Dancing at the Palace…

So, yall know Justin Bieber’s music video for ‘Sorry‘ right? With those amazing dancers?

I watched it while I was in Antigua about 3 years ago and absolutely loved it. See me stumbling around in my mother’s room attempting to learn the dance for ma self from Youtube.

After I saw the video though, it prompted me to look up the dancers and what they were all about. They had fantastic choreography and energy and their style was just so on point.

After doing some googling I discovered the person who choreographed that video and many others was a woman by the name of Paris Goebel. At the age of about 26 (at the time) she was blazing a huge trail in the dance world. What was even more interesting was that she was from NEW ZEALAND. And her entire dance crew (that was in the Justin Bieber video and many others that I proceeded to stalk online via their hip hop dance performances) were based in NEW ZEALAND. And guess what, she had a dance studio IN NEW ZEALAND.

At this point, it was like the stars were aligning. I immediately made up my mind that one of my goals when I got to new Zealand was to take a class/enroll at Paris Goebel’s The Palace Dance Studio. (So much so that it was actually a reason why I settled on Auckland city to live. Cause that’s where the dance studio is).

I’m happy to say that in the second week of July, it happened!! I took a class at THE PALACE DANCE STUDIO.

Now, granted I did take my fastness and enroll in the ‘advanced class’. Who tell me to do dat? Surprisingly I could catch the moves (for the most part) but it definitely taught me there’s so much more to just ‘learning’ the dance moves – ya gotta dance and add your own ‘Flava’! (Something my dance teachers have BEEN preaching to me – but of course I never listened).

EVERYBODY in the class was on another level!! From young to old (there was a girl in there, I swear she was about 6 but she was holding her own and doing her thing), each person brought their own flare to these saucy and elaborate dance moves.

I felt like I was IN one of the many dance videos I’d seen on Facebook & YouTube. It was so surreal!

My co-worker and I (we both had this dream to go to classes there and so we partnered up and went) were definitely in a ‘different category’ but, we persisted. We also found out that many people in the class were actually in the many dance crews they have – the ones that compete internationally. Aka they dance professionally or very close to it!

It made me feel a little better about my ‘performance’.

The fact of the matter was though, that I, Alyssa Derrick, took a class at The Palace dance studio, was taught by someone from the Royal Family (their main official dance crew), and danced with people from the crews!! AHHHHHH!

Further to this and a month or two later, I enrolled in another class – the ‘open’ class (aka the class for people who wished they looked like the dance crews in the videos, but unfortunately don’t) which turned out to be MUCH more my speed and enjoyable. They still had 10 year olds dancing better than me but, I was content with just being there.

Needless to say I was thoroughly excited and elated that I completed another goal I set out  to accomplish while in NZ.

Moral of the story: Say it, believe it, put plans in motion, and it’ll happen.

Yours Truly,

Global Gyal