• Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. 

Because of my STEP Signature Project, I was given the opportunity to perform as a world-class competitive dancer and athlete. I was contracted with Cap City, an internationally ranked performance ensemble based in Ohio.

• What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project?

Cap City rehearses and competes Friday through Sunday night from October through the end of April, meaning that I live there three days a week. The entirety of the weekend is spent rehearsing, traveling, and competing around the Midwest. For World Championships, members and staff live and work there for 10 straight days. This commitment I had with Cap City taught me a lot about dedication and passion. To do anything at a world-class level requires thousands of hours of hard work and determination, and this season was a culmination of that. Cap City’s director always makes a point to remind us that we are “world-class performers”. He says that everything we do should be world-class; do our laundry world-class, study world-class, make your bed world-class. I can truly say that this mindset has transformed how I live my everyday life and that I strive to do everything world-class. Because of the effort I put into making this season at Cap City as successful as possible, I have learned how satisfying the fruits of my own labor can be.

•  What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2 and how did those affect you? 

As previously stated, Cap City requires me to live and rehearse there around 1400 hours per season. Having performed there for four years now and having competed 12 seasons within the activity itself, I have given a lot of my life to performing. The sheer amount of hours and hard work that it took taught me dedication, but also made me an extreme time manager. Whilst benign in Cap City, I was also enrolled as a full-time college student living on my own for the first time and working three jobs, not including my multiple campus extracurriculars. The majority of performers at Cap City are not in college and just work a part-time job, but those that were my fellow students and I grew incredibly close. We would spend our meal breaks and late nights huddled in a quiet backroom together, all quietly losing our minds at how much we still needed to do. These people are some of the strongest people I know, and no level of exhaustion was keeping them from finishing their degrees. They taught me how important it is to value my own time and goals, and to not let others’ perceptions eclipse my own. 

Throughout the entire ensemble there was always a level of excitement. The extreme passion that my fellow performers and our staff had for this activity and this ensemble continuously inspired me. I think one of the most difficult things about being a young adult is trying to figure out where you belong in the world and what it is that you are passionate about. Going to college and trying to pick a career for the rest of your life requires you to find your own balance of passion and reality. My first ever passion was performing, starting back when I was three years old. I always knew that it was something that I loved but would be unable to continue professionally, but Cap City has given me that chance. Being surrounded by such inspiring people has taught me a lot about what it means to really love what you do, and how important and valuable that can be.

When the World Championships came around, the culmination of all of our hard work, we made a crucial error at prelims. At the end of the show we threw a lot of small props and one of them ended up out of bounds to a place that we could not reach. Typically when this happens, it results in an automatic 10 point deduction and immediate elimination. It was not until about five hours after we performed that we knew that we had not received the deduction, because fortunately for us the judges had not seen the prop be thrown out of bounds. Those five hours made me really consider and value all of my hard work. Cap City consistently makes finals at World Championships, so for us to not even make it past prelims would be a huge disappointment and embarrassment. With this having been a possibility, it really made me reflect on how much I have grown as a performer throughout the season and made me even more grateful when I found out I would have the chance to do it again at semifinals.

• Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? 

One way in which this project has been significant for me is that it has allowed me to network with so many people. Within this activity, jobs are primarily given based on your experience and your connections. Through marching with such a competitive and world-class ensemble, with staff that are household names, I have been able to make these connections. Many members of the staff at Cap City hold world titles, judge internationally, flown around the country to choreograph, and have been interviewed in magazines. Because the staff is so well-known, it will mean more when I can use them as references and also allow them to throw my name out to people hiring. This project also allowed me to build my performance resume. Through now having a highly ranked ensemble associated with my name, I have furthered my prospects of receiving a job.