Prairie girls dance in London’s New Year’s Day Parade

Four Prairie High School students rang in the New Year in a big way. They danced in the London’s New Year’s Day Parade, which was viewed live by half a million spectators and several hundred million more via television broadcast.

London’s New Year’s Day Parade was founded on Jan. 1, 1987. Over the years, it’s grown to be twice the size of New York’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The 8,500 performers represent 20 countries from around the world.

“I’ve been in parades many times before but that many people, that was pretty nerve-racking,’’ said Cierra Silva, one of the three seniors to attend. “That was probably the first time I’ve been nervous to dance but it was a great experience.”

Devyn Mortensen, another one of the senior dancers, reflected on the experience and the reality of events so well-attended.

“Performing in the parade was fun because I love crowd interaction,’’ Mortensen said. “You think ‘how many people have your picture in their camera?’ It was kind of like, ‘whoa.’ The dancing itself was amazing.”

It all started at dance camp held at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey in July of 2013. As Brush Prairie dance team coach Bree Loyd explained it, initially several girls are chosen for Super Sensation Awards based on something that caught that instructor’s eye such as leadership, performance, attitude or talent. This gives the chosen girls an opportunity to compete against other girls to win All-American. The girls who win All-American further compete to represent the USA in London as part of the United Spirit Association. Obviously, once girls have been selected as part of that year’s United Spirit Association delegation, they have to be the cream of the crop.

Two particular highlights of the event for the Prairie girls were being invited to perform at the parade finale and dancing with the 600-piece band from such television favorites as Glee. Of the 150 dancers in the parade, seniors Silva, Mortensen, Kiley Enger and junior Molly Wilson were four of the 20 girls chosen to perform in front of the Lord Mayors of London as well as other dignitaries. They were fortunate, also, to meet the director of the Hollywood band.

“A lot of the band members were really supportive of us and the director made us feel like it was all about us,’’ Mortensen said. “He said ‘Don’t worry about the band. They’ll do what they do. I want to focus on you.’”

Although English is spoken in London, there were still cultural subtleties that the girls witnessed.

“It was different,’’ Wilson said. “It was weird seeing them driving on the wrong side of the road and their crazy driving.”

“Yeah, really different,’’ Enger said. “The currency was different ... and their cars are really small and they drive really close to each other.”

After all the hard work of fundraising and donation requests, the opportunity to experience a different country was not wasted by any of the attendees. Time off was spent touring Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, Windsor Castle, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. They also rode the London Eye at night but the winning attraction, hands down, was The London Dungeon. Dubbed an amazingly-acted haunted house, this 90-minute tour through 1,000 years of London’s more sordid history encompasses characters like Guy Fawkes, Jack the Ripper, and Sweeney Todd.

Most of these girls have been dancing since they were three years old. To be able to represent the USA in the London’s New Year’s Day parade and be selected to showcase their talents was icing on the cake of 15 years spent practicing, rehearsing and performing.

“Well, that (being selected) was probably the best part of all; knowing that I’d accomplished something that I’d worked my whole life for was a very rewarding feeling,” Silva said.