dancing in the Grande Place in Brussels; dancing in a challenge match against a Dutch dance team in their studio; dancing on a tiny dance floor in a pub in England.

Southeast Asia: wearing acetate and nylon in the most humid climates; trying to deal with toilets one must squat over rather than sit on (the girls learned to wait for the "sitties" and avoid the "squatties"); experiencing my first cochroaches as they tumbled out of a curtain by my train seat; getting tripped up and sitting down on Chris Williams' head during a show in Shanghai (SORRY!!); relaxing on a beach in Pattaya; seeing elephants walk across a balance beam; seeing a severely crippled woman begging in the streets of Bangkok; walking across the Great Wall; standing in Tiananmen Square, marveling at its vastness and thinking about the 1989 student demonstrations that I didn't dare ask any questions about; hotel staff getting upset over make-up on a hotel wash cloth (what are they for, anyway?!).

Being on tour team changed me in so many ways for the better. I loved it. I'd go back and do it again in a heartbeat. I still have dreams (nightmares?) about being back on team and frantically trying to get ready for a show, but as me right now, a mom with kids. And being with long-time friends again over the past week brought back all of the good memories, and even the painful ones. The painful ones, however, have been tempered by time and experience, and they are not painful any more. I did learn from them, though.