and then...

Recently I've been faced with making a difficult decision regarding my career. Do I trade myself for financial security or do I follow my heart and feed my soul? I've chosen the latter. I have danced for 36 years of my life so dance defines who I am. I've never had a "normal" job unless you count the 13 days I spent pushing french fries across the counter at McDonald's right out of high school, and then there was the month I worked concessions at the movie theatre at the Beverly Center in L.A. during the first few months of living there. Other than that I've made my living dancing. What a blessing. Many of those years I took for granted because my career came fairly easy to me. I moved to L.A. in 1984 when music video's were huge and all the awards shows were using dancers. I would go to an audition, dance my heart out, book the gig, then move on to the next one. During my career I've had some amazing experiences without even realizing that they were that at the time. Touring with MGM star Mitzi Gaynor was the first gig I got. I grew up watching Mitzi and loving her in movies and there I was touring the US and Canada dancing with her on stage. I was barely out of Alabama. Wow! When I moved to L.A. I wanted to achieve two things...to dance on Solid Gold which did not happen and dance on FAME which did. After three days of 8 hour auditions I was chosen out of 3000 dancers from around the country to be one of 8 core dancers on the show. What? Me, Bubba from Alabama? After that because of a scheduling conflict in jobs I was asked to dance for Jackie Slieght on Starsearch and went on to win 7 shows including the $100,000 Grand Prize as part of Boys Club. Then came the touchstone of my career, the legendary icon Cher. I got invited to an audition by Doriana Sanchez for a video that was being choreographed by Kenny Ortega who Dori was assisting at the time. Got there dressed appropriately in black jeans, black sleeveless shirt and black motorcycle boots. I danced my ass off of course cause Cher was sitting right in front of me and that night after the audition I received a call from Kenny's assistant saying that Cher wanted me to come out to her house in Bel Air to rehearse. What? I mean I grew up watching Sonny and Cher on TV. I arrived at her house the next day and there I was dirty dancing with her in her kitchen. Talk about surreal. That lead to 18 years of dirty dancing with the diva and some of my most fond memories. Just these four jobs were enough to fulfill my wildest dreams when I was in Alabama, considering that I really only realized I wanted to be a professional dancer when I saw Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video and noticed one of the dancers mess up and thought "If I got to dance with Michael Jackson I would never mess up." I never got to dance with MJ but later became friends with that very dancer who messed up Mr. Tony Fields, God rest his soul, he was an amazing dancer and super sweet person. I guess I'm writing all this because at this point in my life when I think back on the work that I've done, the people I've worked with, all the amazing dancers I've danced beside and have seen my choreography on, I do my history a disservice by taking the easy road. I need to use my experience to inspire young dancers to follow their dreams, I need to share my joy of dance with more mature dancers who want to dance just for the love of it, I need to honor my career by continuing to explore myself as an artist, I need to expand my periphery to see myself fully realized in many area's of my existence. I think I thought this was the end but now can see I have many more beginnings before the end. I am grateful for the opportunity that has been given me since I've moved to the A and will carry that experience forward to use in my next days. Life is interesting and then...