Dear Diary,

It has been a long time since I've put any thought into writing in my diary. In fact, my diary has turned into a blog. There is so much to catch up on, but I thought I would start with the most important part of my life right now.

I am proud of my Native heritage. I am Cherokee and Inupiaq. I love who I am and everyone who knows me knows that. Over the last six years, I have been able to work with a local Native church in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. This church, Osage Indian Baptist Church, is now my church home. Pawhuska is the capital of the Osage Nation, and luckily for me, it's only an hour away from ORU. I have fallen deeply in love with Pawhuska, the people of Pawhuska, and the Osage tribe. In Jan. of 2012, I was approached by a now dear friend of mine who is the director of a fairly new professional ballet company. This company happens to be the Osage Ballet. In the Osage tribe, ballet and dance are very important. Two of the five Native-American ballerinas were Osage. They are none other than Maria Tallchief and her sister Marjorie Tallchief. For many, many years Maria Tallchief has been an inspiration to me. I actually did a presentation on her and the Osage tribe in the fifth grade (Yes, Mrs. Salsman, I still remember this assignment in history. I still have it too!). Anyways, I was approached by the director, and without even knowing me or knowing that I am a dancer, she told me she wanted me to dance for her. That moment changed my life and I had no idea at that point in time that it would.

Fast-forward four years. It is now 2016. I am in my third season with the Osage Ballet. In 2014, I got to perform an excerpt from the ballet at the Native-American Heritage Night Tulsa Shock game. During this performance, Ronnie Underwood (Ballet West, Breaking Pointe, and Oklahoma City Ballet) was a guest performer with us. Later into the summer, the ballet performed six times in both Miami, Oklahoma and Skiatook, Oklahoma. In 2015, the ballet kind of took a year off. We did not perform the full ballet that year, however, a group of dancers were invited to perform at the Festival of Families in Philadelphia. The Pope was in the audience. This year, we are traveling to Santa Fe, New Mexico for our performances. We are only performing twice and I am so excited.

I just finished the first week of rehearsals. I travel four hours to Pawhuska at the beginning of each rehearsal week, and then drive two and a half hours back to where I am staying when I'm not at rehearsals. Each day, I have all three pairs of pointe shoes, a racquetball, a theraband, my ballet shoes, socks, sweat pants, leg warmers, trash bag shorts and my ballet skirt beside me at the barre when I am warming up. They are my essentials during rehearsals and I honestly feel incomplete without them next to me. I'm not even going to begin to mention what all I have in my dance bag. That would take all day. I am usually prepared for any type of injury during rehearsals. Except, I wasn't prepared when I kicked my toe the other day. It's pretty swollen and bruised right now.

We have less than two weeks left of rehearsals. On Aug. 4, the company will be loading up a bus and traveling from Pawhuska, Oklahoma to Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, we will have a full day of filming and rehearsing before our performances on Aug. 6. This is going to be the experience of a lifetime.

Until next time, diary.

Love,

Shelby

PS. To anyone in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area: On Aug. 6 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at The Lensic Performing Arts Center, "Wahzhazhe: An Osage Ballet" will be performing. Tickets are $25 for general admission. Check out osageballet.com for more information! I would love to see you there!