So if you dig a little deeper into the early, early years of my blog, you could probably infer that I used to dance. I wouldn’t even say “used” to dance because I still do (more about that in a minute), like, I’m actually at a dance studio right now, waiting for it to be time for class.
But what I mean is that my mom owns a dance company, it’s Chinese traditional dance, which is so different from any other type of dance. I always say that “it’s a cross between ballet and martial arts”, which it is, but there’s more to that. There’s just not a way to describe a style, it’s like trying to describe color. The words that you could use actually don’t describe it at all. And that’s the thing about art, you need it because nothing else will speak for it.
So I grew up doing Chinese traditional dance. My mom says she started me when I was two, which is really crazy because you start remembering things at three, so I don’t remember. I have this one memory in which I had not started dancing yet, but, other than that, I’ve been dancing for as long as I can remember. It’s really just what I did. It was like… it was most integrated into my system than going to school. Cause school started in, you know, preschool or whenever, like I remember my first day of preschool. I was a kid. But I started dance when I was at the earliest stage of toddlerhood.
But it never really was anything to me. I did it because my mom was the director, I was expected to, and all throughout my entire life (even now), people have asked me, “Do you still dance?” And when they say that, of course they’re talking about dancing at my mom’s studio. So yes, I still danced. How could I not?
Honestly, most of the time, I just danced because I didn’t have the heart to make my mom a dance director whose own child quit dance. I didn’t hate dance enough to do that. I tolerated it, I did all the motions, but I just DID them. I didn’t understand that that’s not all. Doing the motions isn’t all that comes with dance. I even hesitate to say that you COULD do the motions fully without the emotional investment. But I’m not a pro, so I’m not sure how much value my opinion holds.
Anyways, it was, what, fifteen or so years of tolerating dance class on Saturday mornings. I think when I was eleven or so, I really started to build a distaste for it, I would dread the moment my dad would walk into my room on Saturday morning and say, “It’s time for dance class, get ready” and I would have to pull on tights…. I despised tights, the way they cling to your legs and feel all restricting. And it was real awkward, wearing tights and a leotard, throughout those middle school years, cause I felt weird about being in really tight clothes. For a couple of years I wore one of those little half jacket things that ties in the front? I don’t even know what to call them, they’re not really an actual clothing item. But I wore them.
(I’m not even sure why I included that. It’s kind of uncomfortable to remember, and more uncomfortable to write about, but it’s honest and I want to be honest. And unafraid. So there’s that.)
I feel like I’m getting nowhere, okay, let me just put this down: at the end of the day, I didn’t like dance.
Until one experience. I know I haven’t talked about this on the blog that much, and it’s because it happened during the void in which I didn’t write on here at all, and that’s because it’s just too much to say. There’s absolutely no way I can just sit down and write EVERYTHING about it. So I think I’m going to just let it come out, with all these stories I tell and all these reflections I have, because it is still very finely and tightly integrated into my life. This said experience was my time in the show ‘The King and I’ at the professional theatre in my city. (Basically, all you need to know is that it’s a really big deal. Lots of people don’t understand what I mean when I talk about it, because they can’t wrap their minds around the fact that I was actually in a professional, Broadway-grade show, and that’s definitely understandable, because I don’t really understand how it happened, either, and I can’t believe it. Still.)
But, yeah. Some of our cast members were from NYC, and… just watching them dance. Watching their rehearsal work ethic, how they would have been dancing for a couple of hours, but they’d repeat things and make changes and never once complained or sat down or took anything less than professionally.
I actually got to understudy our dance captain. She’s doing the show on Broadway now (with most of the NYC members of our cast) but she was dance captain here, which meant she was also swing (she understudies any role, so if any dancer had to step out for a show, she would step in for them and I would step in for her). That was a complete honor, and I’m so glad that I was asked to do that. I never had to actually go on (which was good because I only had one put-in rehearsal where I did the track, and it was so confusing but everyone was being so supportive and helped me through it).
And I didn’t realize it at the time, but watching the NYC dancers really struck something in me. When I went to dance class, I started to work harder. I would do everything the best I could… I’d stretch my splits harder, reach a little further, jump a tad higher…
And it ended up paying off. I began to dance – really dance. It’s different when you put 100% effort into it. You start to get better. Good.
But that happened halfway through my senior year. And I’d almost regret not trying harder earlier on, but, the thing is, I know that I couldn’t have tried harder. It wasn’t in me, and I didn’t know what it meant. There wouldn’t have been a way I could have wholeheartedly given dance my all.
So, waiting here at the dance studio, I watched a little girl run out of her dance class, run to her mom and exclaim, “That was fun, mom! Even at the end!” and her mom led her down the hall as the girl continued to chatter enthusiastically.
That girl wants to dance. And, if she stays with it, if she WANTS to be there the whole time, she’ll be good. When she’s my age, she could be really good.
There’s so much potential in these young dancers.
They still have their futures ahead of them. They can still work so that, when they are young adults, they are fluent in dance and have years of good skill under their feet.
I know I’ve danced for my whole life, but I don’t feel like it. Maybe that’s just because I didn’t ever take up my mom’s offers to put me in ballet, tap, or jazz class. Maybe it’s just that I didn’t try. And I picked it up again, I’m learning those particular styles of dance, because I need to know them, if I want to do musical theatre. I need to be good at them, I intend to be good at them. It’s just that it’ll be harder for me, compared to someone who has really always loved dance.
But that just goes to say that you can’t force art. No matter how long you do it, if your soul isn’t there, it’s coming from the wrong place.
