I often wonder when exactly I stopped being a dancer.
Was it when I stopped competing? Was it when I decided to be a dance minor in college instead of a major? Was it when my dance class attendance dipped during my first-year post-graduate due to the cost?
The funny thing is, I never stopped dancing at any of these stages. I have not stopped dancing since my first ballet class when I was eight years old.
So, I guess the question is — when did I stop feeling like a dancer?
My dance journey started, like many, in a studio. This laid the foundation not only for my training but also for my overall work ethic and character. My studio was my social capital where I had some of the best and worst times of my life. At 24, I mostly think about the best times.
Every year was divided into seasons. I auditioned for competition groups in the summer and fall and learned my choreography for competition season. In the winter and spring, I competed and attended conventions where I danced on concrete floors of hotel conference rooms in hopes of standing out in a sea of hundreds of other kids. In the early summer, I either attended a national competition, an intensive summer or I took a break. However, that last option was unheard of unless I was dealing with an injury.
This was my life from fifth to 12th grade, except for my third year of high school when I tore my achilles. While there is so much to critique about dance, from the exorbitant cost to Eurocentrism to toxic body ideals, I can say it added more to my life than it ever took away. I am so grateful to have been trained in this art form from a young age.I only wish I would’ve known sooner about the huge privilege of being able to call myself a dancer without a moment’s hesitation.
Early rifts
To be the best, you have to give everything. This principle is preached in any physical or intellectual endeavor. And we all have different things that impede “giving everything.” For me, that was school.
Even before high school, I made a habit. I stayed up late and woke up early to finish my homework. Since I had dance right after school at 4 p.m. every day, I never dropped my backpack on the kitchen table and knocked out my assignments before dinner was ready.
My after-school routine looked different. I ran in the front door, threw on my ballet clothes and packed my dance bag with the rest of the outfits I’d need for the day, which were suitable for hip-hop, jazz or contemporary. I grabbed a snack to go back out to the car before making it to dance by the skin of my teeth.
High school only made things worse, as it typically does and it was during those years that the serious arguments about dance began.
“Are you going to take advanced placement classes or do two solos? Are you going to join a club at school and compromise dance hours but make friends? Are you going to skip school on Friday to go to that one extra class at the convention,” I was asked.
I then asked myself what was more important — dance or school?
My mom, dad, dance teachers and school teachers all had different opinions. But like the absolute people-pleaser I was, I tried to do everything.
I brought my homework to dance and studied between breaks. I brokered a deal with the cheer coach to let me learn our routines from recordings when I missed practice due to dance. I took tests early when I skipped school for a competition.
One non-negotiable thing, though, was my attending college. My parents made it their life goal to make sure my brother and I could go to school, so I never considered not going.
I also loved school. I always had and that’s part of the reason I refused to compromise it for dance. It took a while to figure out what exactly I wanted to study, but I knew I wanted to write. I ended up pursuing degrees in journalism and Spanish when I attended Loyola Marymount University in 2018. I chose dance as my minor.
But even before all that happened, I saw the beginning of the end at 15 years old.
Who gets to be a real dancer?
I can’t say the studio I frequented discouraged us from taking school seriously, but I also can’t deny they made it terribly easy to be a serious student.
This is less a statement about my studio than it is of dance culture in general. Growing up, I’d often liken my dance life to what was depicted in the Lifetime reality show “Dance Moms” so that non-dancers would get the idea. More than one person responded with, “But those kids don’t seem to go to school?” That was a key part of the comparison.
In any case, college was not a popular topic at dance. And the dancers who had long graduated from our studio but whose careers we’d follow obsessively were the ones who’d followed a common dance trajectory. This consisted of moving to Los Angeles after high school and going to auditions until you land a spot with a company, a touring artist or you book things like music videos, in commercial dance. This is still a viable avenue for dancers.
Other respectable pathways include teaching and/or choreographing. This could be at a studio or a touring convention.
New options have also emerged through social media. Particularly on Instagram and TikTok, dancers can promote themselves through rehearsal footage, studio footage or even clips of them dancing in their homes. Many dancers sustain themselves and make work specifically for social media.
One can also still be seen as a “real dancer” if they go to college for dance. That is only if it’s chosen as your major. Of course, this gets even more granular when looking at which college you study at. Deference is given to those who make it into places like Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, USC’s Glorya Kaufman or NYU Tisch.
But, majoring in dance is critical. During my undergraduate experience, there were multiple times I felt less than the majors. The most memorable time was when I was cast in three shows for a fall showcase. I heard one dance major argue that I shouldn’t be allowed to perform, given my minor status. Even when I took the stage that fall, I felt like an imposter.
In this way, “real dancers” are qualified through professional, ongoing experience or education. Even if dance doesn’t end up accounting for their entire income, which it doesn’t for most, a real dancer can still be someone with a part-time job or a nine-to-five as long as they’re dancing.
More important than the dancing itself, though, may very well be showing it on social media. This is no criticism of that system. There’s no reason why social media can’t be a platform for artists’ work, especially artists who are trying to be seen and I’m in favor of decentralizing art.
But this implicit system also means that someone like me, who doesn’t post professional rehearsal footage, doesn’t know if they can call themselves dancers anymore.
Am I a real dancer?
There are many moments I think about when unraveling the question of “Am I a real dancer?” From the end of high school to where I am now, 24 years old and in graduate school, so many things have chipped away at the identity I’d grown up with. Now I think twice, or fully forget, to tell people I dance.
Which is curious because I dance every week. And not just for exercise. I dance to stop thinking and let my body capture music. I do it to be quiet and listen to my breath. I do it because it is a language I am fluent in and sometimes speak better than words.
There is a comfort in a dance studio that I cannot access with my closest friends or in my best dreams. Even if I don’t know anyone else in the room, dance is my peace and guides me to a place where I can finally have clarity.
These are things I can never be without. And I don’t mind that I’m not getting paid to do it or that I pay for it. I accept that I may never be paid for dance and, therefore, fit the criteria to be seen as a dancer in the eyes of most.
I also accept that the decisive factor in this question may be my insecurities — maybe the person holding me back from calling myself a dancer is me.
Maybe there isn’t anything that sets my current self apart from my younger self. I think back to the eight-year-old me whose favorite days of the week were the ones where she’d get to wear leg warmers and bows in her hair. She got to laugh with her best friends while she stretched and chatted with the receptionist after class.
Maybe all it takes to be a dancer is to feel that you belong. Whether in a professional or personal capacity, I think it should all count the same.