May 5th, 2012 Kansas City Temple District Youth Cultural Celebration
...or how (organized) chaos can be a good thing.
I know my writing style is a little different in this post and because I really haven't had a lot of practice with it, it might be awful. But for some reason this is what I feel is right for this particular story. It'll hopefully help me remember and describe details better. Which means it's really long. But don't be intimidated by that! It is told solely from my perspective and unfortunately I wasn't able to be everywhere at once. There was so much going on simultaneously that you wont find in this version of the story and I'm sorry about that. I hope other people have or are writing their experience down so that many perspectives can be remembered. Here is my brothers post (although not very detailed): kewthisismylife.blogspot.com/2012/06/cultural-celebration.html
This is the map of the venue.
I'm a little sluggish getting out of bed. Go figure! I spent the entire day yesterday running around helping in the small ways that I could but those small tasks sure added up. (If you don't know what I'm talking about see previous post) I feel really bad for the leaders that have and will be doing so much more than me. My dad came home early this morning...meaning he had stayed at the Municipal Auditorium all night trying to get all the cables, wires, lights, mics, speakers etc up and ready for today. Oh and that troublesome jumbotron. That's one of the biggest things the crew is having a problem with.
But within minutes I'm wide awake. Hey, I'm already used to getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning and I'm really quite ecstatic for today! I quickly eat something, probably an apple, but I'm so excited to get out the door I don't even pay attention. My dad, brother and I hop in the car and head downtown. Wow, there are a lot of people here already! But the doors are still locked. We wait. It's passed 6:30. We are supposed to be in there right now. Oh good here comes brother Hendrickson, the head chairman. The doors are flung open and the masses flow to their stake tables.
I sit behind our table, waiting. I can tell this will be a day full of hurry up and wait. Hey, turn the lights back on! Oooh no. The power has gone out. We sit in darkness for awhile as people keep flowing through the door and signing in by the glow of cellphone lights. Bam! The lights are back on! Just in time too, we need to start our rehearsals. "All choir and orchestra members to the arena floor." I guess that's my cue. Now where is Atlanta? She's from my ward and is in the orchestra. Oh there she is. We hurry to the group that is forming near the exit and then, all 300 choir and orchestra members head up the ramp to the "Oz tunnel", or the main entrance to the arena floor.
There are papers with names and numbers taped to the metal guard rails for the risers next the the entrance. "Next to your name you will ether find a platform number for the choir risers on the floor or a section number for the people who will be sitting in the seats above." we are told, "Seat yourselves accordingly." My name...my name...aha here it is. Platform 14. Whoot whoot! I'm on the choir risers...right in the front...with a mic inches above my head. Well that's going to be interesting. Meanwhile, the orchestra is seated fairly quickly since they already know where to go. I sit down on my riser. I'm right behind the percussion and piano/keyboards. I can see the conductor pretty well. Fair enough. "Is this 14?" a girl asks. "Sure is." I reply "Well...at least I think it is." She sits next to me. Here come my friends Mary and Marriam. Oh and McKenzie too! This is just going to a party on platform 14.
Looks like everyone is fairly settled. I see dad arranging the mics throughout the orchestra. Brother Olvera, the conductor, stands at the front and calls for our attention. We go through most of our songs. Dang I wish I had brought my music. We are supposed to have it all memorized, and I do for the most part, but if only I could just see the music one more time maybe that would help my confidence. Regrettably, I completely forgot to put it in my backpack and now all I have is my memory and the voices around me. I can do this. We are then excused to go back to "Emerald City" (the giant room that is the staging ground downstairs where we are all "camped out").
Ouch! My foot hurts. And not just in a tired way. Something is wrong. I'm barely back downstairs but now its time for my stake to go back upstairs and sit in the hallway to wait for our turn in the arena to practice. My group is already starting to leave. I have to get to my backpack quickly so I can grab my ace bandage out to wrap my foot. So that's why I packed it! I had no idea why I had tossed it in my backpack this morning but now I know why. The Spirit had guided my hand and now this bandage may be my only hope to make it through the day. I quickly wrap my foot. I have to catch up with the others.
It's hot in the hallway. Really, really hot. I'm not doing anything but sitting here and yet I feel the sweat dripping. Sitting, sweating, now that I have slowed down I realize I'm getting tired. And my foot hurts more than ever. I re-wrap it. I'm bored. I re-wrap my foot again. No, that doesn't feel right. I wrap it yet again. Still not right... "Everyone up!" Shoot. It'll have to do for now I guess. We pour into the arena. We are doing two dances, The Maple Leaf Rag and the KC Kitty. They are swing/jazz so we certainly need some room. Our 3-stake group is the biggest out of the other groups, so we barely fit, but it works. Quickly, we run through both dances once but there isn't much time. We run back out as the music for Telephone hour comes on. My brother and friend, Melissa, are in that specialty dance so they, along with the other dancers and the kids that are in the basketball routine after that, stay behind while the rest of us run down the ramps to "Emerald City".
I drop next to the large pillar that my stakes area is stationed around. What is wrong with my foot?! I re-wrap it one more time. Finally I feel like I've wrapped it right. I grab my backpack, full of snacks, and lean back against the pillar, pulling something out to lazily eat. The rest of my ward friends congregate in the same area and start playing a card game. "Do you want to play?" one girl asks. "Naw. I'll just watch." I just want to relax for as long as I can. I ask my dance partner, Bille, if she wants to practice our dances a little after she is done playing the game. We had both been paired up that morning so we needed a little more practice together. The game is over so Bille and I get up. By now all of the stakes are back from practicing so it's getting a little crowded but we find a spot that we can practice for a few minutes. Then we go and sit back down.
It's lunch
time finally! Our stake is scheduled for 10:30 but the choir and
orchestra get to go 15 minutes earlier. The lunch items are set up on the balcony
area that is above "Emerald City". There are about four or five 6 foot
tables set up in a row. On them are boxes and boxes of food. We are each
handed a plastic bag. In the bag goes an apple, a yogurt cup, meat and
cheese, trail mix, fruit snacks and a huge cookie along with a water
bottle. Great, we have food, now where to eat it? Atlanta, who is with me again, and I start
walking towards the railing overlooking the floor below and sit down.
It's like watching an anthill from up here, thousands of people crowded
down below us. We're both starving and we dig in right away, Atlanta
complains about the lack of a substantial main course while eating her
yogurt. After a minute, we look around, where are all the people we are supposed to be eating
lunch with? Wait, is everyone going out that door? We get up and follow
the crowd. "Choir and orchestra?" an adult asks. "Yes." We reply. "This
way..." We are lead out through a hallway, into an underground parking
garage, up a flight of stairs, out a door and we are outside across the
street. Up a flight of concrete stairs and, whoa! So this is where
everyone has been going. It's a lawn with a tennis court looking floor
in the middle and to the side, an overhead trellis that creates small patches of shade. There's what looks like a cafe and maybe a door to a hotel on the other side, it's like a whole little world on top
of this building. Hey look, there's Aubry and three of her friends! I
plop down next to her and Atlanta follows. Mary walks passed and I
tell her to sit with us. We eat, talk, relax and just have a great time in general. Then one of the girls realize there's a boy that is eating all by
himself not too far away. Aubry calls to him. He looks up, a little confused. "You look
lonely. Come over here and join the party!" she says. "Oh...um...OK." He's
a little hesitant so everyone starts calling to him: "We don't
bite!", "It's like we're already friends!", "We already love you!". (That
last one was from Mary, of course.) Despite our overwhelming rambunctiousness, he scoots over and joins our group. He
is from Springfield and is a violinist in the orchestra so obviously he doesn't
have too many friends eating right now. Well, he's our friend now! Along
comes Bille, I tell her to sit too. Towards the end of lunch
everyone starts trying to get a song going (not a church song though), but no one can find a song
that everyone knows, so it's a lot of "Hey what about..?" -sing a few bars-stop because no one else is
singing. Everyone is finished eating but me.
That's pretty normal. But there isn't much of a rush yet, so they all
stay and keep talking until I'm finished. As we're leaving, we're told we're not allowed to take any
food out of the courtyard so we put a few uneaten snacks in a box before
heading back down the stairs.
More choir and orchestra rehearsal time. Back to platform 14 for me. The Joplin stake is just finishing up their prop rehearsal. They have large wooden structures that look like the frames of houses that they are learning to put up and bring down. They all clear out pretty fast as we are trickling in. Kenneth Cope, a wonderful LDS singer, is in here too. He is going to stay and listen to us for a few minutes. There are still quite a few people who aren't here yet so I lay back, rub my aching foot and relax as best I can. Oh but here comes more of the choir. No more laying down for me. I stare out across the room. Hm, that's odd. The jumbotron isn't up. Are they still having problems with it?
Everyone is settled now, so we start singing. We go through every piece of music at least once. Its so cool to be singing for brother Cope! There are other people in the room listening. We are told to enunciate because the room is big and we're not understandable and sound jumbled.
After rehearsal, back downstairs. Pushing through the crowd, I see that people are starting to put their costumes on. I guess I'll go put mine on. Up the stairs to the wall lined with clothes rods where my shirt and skirt are hanging. Back down the stairs to the restroom that is being used as a dressing room. Truthfully, its all confusion. The line is long, the air is full of hairspray enough to choke me. I try to hurry as to not slow anything down more than necessary. Now that I'm dressed, I skip and trip over to where our ward is. The room is getting more colorful as more costumes are being put on. We sit and wait. Aren't we supposed to be upstairs practicing yet? I guess it takes awhile to get this many people dressed. We hear brother Hendrickson over the loudspeaker. "SHHHH! Please listen too me!" For the passed 24 hours it really has never been truly quite no matter how much shushing happened. But this time something is different. He isn't just making an announcement. I can hear some uneasiness in his voice...something's wrong. "It turns out that you weren't supposed to be putting on your costumes yet." Great! Now what? Do we have to change again? "But! It might be a blessing in disguise. We're...having some technical difficulties." By now the sound in the room was down to barely a whisper. "Right now, we need to be upstairs going over the sections that everyone is in. Unfortunately the jumbotron is still not working and they have to have it on the ground to work on it. The technical crew has been trying to repair it all day and still can't figure out how to do that." I almost feel sick. I know, without a doubt, that it will be fixed for the show. I just know. But its the crew that I feel bad for. They are extremely stressed up there. But what if they can't fix it? "The good thing is, because you already have your costumes on we won't have to spend time doing that later. But I need your help." brother Hendrickson continues, "We need to say a prayer. All together." The room is still. Dead silence. We kneel. All 3000-plus heads bow. Brother Hendrickson begins. Its not a long prayer, but a powerful one. He finishes and everyone goes back to what they had been doing, the silence doesn't stay. But there is a new, stronger feeling in the room. {An article about this event: ldsmag.com/church/article/10185?ac=1%3Fac%3D1&start=1}
I'm not sure if its been 10 minutes or an hour, everything is becoming more and more of a blur. But brother Hendrickson is back in the middle of the room with a mic. "Good news! They've fixed the jumbotron!" Everyone cheers, no, roars!
Its maybe two hours before the show. And here we are, hardly ready for a dress rehearsal. No, there's no time for a full rehearsal. We are rushed upstairs to do a run-through. It's just to know when and where to go and therefore only do the first minute of our dances. We also go over the "everyone" dances. There are some big changes made. Cotton Eye Joe has been adapted quite a bit. There will be less on and off the stage with some groups. Also, the choir and orchestra members will only be doing their own stakes dance(s) and staying in the choir/orchestra area the rest of the time. That's a little disappointing. But at least I don't have to figure out the new version of Cotton Eye Joe. We then sprint off stage, down the ramp and back to our stake area where we find dinner waiting for us. The whole time, my foot never failing to complain that it hurt like the dickens. I snuggle in amongst everyones backpacks behind the table and devoure my sandwich and chips. It's here. People are being seated right above us and in a few minutes I'll be upstairs one more time, on platform 14, ready to sing for the prophet. Oh that's right, the prophet is in the building right now! But I'm not nervous. Not at all. Just feeling lucky that I'm here.
The choir is settled, and the seats in the auditorium are filling up
quickly. We begin the prelude. Soon everyone else starts running onto
the floor. We run out of prelude but the prophet hasn't come in yet. So the orchestra begins playing one of the pieces again. Then, there is the prophet. I've always heard that it gets dead silent when the prophet walks in. Well obviously not this time. Everyone is cheering. How are you supposed to keep the excitement in? The choir begins "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet". I try to hold it in at first, but to no avail. The tears are streaming from my eyes and down my face. I can hardly sing let alone breath. Now Aubry gets up and conducts the opening song, "How Firm a Foundation". The prayer is said and the prophet addresses us.
We start our first number, "Arise", my personal favorite.
Everyone leaves and most go downstairs except the "Willing Hearts" people who are next. My
group, Inspired Hearts, just sits in the hall until
our turn onstage.
We then go downstairs to wait. There is a big screen set up so we can see what's going on upstairs.
But I don't have much time to watch the screen because the choir and
orchestra are told to go back up and sit in our places until the end. I
get there just in time to watch the Joplin "Broken Hearts" section. More
tears. I remember that day, only a year ago, when I heard that a large
portion of that town called Joplin, located just 2 or so hours away, had
been destroyed. I remember going three months after the tornado during
youth conference and witnessing the aftermath destruction for myself.
Now I'm watching the kids who had been there and lived through that
horrible day.
Next is the "fun dances" with everyone. I'm kind of glad I'm not down there doing it because it looks so cool from here. Plus we actually have more room on the platforms so we do our best at "Popcorn Popping" and "Cotton Eye Joe".
After the techno dance, everyone except the drum line people who are coming on the floor and doing their thing, take their colored shirt off and puts it on the floor at their feet while underneath is their white shirt ready for "Sharing Hearts", the missionary number.
As soon as the drumming is over, missionaries from the Independence, MO Mission (basically covering most of the temple district) come in and everyone else on the floor kneels. We sings a medley of missionary songs: "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission", "I Want to be a Missionary Now", "True to the Faith", "Army of Helaman".
We finish by singing "We Believe" and "One Heart in the Heartland". The music cuts off and the lights go out for an instant. The lights come back on and everyone on the floor pick up their T-shirts and wave them around over their heads (which is unplanned) while we cheer as the prophets stands, waves and exits the room.
The churches short compilation of footage:
It's all over. The last thing we have to do is go back downstairs to get our bags and clothes so we can leave. It's extremely loud. (Here is some footage our wards (now old) YM president got of the chaotic excitement!) I wait for a little bit and rest my foot before I try battling the crowd. I have to find my brother too. I'm so exhausted and I feel bad for the people who have to stay for awhile longer. I get up and hobble my way to the exit our stake is assigned to, where I'll hopefully find my brother so we can leave. But I don't see him so I sit back against a wall, re-wrap my foot and pack up some loose ends that aren't in my backpack yet. I'm not sure what to do so I wander around for a few minutes then go back to the exit and decide to look outside. Duh. My family, including brother, is already out there just waiting for me. I'm ready to crash so I try to hurry my family to the car. To bed I go and tomorrow we will be going to the first session of the temple dedication!
Pictures of the day were taken on my iPod. Pictures of the show courtesy of Kim W, Mike N, and Tracy K.
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