A Jolly Twist of Fate
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TAYLOR GORDON |
(photo by Julia Shapovalova)
(I seem to always start my posts with “Sorry for not posting for so long…” but when you read this, you’ll understand! This is a super long post, but the best part is at the end, so I hope you make it through ☺ I made the important parts in bold for your reading convenience…)
Over the past few months, I had two lifelong dreams come true, and then had them snatched away before my eyes. And then, this week, I got more than I could have ever asked for.
Let’s start from the beginning. Since I graduated from college months ago, at the end of the school year I had to move out of my dorm and find some other place to live in the crazy NYC real estate market. That was a project enough, but I finally found a small, affordable place and had my whole family come down from Boston to help me move. I had to buy furniture and the works, but I was so excited because now I had my own real life New York City apartment. Life long dream number 1, check!
(Me in the new apartment right after moving in)
About the same week I signed my year-long lease I was taking class and the director of Minnesota Dance Theatre in Minneapolis came and watched. After class, we spoke and she basically offered me a job in the company on the spot. After much discussion, two weeks later, on my 20th birthday, to be exact (seriously!) I received a contract to dance in a professional ballet company. Not an apprenticeship, an actual position. Happy Birthday, haha! I was SO thrilled. Life long dream number 2, check!
Well, I received the contract on July 31. Rehearsals were supposed to start August 4. There was so much to take care of…dropping out of my last semester of grad school, working out the logistic kinks of moving across the country on short notice and, more importantly, finding a place to live.
(with friends on my birthday)
Here’s the part where things get rough.
Everything seemed to be okay. I made the decision that this was what I wanted to do, even though it meant giving up New York and postponing my masters degree (does a 20 year old really need a masters??). BUT the problem: the apartment. I moved in one week before receiving the contract, literally getting the email about wanting to hire me as I hung up the last picture frame in decorating the place. No matter - I could just put everything in storage.
Or not. The issue was with my lease. I signed it for a full year, and it was illegal to sublet under it. We battled with the landlord every which way to try to get out of it so that I could go dance. After much drama, I was forced to give up the contract and stay in New York, where, at that point, I had no plan set for anywhere to dance/perform in the fall. Life long dream number 1 dead, check!
Recovering from that, I spent much of August catching up on some writing, taking class a lot, and spending some much needed resting time in my new apartment.
Until the day I came home from grabbing my morning Starbucks and found huge rats scurrying around my couch!!! Eek! Yes, rats in my room after living there 2 weeks. The next day, a giant cockroach the size of my hand (no exaggeration) crept across my floor as I walked in. Eew! Apparently, the building was infested because the place next door had been knocked down a few months ago. They knew this before they rented me the apartment but failed to inform me I’d be welcoming new rodent roommates into my life. Eew!
It was SO bad. So gross. I did everything in my power to not be at home during the week I discovered my new wildlife friends while, we thought, the building tried to get things under control. In the end, they did nothing and finally allowed me to break my lease and move out with 5 days notice if I didn’t want to live with the possibility of rats. Life long dream number 2 dead, check!
So now, I had no place to live, AND the thing that kept me from my job dancing with a company full time was gone. Oh timing is everything! If only the mice had come 2 weeks sooner and they had let me out of my lease in time to go to Minneapolis!
Suck it up and move on. I had no time to be upset because I had to find someplace else to live, haha. I was VERY LUCKY to have an incredible support system of family and friends who helped me out, and I stayed with the most generous of them all, my ballet teacher, haha.
(a student showcase I was in the week all this happened, haha. i’m in the front there)
Making a long story shorter, I found a new apartment, went through the hassles of moving (to storage first, then again to new apartment), and finally got settled. I started my last semester of grad school, and even got a paid internship at a major book publisher. And I was asked to return to the company I did Nutcracker with last year for another Christmas season.
Then, this week, my life flipped upside down yet again, but for the better. The best, actually.
I’m sitting at my desk at a pretty slow day at my new internship. It’s about 11am and I glance at my cell phone to see I have a new voicemail. I go to the kitchen in our office and listen.
“Hi Taylor. This is Radio City Musical Hall calling. Please give me a call back as soon as humanly possible! It’s about the show.”
My heart FLIPS. I auditioned for the dancing roles (not to be a Rockette) in the Radio City Christmas Show back in May and surprisingly made it through all of the cuts and callbacks. I went on a whim but was thrilled just to make it as far as I did, because most others were a lot older and more theatrically experienced. When I called after a few weeks to get the results of the audition, they politely informed me that they didn’t have a place for me. Ah well, another rejection.
As you can imagine, I was even MORE surprised to get a call from them months later. Stealing a few minutes from my work day, I called the happy voice that left the message back.
“Taylor, we’d like to offer you a role as a dancer in the New York show of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular!!!”
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently someone dropped out and they needed a replacement, and for whatever lucky reason I happened to be the next in line. Of course I accepted on the spot, gripping myself to the chair so as not to jump in excitement in the middle of the publisher’s office where I was supposed to be working!
After about an hour I still literally COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. I honestly and truly had to keep looking at my cell phone call history and re-listen to her voicemail to confirm that it did indeed happen and I wasn’t just daydreaming the whole thing. Seriously. It didn’t fully click in until later that night when I got an email asking for my pointe shoe order info.
Since then, I’ve filled out paperwork and gone for shoe fittings and everything. Rehearsals begin in a week, and shows start November 7. I sign the union contract on Monday!
I am SO happy and excited about this. All the performances…all the dancing…and all in New York! What a round about path it took for me to get here, but it was all worth it!
I’ll do my best to post about the exciting process as it happens…more about what’s been going on here.
