Joy in the Dance

Ballet is a wonderful art form but a very narrow-minded world. There is only one role: the perfect prima ballerina, and everyone is striving towards it, with varying degrees of success. I devoted myself to this ultimate goal for so long that by the time I finally realized it was futile, I could barely see beyond the walls of the passage I had dug for myself.

When I realized that I was never going to be a prima ballerina, I stopped thinking of myself as a dancer. In my mind, there was only one way to dance, only one path, and I had failed. So I continued to take technique class with a waning interest: I found my mind wandering, my time taken up by other pursuits. For a long time I berated myself: why had I given up? Dance was something that I had always wanted to do, since the first time I can remember. Yet I no longer wanted to dance in the only way I knew of. My tights and leotard had lost their romance, and the studio with its barres and mirrors had lost its appeal. I did not look the way I had always thought a dancer should--I did not eat, act, or think like a professional ballerina. So my conclusion was that I must just not be cut out for it. I should take some time off, find a hobby, pursue some other interest. Dance was no longer what I was meant to do.

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It was a good few years before I realized that, in a moment of doubt and confusion, I had mistaken discipline for passion and single-mindedness for dedication. It is true that a career in dance requires all of the above. But in looking for the source of my dying interest in dance, I took a far too narrow-minded approach. It was not dance itself, but the way I was experiencing it that was wrong. That negative experience was rooted in my own insecurities, and by no means attributable to any one teacher or approach. It took a change of scenery, and a change of self, to remind me that what I really love is movement--the inspired, uninhibited, release of our tension into a beautiful form created by the physical body. For the longest time, ballet was the only manifestation of movement I gave any credibility to, and hence, when my relationship with ballet took a blow, I took it as a mortal wound to my love of dance.

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It is true that my love of ballet began as a love of movement, and remained that way for many years. I still cherish the many moments of discovery associated with my first time dancing on pointe, my first time executing 16 foeutte turns, my many times performing on stage, but as the years went by, these moments began fewer and farther between. Increasingly, dance became a source of more worry and frustration than joie de vivre.

When I was young, the worries came in the form of seemingly innocuous queries. "How much do you weigh?" isn't a big deal before puberty hits. But it gradually came to have more meaning and as my body grew and changed without my consent, I felt an increasing sense of betrayal. Other girls were naturally endowed with amazing flexibility and perfect turnout, while my already poor turnout became practically negligible. I felt a sneaking sense of bitterness and jealousy towards those who took their physical capabilities for granted, while I, who had worked so hard, had little to show as the result of my enthusiasm. I often thought that I would trade anything for a body suited to my passion; it seemed some sort of cruel trick that I had been given so much faulty machinery when my mind was ready and eager to start moving.

Of course, every so often, I have to take a deep breath, step back, and remind myself of what I have. I'm not overweight, my body is whole and healthy, and I'm much better off than some people when it comes to physical capacity. But of course, this was always easier to say to myself than to believe. The mirror at the other end of the studio always stood there, mocking me. I've always been my own toughest critic, but it got to the point where I was not condemning my performance of the steps, but my inability to perform, my body's constant refusal to live up to the ideal image I had cultivated for it.

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Making peace with ballet therefore involved making peace with my body, something that it's difficult for someone at any stage of life to achieve. But I gradually came to realize that the steady stream of negative self-commentary wasn't getting me anywhere. Unable to see past the mirror--the ultimate source of my torment, or so it seemed, I convinced myself that dance and I weren't meant to be. It was just a hobby, I told myself. I would find another passion. Eventually.

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When I came to college, I wasn't necessarily planning to continue dance. I thought I might go into the studio on my own every now and then, but it might be good for me to take some time off, consider my options. During my first semester, I was enrolled in a non-movement arts course with the modern dance teacher. On a whim, one day I pulled her aside to ask if we could meet some time and discuss how I could get more involved in dance on campus. Even though I had acknowledged the negative pull ballet had on my life, I also still found myself incapable of conceiving a life without it; I knew I would continue dance in the long run, but I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that it would be as a hobby, not as a career.

My professor was very open to my query, and proved to be more than helpful; she was inspiring. She directed me to some key members of the dance community on campus, and suggested that I look into taking classes at a nearby dance studio. Gratefully, I accepted her suggestions and, after some prodding from a fellow ballet dancer, signed up for a weekly ballet class. I was relieved; maybe dance wasn't going to drop out of my life after all. I admitted to myself that I had never wanted to give it up in the first place; I had just felt that that might be the best decision to spare myself more future disappointments.

That conversation proved a turning point for me. The classes I enrolled in were beneficial and challenging, but not anything special; I still felt out of place in comparison to the rest of the students, who all stood in a neat row with perfectly turned out fifth positions. But there were a few moments that gave me hope. The teacher complimented my penche, even though my leg barely made it past 90 degrees, and told everyone in the class to watch my grand allegro. I was surprised, and bemused by the attention--it gave me hope, but I also reminded myself that prowess at one or two steps was nothing to write home about; it wouldn't make up for my overall inability to keep up.

I made some very important personal connections that first semester, however, that helped to strengthen my course and to awaken some spark of understanding. One friend, who had just begun dancing, showed so much dedication and growing prowess that I was drawn back into that time when all I wanted was to be the best dancer I could be, and when the act of movement itself was a source of joy. I ended up choreographing a duet with her for the dance concert at the end of the semester, and the experience of working with someone else was truly magical. I felt a love of movement slowly emerging, even as ballet continued to fade into the background.

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My second semester, I enrolled in a course called "Imagination in Motion," in which we explored movement both with and without form. It was a completely different approach from anything I had experienced before; the goal was to discover our natural style of movement and also to explore and expand our own boundaries. There was no judgement, only support. I was one of only two experienced dancers in the class, yet I was on a level plain with all of my classmates. Together, we all experienced the awakening of awareness about ourselves and the people around us. We discussed movement not only as a stylized art form, as I had always seen it, but as a part of daily life. As I became more conscious of the way I move, as well as the way others move around me, I became better able to control my movement, and to use improvisation not only as a formless manner of experimentation and stress-relief, but as an active, productive approach to discovery. 


What I found was that I still love dance as much as I ever did--in fact, if anything, my love has been strengthened. I won't pretend that I've released my inhibitions or suspended self judgement. But I am much more open to the possibilities. I think that I can have a better relationship with dance in the future because I now come upon it open to all that it has to offer. The other trained dancer in my class, who also happened to be the only dance major at my school, proved a source of much inspiration. At first, I had pinned her as just another one of the impeccable ballerinas, setting up a ridiculous standard that I could only envy from afar. But I got the chance to dance and choreograph alongside her, and we both had much to learn from one another. I was surprised to learn that she had only begun dancing again, after a long break, a few years ago, when she first came to college. And she, too, underwent a process of discovery of the sort I have only just begun. 


What has shifted is my understanding. I now realize that dance was always my passion, and I had just limited myself by zeroing in on only one future possibility. Dance, which is an essentially truthful art form, has offered me an escape from the grind of daily life and academics, and an outlet for emotional quandaries. It has come to be much more than a series of steps, repeated and drilled into the memory. 


~


Recently, I have even taken to telling people that I am a dance major. I'm not yet sure if it's true or not. Dance may not be something I want to pursue in an academic light--it may not even be something that I want as a career. But I know for certain that there are few things from which I draw more fulfillment or satisfaction, there are few pursuits which make me as eager to keep going. Choreography has been the means of many personal discoveries for me, but I also know that I want to help others unlock the dancer inside themselves, and recognize that movement and dance are one in the same. 


My most important discovery:
 There is more than one way to be a dancer. We are all movers and shakers, in our own way.