Mom....I know you saw this one!

Click here: Wicked Game - Travis Wall and Amy

I have been watching SYTYCD since the first episode of season 1.  I love this show... I love the dance, I love the music, and choreography.  What is most special is that I often wonder if Mom is watching with me through all these years..... I like to think she is.  I often find myself wanting to look over at her to see how her face and body are reacting to each number... Without fail she could not watch any dance with just her eyes... she watched with her whole body and soul.  I loved that about her.  It made me change the way I watched music and dance forever.

Mom was a dancer, but I knew her best as a choreographer.  I have a special appreciation for that part of her craft as it often goes unheralded or understood.  The dancers make it come alive...the choreographer is held hostage by the dancers... unless she can design, tailor and inspire the dancers to "live, breathe and ultimately create" the dance, it may not work.  I was a student of Mom's for many years.  I danced her choreography to tap, charleston, swing, etc.... growing up.  I loved performing and I still remember many of the routines.  I remember Mom agonizing and staying up late writing moves on reams of paper trying to figure out the right sequencing... playing, stopping, rewinding the music over and over matching steps on paper with the precise point of music.  It was her creative process.  I never really understood it but loved it.  She left a legacy of choreography literally all over the world.  Hundreds of students can say they were taught by Mom and many of my friends still tell me that from Brazil and Indonesia.  They remember those experiences and were glad she was their teacher.  She loved to praise her students.  She had patience and empathy to no end.

Season 2 produced a wonderful dancer named Travis Wall, one of the top dancers who was runner-up that year.  He moved quickly on to be a top choreographer and has since helped with the show for many years.  This particular video was a recent number on Season 10 that was not only choreographed by Travis but he is a dancer in it as well.

It is one of those pieces where time stops, chills come over the body and emotion rises in the chest, at least for me it did.  I love how this art form can make me feel.  I am not sure why dance does this to me, or music, but there is something spiritual about it and it feels familiar to my soul.

I thank God for music and dance... it is part of me and I feel so connected to it.  I owe it all to my Mom.  So, yes, I know she was there watching this with me... and this time, as I turned my head and looked to her face for the reaction........this time she was there...... and I saw the tears running down her face and her hands crossed against her heart silent exclaiming how beautiful it was.

"Thank God for the artist's part" was a line my Dad wrote once in a poem honoring Mom and her contribution to dance.  I honor both her and Travis tonight.

Good lump in the throat experience and was so happy Mom was there.....