Dancing Rain

From the young age of four, I was a dancer. It was a positive life choice for me in that “art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” [i] I began taking only ballet classes. Soon afterwards I tried tap, jazz, and modern and eventually settled on ballet and jazz only. I suppose the reason I began dance at all was because my mother took ballet until she was about twelve years old, old enough to begin en pointe which is every little ballerina’s dream. Once a girl reaches a certain level of body development and muscle strength, she graduates from soft, leather slippers into beautiful satin shoes with hard fabric tips. The hard tips allow the dancer to rise up onto the tips of the toes for an added degree of difficulty and longer, graceful lines of the legs.

A Dancer En Pointe 1[ii]

Pointe shoes are beautiful and lace up to the ankle as shown, but as rumored, can cause some discomfort in the toes, ankles, legs, and as a result, metaphorically the head. The blisters, blood, and loss of toenails were worth it in the end when I could pirouette (turn) and jeté (leap) with perfection and ease.

Over the next eighteen years of my life, dance became a place of passion for me; a place that I have “seen, heard, smelled, imagined, loved, hated, feared, revered, enjoyed, or avoided” over and over. [iii] I never felt so-so during a dance class or performance. My feelings were strong whether good or bad. There were numerous days I wanted to quit and never return to dance because of the pain, frustration, and time commitment. My dance instructors could be ruthless with their corrections and thus added to my aggravation. I could quickly remind myself, though, that dance set me free mentally, fine-tuned my body, and eased my soul. The opposite of love is said to be indifference, and I was certainly never indifferent about dancing.

One teacher in particular kept me motivated, and her name was Suzette. I had her when I was young, so “Miss Suzette” was my favorite ballet teacher. Unlike the other teachers, she paid attention to all of the girls in the class and offered advice equally. She could also let her rage fly. I would wonder why she would become angry when the students did not catch on to a combination until one day I finally understood her irritation. She danced professionally for ten years with the New York City Ballet while she was in her teens and twenties and could no longer execute the steps due to her aging body. There we were; young, full of potential, without injuries, and wanting to leave rehearsal early. I looked at her face for the passion to finish class on hard days.

Dance began to permeate all aspects of my life. The name of my composition, Dancing Rain, was the name I chose for my “Indian Princess” name, a father-daughter program put on by the YMCA for campouts and activities. Other girls in my tribe chose names like Tiger Lilly but that had no meaning to me. I began to care passionately about which flowery ballet skirt to wear to class or how to do my bun better than the other girls. These are pretty serious issues for a second grader.

I got very serious about ballet when I was strong enough to dance en pointe. Even earlier in my ballet career, at the age of eight, I remember trying extra hard in class so that I could move into the next class level. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I danced for at least twenty-five hours a week, more if we had rehearsals. I would come home from school around two pm, work on homework, then go to a ballet class, then to another class which could be ballet, jazz, or a rehearsal. Class and rehearsal lasted until nine or ten o’clock, six days a week. I was exhausted each night.

Dancing just felt so good and satisfying. For me, dance “is a sense of touch that means not just contact with the fingers or the skin but an entire perceptual system conveying sensations of pressure, temperature, pain, and the sense of movement within the body as well as the body moving through space.” [iv] It allows me to “literally feel the world in [my] bones.” [v] I could sense the space around me or fill the space with the happenings of my world for that day. Suzette would tell us to leave our worries at the door, but sometimes I could work them out during class in a healthy, therapeutic way.

Most people did not understand why someone would willingly go to dance classes for that long and on Saturday mornings each week. I would tell them about my desire to be in the ballet company at my ballet school. Ever since I was small, I wanted to be in the large dance studio with the big girls wearing the real ballet tutus and shiny shoes. It was an especially important goal for me after having taken two years off during my family’s move to Australia. The ballet schools and system were so different to what I was accustomed to that I decided to take a brief hiatus. However, it did not matter what these skeptics wanted to know because most of my friends from school were also ballerinas at my ballet school. Dancing felt like playtime or social hour for me. Although I was working towards a goal, the day-to-day experience of it all was rewarding enough. “Not the fruit of the experience, but experience itself, is the end,” so by simply being in class, I felt achievement. [vi] My friends and I supported one another through ballet rehearsals and stressful times at school.

Despite the large amount of time I spent dancing each day, I was able to maintain decent grades in school. I believe this was a result of combining left and right brained activities in the process of dance. Simultaneously I would use “words to name, describe, define” the steps I was doing, but as soon as I began them, I simply had an “awareness of things, but minimal connection with words.” [vii] I experienced the same phenomenon while combining schoolwork, music lessons, and ballet at an earlier age. These various activities seemed to awaken my whole brain and allow the sections to work in unison. This same phenomenon occurs for me while listening to classical music and crafting an English paper.

My learning style is defined as “feeling” which I believe contributed to my success in the ballet studio. Ballet does consist of a prescribed technique and precise movements, but without passion it appears robotic. A dancer must interpret the steps with the music and make it her own.

As a junior in high school, I was at my peak. I had been cast in the ballet company’s production of The Nutcracker which had been my dream of dreams. It felt as good as I had ever imagined. My friends from school came to see me and brought me flowers.

My friends and me after the performance 1[viii]

I felt incredibly proud of myself and truly began to believe that if you put your mind to something you can do it. This dedication and discipline that I learned during high school by doing ballet has really shaped who I am as a person. I realized this especially when my aunt congratulated me on my accomplishments as well. She sent me a card and a cookie-on-a-stick to congratulate me and thank me for the positive example that I set for my younger cousin, Grace Anne. I had not realized anyone was watching or admiring me from the outside until then.

My cousin, Grace Anne 1[ix]

She said she admired my dedication and discipline, especially in high school when a lot of kids did not have direction or concentration on their school work. I was doing both and managing to stay out of trouble because I really did not have any extra time to get into it. She considered me a leader. I can still sense admiration from my aunt and cousin several years later. Both of them consult me as Grace Anne enters into stages of life that I have already experienced.

I knew that I was considered a leader at my ballet studio when we signed the company’s contract. We had to follow a strict dress code (black leotard, pink tights), we could not be seen with boys near the studio, and we had to attend all scheduled classes and rehearsals no matter what, along with numerous other requirements. These rules were set so that the younger girls who aspired to be real ballerinas would see the older girls acting like professionals. We were the leaders of the dance school, blazing the path for the standard of decorum and performance.

I danced intensively through the end of high school and even applied to the University of Texas as a dance major in the College of Fine Arts. I quickly determined that I needed another type of major to get a decent-paying job because I could not be a professional. I have many friends who are trying to make it in the dance world who had better skills than me and more ballerina-like bodies. These girls are still struggling to make it, so I feel confident in my choice.

After this decision I did not think I would dance again especially as my flexibility began to disappear along with my leotard physique. Now, as a senior in college, I am taking Ballet I for Non-Majors. It is a twice per week class for beginners and I love it! I was worried that my body would not remember how to move, but “the immediacy of [my] response arises from our most fundamental understanding of a place; it is understanding that is holistic in character and usually quite instantaneous.”[x] I felt right back at home as soon as I set foot in the ballet studio.

The class combines my love of dancing with little pressure to be rail-thin or perfect with the execution of the steps. It is so satisfying to once again move my body to the music with ballet steps. I know that I will not ever dance to the level that I had achieved previously, but I can now enjoy it in another form in this stage of my life.

A requirement for the ballet course is attending two dance performances during the semester. I am very excited about these because even though I cannot execute the dances that I will see, I can still enjoy them and remember doing them myself. This aspect of having devoted so much time to dance will always pay off. I can always enjoy the visual art of dance, even until I am a little old lady. Because of this, I believe that “visual arts enjoys its own set of rules and structures.” [xi]

Although my dancer friends and I have spread across the country to pursue our individual interests, we will always have that common bond. I quickly feel connected to any dancer that I meet through our common interest and a special camaraderie. Ballet is no easy feat but most people do not realize this fact unless they are a dancer also. I will always be a dancer even if I am no longer a performer. Every time I hear The Waltz of the Sugar Plum Fairy, I am taken back to my “place” in dance.

Word Count: 1,957 with quotes and captions

-160= 1,797 Total (370 words added)