I knew when the final nationals schedule came out that Friday was going to be a long day. Madeline had four large groups (10-19 dancers) and line (20-39 dancers) scheduled, plus the finale that night if any of her dances made it. Going into Friday, we knew that she at least had It’s Happening Again in the finale. And the finale goes until after midnight.
Madeline’s first group dance was scheduled at 7:25 am. Normally call time is two hours before the routine, but when it’s super early, the call time is when the venue opens; in this case, it was 6:30 am. It takes her at least 90 minutes to do her hair and makeup, so that meant she needed to get up at 5:00 am. Which meant I had to get up at 4:45 am. Ugh.
Madeline woke up fairly easily, and I finalized costumes, giving several of them one final steaming using our travel steamer that lives in the Dream Duffel, while she did her hair and makeup. We made it down to the conference center in time for her call time, which was kind of a minor miracle. O Fortuna looked really, really good, as did her other large groups: The Funk Is, Bennie & the Jets, and FUN. O Fortuna received an In10se platinum adjudication and ninth place! The others all scored platinum points but didn’t place. Five large groups go to the finale, but no two large groups can have any overlapping dancers, so it’s usually not the top five that go. So, even though O Fortuna was ninth, it made it into the finale! That was a good way to start the day.
The next group of dances were lines and productions (40 or more dancers). Madeline had to stay at the convention center to prep for IDA’s line dance, Gimme Gimme Disco. At our studio, all of the dancers in the top two levels are cast in the line. This year’s line was a mash-up of ABBA songs (thus the name). It was so much fun to watch from the first time I saw it on Demo Day back in November, and I really thought it had a good chance of making it to the finale. Only the top three lines move on to the finale, so it’s a bit harder, but I still was hopeful.
When the girls performed, the energy level was electric. You could really tell from the audience that they were all having fun! And it was a super clean dance. (A “clean” dance is one where all the movements are precise, and the dancers are doing everything at exactly the same time) The best part, though was when the girls waiting backstage to go on started clapping along to the music to cheer on the dancers on stage. They just really nailed it!
After Gimme Gimme finished, I went out to the hallway to congratulate Madeline, and the girls were really pumped up, but also in tears because it was the last scheduled performance for the seniors. It was super sweet to see them all hugging. Dance really is family.
At awards, a lot of the moms were sitting together, and we were super hopeful that Gimme Gimme would make it to the finale. But we had felt the same way the previous year, and line didn’t even place. They announced a top ten, and when they got to five without calling us, we were nervous. When they got to three, the tension was palpable. But then they announced Gimme Gimme in second place! Every girl in the top two levels at the studio were going to be in the finale!
We had a few hours off, so we went back to the room. Madeline and Andrew napped, and I relaxed. Our instructors communicate with the whole group using the Band app, and I kept checking it to find out when Madeline had to be back down to the convention center. Even though the finale started at 6 pm, they go by age, which meant the mini and petite dancers would start, followed by juniors, then teens, then seniors. Because the schedule wasn’t set until production & line awards were over, the organizers couldn’t send it to the directors in advance. We knew our director would let us know as soon as she knew, but the wait seemed long.
Finally we got the schedule, and Madeline’s call time for It’s Happening Again was at 7 pm, which meant our director estimated it would go on around 9 pm. O Fortuna and Gimme Gimme were even later. Andrew and I walked Madeline down to the convention area at 7 pm, but she forgot her false eyelashes, so we had to go back to the room and get them, then deliver them to her.
We had plenty of time to eat dinner, and we decided we’d go to the steak house in the hotel. We sat in the bar area rather than the actual restaurant, and we had a really good meal. I started with an old fashioned and ordered salmon for my main course. Andrew had steak, and we split some whipped potatoes. For dessert I had a chocolate martini that was really good. We got our bill just as the first half of the show — mini, petite, and juniors — was wrapping up, and we found seats in the audience during the first awards. During a short break after awards we moved to better seats and were in an area with many other IDA families.
All of Madeline’s dances looked great, but then, honestly, all of the dances in the finale looked great. At a lot of competitions I can kind of tell who’s going to win, but there were no clear winners in any of the groups at the finale. Getting to the finale at nationals is quite an accomplishment, and any of the dances could have won on any given night. I will say, though, I thought Gimme Gimme was amazing. The energy was even higher than when they performed earlier in the day. Toward the middle, Madeline, Madi, and Eva (the same dancers as Madeline’s trio) had a feature to S.O.S., and they really nailed it! I was screaming like a crazy woman. Toward the end, most of the IDA moms were standing in their seats dancing along. It was so much fun!
Finally, after midnight, it was time for awards. For most dance competition awards, they bring all of the dancers on stage and announce the different groups with all of them up there, starting at ten or five and working their way to number one. But at nationals, they brought all the dances in each category (for example, premier teen small group, or elite teen large group, etc.) onto stage at the same time, and then played the music from the winning dance. All the others were just considered runners up, but they didn’t announce rankings. As each category’s winner’s music played, the girls would scream and bounce up and down and move to the middle of the stage for a picture while the other groups moved offstage. It’s Happening didn’t win, and O Fortuna didn’t win, so Gimme Gimme was Madeline’s last chance.
They brought the three teen elite lines onstage, and 39 IDA dancers stood there holding hands and hoping. When the music played, it was ABBA! The girls went crazy, the IDA parents went crazy, it was pure joy! I may have cried, I don’t remember.
After awards I found Madeline, and she wanted help packing up the Dream Duffel. I packed it, and then she wanted her socks, which were in the bottom. So I unpacked it, she grabbed her socks, and I repacked it. And then she remembered her phone. I was not so patient unpacking a second time. But her phone wasn’t there, and Madeline said something about having left it in a hallway and asking someone to put it, and her competition jacket, in her Dream Duffel. Clearly that didn’t happen. I sent her out to look for her phone while I packed the Dream Duffel for a third time.
When I emerged from the dressing room Madeline and Andrew had found her jacket, near but not where she left it. But the phone was not with it. Find My indicated that it was nearby, but it’s not very accurate, especially inside a building. We kept playing the tone, and eventually we found it near the backstage area. Whew! Crisis averted.
We finally headed back to the room, well after 1:30 am. By the time we did the bare minimum preparations for bed and turned out the lights, it was 1:59. I think I was asleep by 2:00!