She's the Reason I'm Here

Everyone in their life has that one person who believed in them when no one else did. That one person who pushed you to your limits and taught you that you can make higher limits once you have reached yours. For me that one person would be my dance teacher at Fairfax High School Academy of the Performing Arts.  Andrea Heingien was her name and she is one of the most influential people in my life, and is the whole reason I am in Chicago right now to be a dancer. Most people know her as Miss H and as a crazy insane dance teacher who yells and is mean. But out of her work and dance world she is just like a teenager like the rest of us.

A Chorus Line
(I'm all the way on the right with the long socks)

Before my audition junior year at the academy I only have done Irish dance previously for nine years. With no Ballet technique or experience at all, I was expecting to be put into the lowest level dance class. I missed the group audition because I was in Dublin Ireland for the Irish Dance World Championships. So I got to have a one on one audition, she knew that I have only done Irish dancing so she told me to mock her as she did bare work for ballet.  She was impressed that I had instant technique and how easily I took to the form, than we moved onto across the floor where we did a series of kicks, jumps, leaps, and turns.  She said she was impressed with how I did considering I have never seen or even done anything she just taught me and I did it correct so she placed me in the highest level class in the academy.

At the beginning of there year was extremely intimidating because I barely knew anything and these kids knew it all and have been doing it for nine years. I was dreading and afraid she would regret putting me into this level. I worked my butt off to impress her every class which didn’t always work, but I wanted to prove myself for being in the class. We did a series of musicals with the musical theater class and we put on a 7 show performance of A Chorus Line where I stared a role as Roy.

My mom and Miss H talked after the shows, where Miss H told my mom that I need to go to college for dance and performance because I belong on stage and she believes in me. That not everyone has that presence on stage, I didn’t believe my mom at all, thinking she just made it up because I’m her son.

It wasn’t until I got solos and a whole number about me in our spring recital I’m Happy Just to Dance with You a Tribute to the Beatles. I was the only boy in the entire academy who had a solo and a number about me out of the 10 boys we had. She told me that if I keep pushing I will be able to make it somewhere someday, just to have confidence in myself because she knows I have very little confidence.

I don’t think I am some fantastic dancer at all, I still consider myself to be at the beginning and have a ton to learn.  She is the one who introduced me to Columbia College Chicago and pushed me to go here. At the end of the year we have the Academy Awards, where we get little look alike men trophy from the academy awards, I received the pushing the limits award, which was cool because only three people from the entire dance department got an award.