Why do people dance? Oh geez. Asking me this question is like asking me "why do people breathe?" and expecting an answer other than "because they just do." When people ask me why I dance I have no other answer other than- I have to. It is as much a part of me as breathing. I couldn't not dance if I wanted to.
When I look back on my life, I remember being two years old and trying to follow my older sister into her dance class. Because I was so young, my teacher would take me into the back hallway before I was able to sign up for classes, and she would ask me to do simple things. I still remember to this day her asking me to do grands battements. And I would do them, in my little shiny white Keds. To me dance is something I do when I'm deliriously happy, devastatingly sad, or feeling like I need something to pick me up. I cry when I dance, I laugh, I get frustrated and I feel invigorated. Dance is so much a part of me that I couldn't imagine not being a dancer. I always knew that I wanted to be a dancer. In my first ballet class (I was three when I started taking) my teacher would give us time at the end of the class to dance out whatever we wanted to be. Most little girls wanted to be butterflies or princesses. And my answer every single time was that I wanted to be a ballet dancer.
Last year I took an improvisation class and in a discussion that we had during this class, my teacher asked us why people dance, and why do we identify ourselves as dancers before humans when we were humans first. And as I thought about it I realized that I was only a human for two years longer than I've been a dancer.
I have to dance.
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