MONROE Monroe dancer parades through New York.
By: Chinenye Okparanta
MONROE On Thanksgiving Day, 12-year-old Jessica Sabanos danced down a New York City street dressed in yellow pajamas and her hair in pigtails.
The Applegarth Middle School seventh-grader was one of 466 kids and the only one from Monroe Township chosen to perform the opening song and dance number for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Nov. 24.
Camp Broadway, a theater-dance group in New York City, held auditions throughout the country in August.
"My mom got an e-mail from Playbill.com, so I went to the city," Jessica said. "I tried out and I was nervous when I walked in, but it ended up being a lot of fun."
She found out in September that she had been chosen to perform in the parade.
"I got the news when I was in the family room watching a dance recital on tape," Jessica said. "My mom walked in and she was holding an envelope with Camp Broadway (on it)."
The Friday before Thanksgiving, Jessica went into the city for the first rehearsal and costuming meeting.
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, the veteran dancer was more than prepared to perform.
"She’s been dancing since 3 ½ years old, almost nine years now," Jessica’s father, Mike Sabanos, said.
Jessica takes hip-hop, jazz, ballet, lyrical, some modern and tap dance classes with Absolute Dance Company in Monroe.
For the parade, she and the other Camp Broadway dancers performed to "We Give Thanks Today," music written especially for the parade by Broadway composer Andrew Lippa.
Bill Schermerhorn, creative director of the musical program, penned the lyrics to the song from ideas that the kids had come up with to define Thanksgiving. Tony Parise choreographed the dance number.
Even though the weather was "really, really cold" and she had to dress in layers and wear toe and hand warmers, Jessica said that the parade was a great experience.
And although she didn’t get to see much of the parade because she and some of the other kids went into the Macy’s store to meet Santa, Jessica said that she would love to be a part of the parade again in the future.
"I want to do it again next year and one of my friends said that she wants to do it too," she said. "It was kind of scary, but it went by fast. The whole week went really fast. I just had a good time with it."

