By Marcus Rodrigue
Payton Johnson had about 10 minutes to prepare herself.
As one of the top 10 female dancers in the national Dance Awards–Teen Division in New York City, she had just performed an improvised dance
to a randomly selected tune. The judges combined the scores from the improv dances and the competitors’ earlier routines to whittle the top 10 down to three.
Those final three competitors would then immediately redo their solos to determine the champion.
When the 16-year-old University High School student heard her name called, she had little time to think.
“I basically just threw my costume on and went on stage,” she says.
The quick turnaround for the final cut actually benefited her, she says. She didn’t have time to overthink and experience the nerves that affected her first solo run in the opening days of the competition. Her final performance went off without a hitch.
“Several teachers stopped me after to say my solo was amazing and that it was so different from anything they’ve seen me do before,” she says. “Jason, my choreographer, told me he thought I performed better that night than I did in the initial audition, so that was a huge relief.”
But she says performing wasn’t the most nerve-wracking part of the competition. The worst part was the waiting.
Two days separated her final routine from the closing gala, where the judges announced the winners of every division. Johnson says attending classes and workshops during those two days helped keep her mind off the anticipation.
The waiting paid off, as Johnson won the title of National Teen Best Dancer at the 2015 Dance Awards. She added another title by winning the Teen Solo competition.
During the July 5-12 competition in New York City, she out-performed more than 130 dancers from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Though the dancer claimed her first title in the Teen division, she’s no stranger to being at the top of her age group. She previously won six national championships in younger divisions, with her last coming in the Junior ranks in 2012. To get to the 2015 Dance Awards, she had to qualify by winning at regional JUMP, NUVO and 24Seven dance conventions.
But Johnson says winning this year’s title is particularly special because competing in an older age group brought more pressure to perform.
“It was a really big deal,” she says. “I was extremely happy. I just really wanted this, and I had been working really hard for it.”
For her efforts, Johnson earned a lifetime scholarship to attend classes at national dance conventions JUMP, NUVO and 24Seven as well as The Dance Awards. CLI Studios, a web-based dance program designed to link choreographers with dance studios worldwide, picked her as a brand ambassador.
She will also travel to regional sites and conventions to help teach dance classes, an occupation that runs in the family. Her older sister Caitlin teaches dance with an emphasis in choreography, and the time she spent watching her sister in the studio is what led Payton to dancing. Locally, she also dances at Jean Leigh Academy of Dance under the direction of Dianna Jones.
The daughter of Baton Rougeans Mike and Lori Johnson, this University Laboratory School junior already has her future mapped out. She hopes to study dance at a New York college, preferably Juilliard, and eventually join a dance
company.
But at the end of the day, what inspires Payton most is learning from other talented dancers.
“I actually don’t really consider myself that much of a competition dancer,” she says. “At conventions, they have all these famous choreographers from all over the world who come in and teach classes. That’s what I love more than anything—just taking the classes.”
And if she stays on her current path, we’d guess someday young dancers will aspire to learn from Payton’s greatness, too.
