The New Avatar - Eight Elements

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dance Classes

Monday Lowsun 19th, 2184

"This way," Jinn said, leading me and Willow down to the first floor and the dance studios. "You know what you're signing up for, right?"

"Yep, just Jazz." Willow confirmed.

"And a lot of ballet." I added.

"Hurry up Hay!" Jinn said, turning back to Hayden and Lee who followed at a distance, talking quickly to each other.

"I'm hurrying." Hayden called back, picking up his pace a bit. We wove through crowds of other students, all heading to their club meetings to get settled. As we went further to the back of The Academy's first floor, the ceilings got lower and the hallways narrower and emptier.

"Here we are," Jinn said, motioning to a set of glass double doors that had black block letter stickers. The words read, 'The Academy of The Five Elements Dance Studio'.

Once Hayden and Lee caught up with us, Jinn pushed the doors open and we were greeted with the smell of lemons. Beyond the glass doors was a long hallway, but an indent in the wall gave way to a shoe rack where Jinn instructed us to leave our shoes. We followed him down the carpeted hallway, past the bathrooms and change rooms, to the lounge. It was a big room with a front desk, couches and free space for warmups.

"Ok," Jinn said once we'd gotten comfortable on the floor, "The teachers are gonna call anyone who wants to sign up for the classes and they'll take you to a studio where they'll tell you about the class and then you sign up. By next week, they'll be running classes like normal."

"Sounds simple enough." I said, "One question though, what's the recommended dance attire?"

"Well, what classes are you taking?" he asked in return.

"Ballet, point, lyrical and jazz." I replied simply.

"Ballet would be tights, a bodysuit of your choice and a short skirt. Point, same thing and you can wear leg warmers if you want. Lyrical can be exercising tights and a T-shirt or bodysuit. And jazz it pretty much the same." He replied, "Hip hop is pretty much anything as long as you don't show an obnoxious amount of skin or over heat in a million layers." He looked at Hayden who laughed.

"You like my hip hop look though!" he cried, "You blush every time you see me off to hip hop!"

"I do not!" Jinn yelled back stubbornly, "You show too much skin for my liking and I bet your teacher doesn't like it either."

"Alamar's fine with it." Hayden said simply.

"Your hip hop teacher's name is Alamar too?!" I cried, "That's the name of my hip hop teacher on Earth!"

"Common name here." Hayden replied, "He might be a bender and you never knew." He shrugged, "But anyway, be glad I don't wear Lee's hip hop outfits. They're amazing Lee, just really showy. I don't even know how you get away with it!"

"I'm Alamar's favourite cause I dance the best and I can break dance." She said smugly. "And my outfits are not that showy. I've only worn a sports bra once, the rest of the time I wear a crop top." She reassured us.

"Anyway," Jinn said, cutting in, "The point is, you can pretty much wear anything, unless they tell you specifically to change."

"Got it." I replied, giving him a thumbs up. At that point, a couple teachers walked out of the studios and called out the names of classes.

"Ballet Graduations, ages 14+, Point progressions, ages 14 to 16, Lyrical Graduations, ages 14+, follow me please!" a tall, thin woman called holding a clip board. She turned and walked into the studio marked Studio B. Me and Jinn followed her and left Willow with Lee and Hayden.