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At America's Got Talent, Supporting a Friend
Watching Avantgardey and what surprised us.
Wouldn't you say yes if your daughter's dance teacher invited you to a taping of America's Got Talent in Los Angeles?
We sure did and enjoyed every second of the experience, with a few surprises thrown in. Watching a live taping is an experience I'll never forget. So, who is this teacher who hooked us up with tickets? She's Nona Sensei to my daughter and my niece in Japan, who's been taking regular dance lessons from her for several years. To everyone else, she's Nona, one of the lead members of the twenty-person Avantgardey dance group from Japan.
They shocked the world with their creative and uniform dance moves, identical schoolgirl attire, and short black wigs in their first audition for America's Got Talent in June.
The semi-final performance was in the middle of the week last Tuesday, with the results shown on Wednesday. The idea of taking two days off from teaching and pulling my daughter out of school to go to Hollywood to see the show felt crazy at first. Thinking about how rare it is to know someone performing on T.V. and to be invited there to watch, we quickly came to our senses and arranged to go.
Living in northern California meant we could drive down to L.A., Pasadena to be exact, in about six hours. We chose to take two days off and see the Tuesday performance, then drive back Wednesday afternoon. Getting back to work and school on Thursday.
Exhausting? Yes.
Inspiring and exciting? Hell, yes!
Picking up tickets and taking in the show
I'll admit, the thought of us going to pick up tickets after driving all the way down to Pasadena, and there not being any there for us, did cross my mind — too many times.
Maybe Nona sensei would forget to let the show know we're coming. Perhaps the AGT staff didn't put the tickets aside for us for some strange…
