It was a Thursday afternoon and Melissa was staying after class to practice her tap routine. Everyone had left the studio besides her and the owner who was locked in her office.

While she was going over the steps with the music, she looked at the side mirror and noticed something strange. Her reflection was not completing the movements at the same time. It would move right after. 

She stopped and paused the music, and when she turned back to the mirror... 

her reflection wasn’t looking back at her. Instead, the girl was walking away.

Melissa was astonished. Was someone playing a trick on her? Perhaps her classmates?

She started walking towards the mirror, trying to convince herself it wasn't real. 

As her hand reached out to touch the mirror, it went straight through the wall. She jumped back. Curious, she decided to move more into the mirror, following the girl.

When Melissa entered she found herself in a very different setting than her dance studio. She was surrounded by desert. She looked around but the mirror had disappeared and all she could see was a structure in the distance.

Melissa decided to walk towards the structure.

As she approached the structure, it was much livelier than she had originally thought, and bigger. There was a huge commotion. 

There was food and a huge crowd surrounding what looked like dancers. There was one main dancer that was leading the routine. 

Melissa thought back to when her dance teacher, Ms. Ali, had mentioned some of the origins of dance. EGYPT. She was in Egypt. The “dancing” back then consisted of gestures in movements and they often used these movements to bring good luck to their hunters.

Her dance teacher also mentioned that many of the gestures were used to mimic everyday life activities. She looked around and found that some dancers were rubbing their stomachs to signify that they were hungry. 

Apparently the one leading the group was their chief. He seemed to be the equivalent of a modern day director or choreographer. 

Melissa kept walking through the crowd until she felt someone tap her shoulder. 

She whipped around, only to find a completely different backdrop than before. Melissa was confused and pinched herself. “OW!” At least she knew she wasn’t dreaming. That must mean she was actually time traveling. 

Melissa tried to think more into her past history lessons with Ms. Ali. Oh, yes! After the Ancient Egyptian Western dance era, Greece started to cultivate dance as well.

That must mean she was in the 6th century because that was when Greece started to establish dancing as an art form through theatrics.

 To her left, a performance was going on. Instead of the people from Egypt, these dancers had costumes and were dancing along to actual music. The moves still didn’t quite resemble the same technique Melissa uses at her studio. Many of the steps involved acrobatic or gymnastic styled moves.

The dancers were also separated into females and males. The leader seemed to take on more of the role of a choreographer, similar to those Melissa knew. 

Before she got a chance to get any farther in the crowd, she lost her balance and tripped over someone's foot. When she looked up she was in an arena. Romans, she thought. She looked into the center of the stadium and saw some kind of production.

They were wearing costumes that looked like they were made to symbolize gods. Melissa remembered her dance teacher telling her about their honor for the gods. 

Melissa wanted to investigate more on the dancers and actors. She traveled down to where the performers got off. They seemed to not possess the wealth she had imagined. They were ordered around and were wearing rough clothing.