Rediscovering my love for dancing

BARRE TALES IS A COMPILATION OF SHORT STORIES. THESE STORIES TELL THE TALE OF HOW OUR ADULT STUDENTS FOUND THEIR WAY TO THE BARRE AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THEM TO KEEP EXPLORING THIS WONDERFUL MOVEMENT PRACTICE.

The highest point of my dancing career was when I was in high school. It was not a professional career by any means, but I was constantly rehearsing for performances and preparing for exams and auditions. During this time, I was learning techniques not for the joy of being able to do them. Instead, I learned them to keep up with my peers, to go over the standard for exams, to get past the audition.

I love dancing—otherwise I would never have stayed night after night and weekend after weekend at the studio—but it had become very clinical. Nail that double pirouette, because the choreography had double pirouettes. Get your leg at 90º, because everyone else had their legs that high and we need to look the same. Insert feeling and texture to your dancing, because then you will stand out at auditions.

This is not to say that those things are bad; sometimes, we do need to learn techniques because the choreography demands it of us, we do need group dances to be cohesive, and we want to stand out at auditions. The problem was that I was dancing only for these.

When I went to university, I was fully prepared to stop dancing. That was the usual narrative, right? Unless you are looking to pursue dance professionally, you stop dancing when you get to university. I don't know where this cliche came from, but for me, it was a combination of being away from my old studio and the new limitations on my time that caused me to stop dancing for a year. I still took classes every now and then, but all of them felt hollow, almost like a battered car coming to the shop for yearly maintenance.

The pandemic was terrible for a host of things, but it was a blessing for my dancing.

I went back home, and in the midst of figuring out how to do my university classes online, I went back to my old dance studio and to my old routine of three classes a week. Only this time, I had no performances to rehearse for, no exams to do, and no auditions to prepare for. Instead, I learned how best to position my laptop so that my terrible webcam can best capture my dancing, how to fit the combinations in the tiny floor space between my bed and closet, and, best of all, between the fear and stress and uncertainty of living in pandemic-times, I relearned how to take the joy in dancing.

The pandemic forced me to rethink why I want to dance. It would have been so easy to just… not do class. No one was expecting me to do it. I had so much more reason to not take dance classes than I had to take them. And yet, in the scariest period within my lifetime, I turned to find my sanctuary in dance.

Now that we’re coming back to normal, I am thankful that my reignited love for dance remains. I get to take classes in the studio, I get to actually interact with the teacher, I have this wonderful community of people dancing together (especially here at The Fifth!), and, most of all, I really, truly, fully appreciates the freedom and excitement and joy of dancing.

I dance for the joy of dancing, not to prepare for performances, exams, or auditions. Those are extra. I dance to feel my body move; I dance to try and fail and laugh as I try new techniques; I dance to find an oasis of calm within the bustle of the world. But, most importantly, I dance because I love dancing. Nothing more. Nothing less.