Welcome to New York

Edder Martinez, Staff Reporter

The Thanksgiving Macy’s parade has become a staple of the holiday season. On Tuesday, Nov 24th If you paid attention you may have seen Royal Rubie Audrey Cox (11) performing live all the way from New york. An amazing feat, but this opportunity came with several challenges and difficulties.

Showmakers of America ran a camp where dancers got to learn and practice routines for the upcoming season,  “The last day we all competed, and they picked a few girls to have the opportunity to go but the choice was still yours to make, and I was the only girl the picked to go to the parade”, said Audrey Cox.

Once in New York the coordination of the event was plagued with issues, the routine was changed last minute, and the weather also would cause problems for the dancers, the schedule was strict and hours were long, “ we had to wake up at 3:30 after a very late night out for rehearsals. We had rehearsals till 11 and then we had to eat dinner still and go to bed so it was so early when we woke up and my roommates didn’t even talk to each other.” said Audrey.

The day of the event was not much better. Issues with the speakers and complaints of weather were commonplace, Audrey commented, “for the dance they screwed us over a bit, and they started the music wrong… right as we start to catch up the song skips”, the Dancers were emotional from the unfortunate series of event, “Of course we’re all super tired, cold, and emotional because we’re all also just teenagers so we all started crying like we put in so much work we put in over 40 hours”, said Audrey.

Dancers who participated last year reportedly did not experience the same levels of stress as those who participated in the parade last year, “I wouldn’t do it again but I think it was still a fun opportunity. They said nothing like this had happened last year, and I met a girl whose fourth year and she said nothing like this had happened”, commented Audrey on if she would ever go again.