Blinding lights, deafening cheers, and butterflies filled my senses. Weeks of practice and preparation all for this one moment. My fellow dancers and I rush to the field as our first song prepares to blare from the stadium speakers. I could feel the fear and anxiety melt from my body as the first beat hits and my body moves accordingly. Never did I think I would be dancing in front of hundreds of people at a football halftime show, but yet, here I am. 

I remember first practicing our songs for the halftime show. My friends and I stumbled around, trying to stay on beat, but also perform each move as best as we could. Almost every day at lunch we would practice our performance, getting better and better with each replay of the songs. By the time the week of the performance had turned the corner, we were all nearly in-synch. Cordelia and Kim, two of the many students in charge of the club, took lead in teaching us the choreographies and formations. They would always be there to praise us and encourage us to keep trying.

 The day of the performance had finally come and everyone had finally gotten comfortable with the choreographies and each other. It was like a tightly-knit family. Everyone looking out for each other and helping each other out. Additionally, there were inside jokes galore. Ah yes, the inside jokes. Something that keeps any group together. Like I said, truly a family.

When asking my club members my assigned questions, I had many answers of variety, but they all seemed to follow a trend. Nobody in the club had expected to be performing for such a large audience, but once they did, they felt great. Every fear and performance anxiety seemed to disappear.

“Well, I thought we were performing for the assembly so hearing ‘halftime’ was a bit of a shock for me. But other than that, after getting comfortable and taking everything in, I felt fine.” said Narciso Carig, backbreaker professional and member of K-Pop club.

“…I never thought I would dance in front of a lot of people because I am a shy person, but this year after performing in front of all these people, I felt fine and I thought I could do it again,” commented Mercedes Saetern, BTS Stan, and member of K-Pop club.

Another thing I noticed was that many of the responders had said that something they did to keep focus was to remember that many of their idols do the exact same thing, and for even larger crowds of people. Members, Eunice Lopez, and Mercedes Saetern, commented on how many artists like BTS perform for 50k people and that seemed to help keep them in focus before their own performance.

Getting to be apart of this community of people really shows how people from all backgrounds can come together to bond and celebrate something they all love. In this case, it was K-Pop, a genre of music that in recent years has been on the rise with bigs artists like BTS, BlackPink, EXO, and many more.