Me : But I’ve worked really hard.
Him: No one cares. Now, let’s sit in the sun and bitch about absolutely everyone.
Dancing was the first place, outside my family, where I felt safe being loud, ambitious and different.
Miss Colleen died in 2018 at the age of 77, and I will always be grateful to her for teaching me how to count to eight, and for playing show tunes so loud that I think it has caused me permanent damage.
Seven-year-old Celeste with 84-year-old sister, Olivia. Liv and I didn’t love ballet. We were more hip hop girls. Obviously.
Still not asking for it.
@leamichele
I’M A BIG SUPPORTER of the #metoo and #timesup movements. I’m pretty vocal about standing up for women’s equality, and that crazy idea that women shouldn’t feel as though we need to be subjected to sexist bullshit just because we’re women.
I have a story – two, in fact – and I’m going to share them in this book because I want to. I’m not going to name people, because I don’t want to. These are my stories about my experiences, and even though they have in no way shaped who I am as a person they are still my stories.
I’ve noticed that when people are named then they become the focus. Taking them down becomes the main objective, and the person who has told her story becomes just another victim and just another woman with a grudge. The perpetrator becomes the focus and is treated as a one-off event, whereas it’s a whole culture that needs to change.
I’m putting these stories in black and white in my book because I want other women and girls to start doing or not doing things because they do or don’t want to – not because they feel that they should, or that it’s their responsibility. The only people in these horrible situations who have any responsibility are the men. A responsibility not to sexually harass, assault, bully or intimidate women at any point, in any field, for the rest of time. In the name of the father, son and the holy goat, amen.
In 1996, my 14th year dancing and fourth at the Johnny Young Talent School, I was given a solo in the end-of-year concert. I was the only Senior and only one in the Show Group – the fancy dance group – who hadn’t been given a solo before, but this year was my year. You better believe it. I’d pinned that curly headpiece into my head year after year, but this year was different; I didn’t even cry when it drew blood. I was ready – I was fucking born ready for this solo, dammit!
Miss Colleen would put together a medley of different musicals each year. And by ‘put together a medley’, I mean she would pick her favourite songs from her favourite musicals, cram in some tried-and-tested choreo from previous concerts, and not give two shits about the narrative or how she was butchering classics. AND WE LOVED IT!
Only the Show Group was invited to take part in this section of the concert. One year it was a song from Grease. Julie, the pretty blonde girl, played Sandy; Remi – the only straight guy, whose mum and dad redefined the term ‘stage parents’ – played Danny; and I was a fun Pink Lady double up the back, miming the wrong lyrics to songs and trying to make my friend Bianca laugh. Another year saw us do a number from West Side Story. Julie played Maria; Remi was Tony; and I’m pretty sure that was the year I was lucky and talented enough to play a little bit of all the ethnic characters up the back.
Then in 1996, my final year, we did part of the 1969 classic Sweet Charity, and I was cast as – wait for it, you guys – THE LEAD. Yass, queens, I was cast as Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity (hair flick emoji).
One of the exciting things that went with such a prestigious role as being a fancy Show Group dancer and performing in a bastardised medley was the exciting and nearly impossible quick-changes that needed to be performed side stage. They were almost as important as the concert itself. And they involved A LOT of planning and responsibility. The job of organising other people’s props if they were onstage was given to Show Group performers only because they knew the importance of it all. Most people who had solos didn’t have to organise anyone else’s props, because people who had solos in the concert were looked at as heroes, like doctors or Paula Abdul.
Miss Colleen: I need a dancer to run the umbrella from one side of the stage to the other during the final chorus of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Celeste, can you do it?
Me: Oh, I can’t, Miss Colleen I have a quick-change side stage and only just enough time to get back on for …
(Looks around, clears throat and waits for everyone’s attention.)
Me cont’d: MY SOLO!
*echo* solo solo solo.
If you had to do a quick-change side stage, you needed to get your shit together weeks before the concert was even in your visiting aunt’s and uncle’s diaries. You had to assess if the best time to ‘set’ your QCC (quick-change costume – keep up, you guys) was before the concert even started, or if it was better to leave it until you had a break between routines while the three-year-olds were doing their tap number to Swan Lake (my dad’s worst nightmare). Another vital step was to let people know where you were putting your things so no stage mum with an agenda would come along and sabotage your preparation.
My mum had made the costume for my solo this year. It was a simple black leotard that she had got a local swimwear designer to make, but it had a bit of a twist. Mum had designed the costume with a sheer diamond cut-out in the centre of my chest/belly, and she had alternated black and silver sequins around the perimeter of the diamond. For my solo, I would wear this fancy little number, paired with some tan chorus shoes and a red feather boa, naturally.
It was after I’d performed my solo, ‘If They Could See Me Now’ (HELLO! Art imitating life!), that my super-fast, super-important quick-change would take place. Miss Colleen had put the Show Group’s big number, ‘Big Spender’, right after my fancy dance solo, so I had to get moving. I mean, I couldn’t stay on stage for my solo AND a group number, because a 15-year-old performing ‘Big Spender’ alongside other 13- to 17-year-olds in front of dads, uncles and begrudging family friends in THE SAME high-cut costume as for her solo, well, that would be just weird and make everyone uncomfortable.
So, in stepped Kath Barber once again, with her handy sequinning skills. The device normally used for a QCC was a tearaway (a piece of clothing that is held together with a piece of Velcro – think The Chippendales but with more body hair). There was usually a skirt that was added or taken from a costume for a quick-change. Only, you guys, mine wasn’t a tearaway. My mum thought of it all! It was a Lycra skirt that I could just step into during the ever-important and over-emphasised quick-change. The skirt had a tiny slit on the front right side, which she had also sequinned in alternating black and silver, in keeping with the whole theme of the night: my night.
I was SO focused on my solo, and just as focused on the placement of the black Lycra-bedazzled skirt and split-sole jazz shoes I would wear in ‘Big
