This weekend and next my dance company has been putting on a show at Center Stage Theater, called Configuration.

Center Stage Theater is a small theater with about 120 seats in the Paso Nuevo Mall, right above California Pizza Kitchen. My dance studio’s company, Santa Barbara Dance Arts, has a nonprofit called the Arts Membership Program (AMP) that helps fund company. We put on a show called, Configuration. It’s quite a big event, with 5 shows over two weeks, and almost everyone gets sold out. 

This is my third year in company and at Configuration. Something special about Configuration this year, there are 10 seniors in high school that are graduating, the most there has been in a while. It makes each show more and more emotional as it comes closer to them graduating. It is a really strong group of dancers and we are going to be quite lost without them. Also this year the coronavirus has affected our show and now we have to reduce the amount of people in the audience, so less people can come, to follow the new county’s rule. I’m frustrated that some of my friends won’t be able to see the closing show with all of the seniors leaving but I’m happy that it wasn’t cancelled. 

Configuration is definitely my favorite thing that we do in dance every year. I have so much fun performing and goofing around with my friends backstage. We are located downtown in the mall so I literally get a Pressed Juice every time we have a break. This past weekend was opening weekend and it went pretty smoothly. We had a tech Thursday, Friday, Saturday, along with a dress rehearsal Saturday. That night we had the opening show and Sunday afternoon there was another. It’s so much fun for my friends and family to come see what I have been working on for the past 5 months.

I am excited for this weekend as we have three more shows, Friday and Saturday. I hope that my friends will be able to come and each show will be just as fun and thrilling as they are every year on closing night, even though the coronavirus has limited the audience.