Celebrating African American Women & Dance: What I Learned by Teara Veney age 13
Monday, February 8, 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a masterclass to celebrate African American women and dance. It gave me the opportunity to meet many great female dance inspirations such as Judith Jamison, Debbie Allen, Virginia Johnson, and Fatima Robinson. I was honored to attend this event at the White House, I was personally given the opportunity to learn choreography from Fatima Robinson, meet the First Lady, and to perform in front of these powerful and inspirational women. Attending the celebration taught me many lessons. A question and answer session was held to give us dancers the opportunity to ask questions and learn from the powerful answers that were given. Mrs. Obama spoke words that will always stick with me. We are all smart enough, pretty enough, good enough to do anything we set our minds to. La La Anthony, also spoke about, “No matter what you do, always be a good person, what matters is that you’re a good person to all around you.”
Fatima Robinson taught choreography to the song ‘Brand New Day’ from The Wiz Live. Along with nine other members from my dance family, we performed this choreography at the end of the day to showcase to The First Lady and a room full of supporters, friends, and family. Going to the White House was an awesome, extremely memorable experience, and I am glad I got to share that experience with my Joy of Motion family.
