[story] the rooftop dancer-part 1; crossroad

unforgettable moments with my student. never my “little” students were so excited.

This dream started when I got a chance to have cultural internship in Omsk, Russia. I went there alone to taste amazing adventure on my very first winter, imagine my excitement back then. Not all people was given a chance to teach English for Elementary, Junior and Senior high school students as well as became an youth ambassador and  guest speaker at Russian television, twice. Huge opportunity to do cultural awareness campaign and introduce Indonesian culture throughout Russia. Too bad I didn’t have chance to visit Indonesian embassy that time.

filming process for youth TV program

After weeks, I realized that the more I was trying to know about Indonesian culture, I was falling in love with Indonesia even more. Especially when I was alone and away from home, those longing felt even more meaningful. Even to teach simple English, invited new games,  helped teacher taught English effectively, taught them Indonesian traditional music, songs, games, Indonesian traditional ceremony, even Indonesian language and traditional cloth, and so on. The only thing missing was the dancing. In some moments when I shared about Indonesian traditional dancing, I could see how much my students amazed by saman dance from Aceh, plate dance from minang, and jaipong from west jawa. “I wish I could teach them one of those dancing”. I whispered. I never thought that dancing skill can be really meaningful someday.

highest landmark in Taiwan. Taipei 101

Days passed like blink of eyes. After 6 weeks,  I need to go back to Taipei, Taiwan. The moment I left, there was a big crush in my heart that I wanna master some Indonesian traditional dance, so I can teach it once I got a chance to study abroad or get voluntary service again. Not long after my arrival, I heard that a club in my former university opened positions as a dancer for cultural event held in Taiwan. I was so excited and pretty sure it was my calling. So I applied with some other friends. Next few days, they all got the call but me. The club didn’t confirmed or gave me any further information so I guess I was ‘failed’.  All I knew that they didn’t need another dancer.

To be honest, my heart started questioning ” isn’t this dance requires a lot of dancer to make it more lively, the more the merrier. So, why they reject one?”. But, it might be just “they didn’t need one”. I wondered what’s goin on. There’s a lot of thought in my mind though. I was pretty aware with difficult situations I had that time, hardly get along with situation. In short I could say that I got some trouble because of really bad misunderstanding back then. I thought it’s just common case. “Life won’t always be easy, there’s always a cost for your dream“ I whispered.  But this time, it’s way far from what I expected.  Who knew the day of announcement turned to be one of “hard” days I must overcome later on. Above all It was just a beginning.

Still in the same day, both of my good friends who got accepted for training texted me by night. They asked whether I could join with the team or not, seems they need other dancers somehow. Though I felt a bit reluctant, I decided to go there. “As long as we see a chance, why are we not running straight there?” I thought. After all, It was still my dream. So I pulled myself all together and walked to the hall. Right at the moment I arrived, I felt such uncomfortable environment pushing me away in silence. Though I knew some of them for quite a while, but this time no one talk, some stared, some pretended not to see, one stared to me from head to toe; cold and cynical, and some just got confuse what to do, they did nothing but remained in silence. Me too, stood in silence. Faced all of them. Awkward. Like I was the only one who wasn’t belong there.

Finally, one of them asked with slight stroke of smile. ‘’do you really wanna join?”. I still stood there in silent. Well, “is this some short of “public interview”??” , had no idea.  I guess she also didn’t really know what to do but just went along with situation.  “but you need to commit if you want to, could you do that?” she continued asking me in front of every body while seeing me confused in such situation.

For me it sound like a crossroad judgement between a doubt and persistent.  “so…. what say you?”….

To be continued….