Having a passion that you look forward too is amazing. Sticking to that passion for several years might sound like too much work but when you really love what you are doing time doesn’t matter and the years feel like days. Odessa Laurie started dancing since she was little and fell in Love with it. She has accomplished many things but the memories she has gotten from all those years are the best rewards she has achieved from her passion.

“Originally I wasn’t really interested in taking dance classes, it was my mom who really got me involved because she had a friend who was a dancer, and she would look at my feet and say “You can point your feet very well, you should take ballet” so I did that when I was little. It didn’t really go that well so I stopped doing ballet and when back when I was a little bit older and I really liked it. I do all types of dancing, I started with ballet, tap, jazz and I’ve done that for a couple of years, and I’ve transitioned into more jazz, musical theater, contemporary, a little bit of hip-hop but I like all types of dancing. I try not idolized people because I think it’s dangerous to kind of put them up on a pedestal and see them as better than you because what they have is totally attainable with hard work. But I did have an idol who I used to look up and it was Misty Copeland when I was more interested in ballet because her story was very inspiring. The people I look up to know are my peers and people who are older than me, my teachers, choreographers, and fellow dancers. I started dancing when I was four or five years old but I only did it for a couple of moths and then I fully started dancing when I was 10 years old. I’ve performed in Great America located in San Jose, behind the statue of liberty in New York and at many other places. The best memory I have is when we got the opportunity to perform in New York, we got to see some Broadway shows, I got to spend time with my friends and overall get a sense of feeling of what its like to live the city life.” Odessa Laurie (10)

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