While the majority of people’s COVID obsessions have fizzled, senior Julia Merhi’s has only grown over the last five years. While everyone was bouncing off the walls due to boredom during quarantine, senior Julia Merhi spun her boredom into a new interest: dance.
“During COVID, I got really bored,” Julia said. “I started binge-watching Dance Moms. I watched Maddie Ziegler and Chloe [Lukasiak] constantly doing these turns, and I really wanted to learn how to do those turns, so I taught myself. I’m still obsessed with it. I genuinely can’t eat a meal now without watching Dance Moms. I think all the girls were so good. I wanted to do what they were doing. So I tried to teach myself. Obviously, I needed more training to get to where I am now, but that’s when I started loving dance. And that’s what got me to dancing [at a] studio and [on the] varsity team.”
Julia first officially started dancing at a studio during her freshman year. She got to fine-tune her skills, learn new ones, and start to build a community in the dance world she had begun to discover. As she practiced, her passion strengthened. She applied herself more and more, striving to build on her developing skills.
Her junior year was her first year on the FHC Varsity Dance Team. This team has brought a different vibe to dancing, new choreography, and more enjoyment, and has guided her to become the dancer she is today.
“I definitely like it way more than studio,” Julia said. “I like the styles we do at school better. I enjoy performing at football and basketball games, and I really like the team chemistry of the school team better than a studio team because we are more of a team. We have a big emphasis on working together and pushing each other. I feel like we all support each other. When [our teammates] are dancing, we’re always cheering for them. It’s just such a fun, supportive team to be a part of. And I really love the styles of dance that we do. Even though it can get stressful at times, and we do get overwhelmed a lot, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to be on another team.”
Julia also loves being part of this team because of the eight other seniors on it, with whom she has built strong connections and can always rely on. Many of them have been dancing since they were little kids and have been on the team longer than her, so she can reach out to them for advice. She encourages the underclassmen on the team to do the same. In a similar way to how she looked up to the senior dancers who graduated last year, she hopes that she and all the seniors on the team are seen as leaders so the underclassmen will feel comfortable asking them for advice, dance-related or not. Looking back on this season so far, she feels confident that the dance team will be in good hands when the seniors graduate.
“I love all the underclassmen [on the team]; they’re all so sweet,” Julia said. “They’re all hard-working, and I really appreciate their work ethic. Since all [the seniors] are graduating, and we do make up the majority of the dances because there are so many of us, I feel reassured knowing how hard they’re willing to work. The ability that they already have after only 1-2 years on the team is insane. I’m really proud of all the girls. It’s not easy to wake up at 5:00 a.m. all week to come to morning practice, and it’s definitely not easy to perform in front of the whole school. [Dancing] is not even easy on its own. The stuff that we do requires a lot of weird skills that the body probably shouldn’t be doing. I appreciate everyone.”
Not only does Julia appreciate every teammate, but she also feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the beneficial impact this sport has made on her personal life.
“Honestly, dance has given me a lot of confidence because it was really nerve-wracking at first,” Julia said. “I’d considered joining [the dance team] late since everyone started dancing years before I did. And I was just like, ‘Oh, I like doing turns. I just think this is fun.’ But then it turned into a really big passion of mine. And that [realization] gave me the idea that any goal that I put my mind to, I can attain if I work hard enough for it. It’s even helped me with tests in school. [For example], with [AP Environmental Science] last year, I wasn’t used to the test formats, so I made sure I applied the same ideology, as I had [during dance]. I have to believe in myself and my capabilities first, and then success will follow. And if I don’t believe in myself, then who else will?”
Dancing has strengthened many areas of Julia’s academic life. Similarly, dancing more frequently on the team has expanded her creativity in choreography and shifted her thinking regarding music and dance. Even though she doesn’t have the opportunity to choreograph in high school, she hopes to build on her choreography and leadership skills in college by joining a club team and continuing her journey.
“A lot of the time, we have choreographers come in, so it’s never my place to help choreograph our school dances,” Julia said. “But, if I listen to a piece of music, I like to envision the movements and different steps. Every time I listen to music, I think, ‘How could I dance to this?’ It’s where my mind [naturally] goes. I’m interested in dancing in college, too. For the colleges I’ve applied to, I’ve looked into clubs, and many emphasize opportunities for students to choreograph and showcase dance [routines]. So that’s definitely something that I’m interested in because that’s how my passion for dance started. I do love being given [choreography] to perform, but I also want to be creative. I like knowing that someday I could put my own choreography together.”
Julia has accomplished a lot in her short career as a dancer so far. Her interest in dance grows with every practice and every episode of Dance Moms she watches. She remains grateful for everything dance has taught her, like the importance of confidence not only for benefitting her everyday life, but for being a strong leader to the underclassmen on the Varsity Dance Team. Dance has also taught her perseverance. Even though the week-long exhaustion of Nationals in Florida, where she goes through all the emotions as she quotes: “I was just so stressed, tired, sad, angry, mad, and hungry, always so hungry,” she sticks with it. Her passion for dance continues to expand, growing into a strong hope for a future full of creativity, confidence, and leadership.
“Dancing is a form of therapy for me,” Julia said. “I love expressing myself by getting to perform something that I love doing.”
