Challenge Accepted!. Celeste Barber

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      Six-year-old Celeste Barber. This is still my go to pose when people want to take my photo.

      I grew up near a beach that has bred some of the best professional surfers in the world, but it was lost on me. I didn’t do weekend nippers like everyone else because Saturday was dancing day – DANCING DAY – a day to dance: DANCE DAY! Mum would drop me off at class by 9am and I would carpool home like James Corden, singing the Spice Girls’ greatest hits, and since James hadn’t reinvented karaoke yet, our neighbours Esther, Bianca and Ashleigh were my lift home instead.

      Jazz for the babies (two to four) was first and Bianca and I, along with other Show Group and Senior dancers, were student teachers. I didn’t love teaching but I just loved being at dancing, and especially on Saturday because it was when everyone from all the different studios across the Gold Coast would come together. We would compare the choreography we had learnt that week, and share clear nail polish to cover up the holes we made in our shimmers (they are stockings with a high shimmer finish, you guys: shimmers). We weren’t one of those dance schools that had to wear a uniform; we could wear whatever we wanted, as long as it was awesome and outshone the other dancers. One of the male dancers, who wasn’t ‘out’ yet, was partial to a fluorescent yellow unitard – an outfit that he would reserve for a 34-degree day, knowing he would sweat and make all the other curious boys jealous.

      Miss Colleen always wore black, black on black with a side of black and something black. She always had a full face of make-up that my sister would say looked as though she had laid it out on her bed, tied her hands behind her back and just fell face-first into it. Miss Colleen did a few tours of Vietnam entertaining the troops in the ’60s – something that she loved and romanticised about often. She was a born performer and gave us and the studio everything she had, including her bad temper and sass.

      After Babies Jazz came Babies Tap and a whole lot of noise. Intermediate classes came next and this is where it got exciting, because all the older dancers would start arriving and stretching or trying on costumes for upcoming shows, then there would be a break where we would run down to the 7-Eleven to get a medium Slurpee and a Killer Python, which we shoved in the straw of the Slurpee so it would freeze. Miss Colleen would put in her order of a cheeseburger with no bun, a can of Coke and a chocolate, which the most responsible dancer (AKA her favourite) would get for her. I was never asked.

      Then it was back to class and our turn, the Show Group and Senior dancers. This is when we would TURN IT ON. We performed like we were at Madison Square Garden and J.Lo was our backup dancer. Well, I did anyway – I didn’t really know what the others were doing as I had my eyes closed most of the time to get the full effect.

      Dancing was a place full of super-weird people that I felt safe with. Mr Fluorescent-Yellow-Unitard was super-bendy and loved to tell me inappropriate stories about his sex life. He called everyone the C-word before the C-word was even a thing. At first, I thought he just called me that as a nickname – a term of endearment, if you will. But then I found out otherwise, and was equal parts flattered and confused.

      If I wasn’t meeting my potential in any aspect of my life he would challenge me and ask why. He would laugh at my jokes and roll his eyes when I complained that the prettier blonde girls had been put in the front row again.

      Him: Listen, C, you will never СКАЧАТЬ