My Dance Journey

By: Julissa Garcia / Alpha Media Intern

Dance has been my entire life and passion for the past 20 years. My parents put me in dance at 2 years old on Sundays because that is when my cousin would go to dance classes, and I wanted to do everything that she did. After only attending dance on the weekends, I was finally taking dance a couple times of week. I started with ballet and tap classes for several years and eventually added jazz and hip hop classes.

I danced at two dance studios growing up and did many other extracurricular activities, like volleyball, track, pageants, cheerleading, but I never stopped dancing. My favorite part of dance growing up was competing on stage or going out of town for a weekend dance convention, which was 3 days jam packed of taking dance classes from guest choreographers.

I was a 4 year member of the Varsity Panther Paws, which was my high school dance team at Permian. We danced at every Friday pep rally and Friday night game in the iconic Ratliff Stadium. I knew that I wanted to continue dancing after high school, and after attending a Tech Pom clinic, I knew that my dream was to be a member of the 6x national championship Texas Tech Pom Squad and after 4 amazing years I can say that being on this team was a dream come true.

I am so grateful for the artform of dance and all of the opportunities being a dancer has given me. There have been so many dance teachers who have impacted my life and have shaped me to be the person and dancer I am today. Dance will always be my passion and I hope that I can dance for the rest of my future and help the next generation love dance as much as I do.