Abbigail Onhiser found the audition on Instagram. She followed a dancer who lives in New York — someone she'd been watching — who had done the same parade the year before. That was enough to make it feel real. "Okay," she thought. "So maybe this is like legit, like an actual thing."

She was coming home from Dance Nationals in Chicago at the end of June. The deadline was in July. She emailed the organizers: Can I still send in a tape? They said yes, get it in soon. She filmed it, submitted it nearly on a whim, and the next morning she was sitting alone at her kitchen table eating breakfast — her parents were at the hospital with her grandfather — and she opened her email.

She'd been selected to dance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

"I didn't really think I was gonna get it," she said.

Abbigail has been dancing since she was three, starting with tumbling and then her first formal class — tap and ballet, the foundation — before adding styles as she grew. Today, she trains at Studio 50 in Sandoval, competes on their competitive team, and teaches younger students there. She also cheers at Salem Community High School. But dance is the center of gravity. "Dance is my favorite thing," she said, "because it is a combination of artistry and emotion and also athleticism. We're athletes, but we can also tell a story with our bodies. Sometimes words don't always paint the real picture."

When the acceptance came, it came with work. The parade group was built from 500 dancers across the US — possibly some from Canada — with 100 in Abbigail's section. None of them had met. Before arriving in New York, each dancer received a video of all the different parts of the choreography — ripples, formations, people going up and down — and was expected to learn all of it. You wouldn't know which part you'd be performing until rehearsals began. The style was jazz.

They stayed in the same hotel, rehearsed in the ballrooms — "very up close and personal" — for five of the six days. Three-hour sessions. Five hundred people learning to look like one.

Times Square was its own education. "I didn't realize there are so many people who aren't even doing anything particular," she said. "They're just sitting there looking at everything. You definitely have to bob and weave when you're walking."

What she brought home from the trip — beyond the story of doing it — was a philosophy she's been refining ever since. In her senior year, she auditioned for the school musical. She'd always wanted to, but talked herself out of it. What if it doesn't fit the schedule? What if people think it's stupid? She did it this year. "I'm having so much fun already."

When she came back from New York, a teacher in Iuka brought her to talk to third graders who wanted to cheer or dance. The teacher asked what she'd tell them. Abbigail said: take chances. "I didn't think I would make it to Dance Nationals. I didn't think I would go to New York. I didn't think I would have fun doing the musical. So just take chances. You never know what will happen."

Before every performance, she prays. People tell her she makes it look easy. She doesn't always feel that way — she has anxiety about performing, about getting it right — and prayer is the ritual that quiets it. She describes herself, and her mother would agree, as a perfectionist. Ballet especially feeds that tendency. She's working on holding the perfectionism and the joy at the same time. "Why do I dance? It's because I love it and it's a way for me to express myself. And to connect with other people."

After graduation, she's heading toward the ocean — Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina or UNC Wilmington — to study marine biology with a dance minor. She wants to travel. Her parents instilled that. Salem is home, and she loves it, but she's also the person who filmed an audition tape on short notice and ended up in a hotel ballroom with 500 strangers learning jazz choreography for Thanksgiving morning.

"You never know," she said. "You never know who you'll inspire."