First Company Audition!!!

   Yesterday I had my very first company audition in my life.
     I was completely undecided on whether to go or not as I am planning to do another year of training. I was sure I wouldn't make the cut and didn't want to embarrass myself/ my school and I was so nervous.
     Fortunately a lot of the girls from my school were going so I tagged along, dreading every moment of the upcoming audition.
    The audition was for a smallish touring company and we weren't expected more than 20 people to be there, everyone expected it to be a fairly intimate audition. However when we got to the audition site there were about 50 people warming up. There were girls and guys from all over the country who had travelled from as far as Alberta to get here. There were so many nationalities present, Brazilians, Russians, Japanese, Americans. I was really surprised!
   Seen as it was such a big audition the artistic director said that they would be making cuts fairly quickly and he apologized to anyone who had travelled from afar in advance.
    I was almost relieved at the thought that I would be cut after plies because my turnout isn't the best and neither is my weight at the moment (but I am seeing progress in that area). Barre was quite long tedious, I was so nervous that my face went really red and I could feel the tension in my neck and arms. We were so packed on the barres that it was almost impossible to move let alone dance! After barre they decided to make a cut and about 15 people were cut. They called out the numbers of the people they asked to leave and I was worried because they didn't call my number. I was thinking," they asked me to stay? something must be wrong!". I decided that the reason was probably because they couldn't see my number properly as it wasn't pinned to my leotard very well and was a bit floppy. I couldn't decide on whether or not I should put another safety pin in to prop the number up better. If I did the chances were that I would get cut quicker making the process last less time.
   Centre started before I could stick another pin in. I really enjoyed the exercises, even though I messed up quite a bit... Everyone seemed to, we were all so nervous that no one was really concentrating on the combinations very well. We did adage. During adage I was thinking, "O.k. I'm going to be cut after this, it will be over soon, thank goodness.". They made a cut after adage and they still didn't call my number..."Oh my god, they still haven't cut me, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?". I was frantically trying to prop up my number so that they could see it better. 28, 28, 28.
  After I had managed to get through adage I relaxed a little bit. "Turns and jumps next, I can manage that". They are my favourite part of class so I started having a bit more fun and my smile started being  less forced. "Just show you enjoy dancing".
    They cut people after turns. I think... not entirely sure because everything just kind of became a blur. They still hadn't called my number. Wow.
    Jumps were not really what I'm used to. I made mistakes because I had never done some of the combinations before. I stopped being nervous about it though. My brain started thinking about the most random things. During petit allegro I realized that I hadn't eaten much before to audition and was feeling kind of weak. Note to self-eat more carbs before the next audition. I didn't expect to do more than tendus so I hadn't thought I would need much energy. Grande Allegro was fun, and then suddenly the class part was over.
  They said that they would ask some people to stay to do pointe work and learn some of the repertoire, that some people would be asked to leave and that some people would not make the cut but would be asked to stay behind for a talk.
    They called out the numbers to leave, they didn't call my number. And then they asked five of us to stay behind while about 8 girls and 3 boys were asked to stay to do pointework.
    I was one of the 5 girls asked to stay for the talk. Quite excitedly, they told us that they were interested in us, but they thought that we would need some more training. They invited us to go to their summer intensive that will be very small only about 10 people are going to be admitted to the program and they would like to stay in contact with us.
    I was ectastic, my first audition went  really well.  The audition that I had been dreading so much, that I didn't even want to go to because I was so afraid of getting cut.
   They were really nice about everything and I feel so much better about myself than I have felt in a long, long time.
   I need to remember that it was a small company that the audition was for, and that big auditions would be very different but still it is a nice feeling to have for the moment. <3