A Pointe to Perfection

The first experience of watching a ballet, for me or any little girl, can be fascinating and exhilarating. Wondering how a dancer can be so steady on her toes as she spins in circles and leaps through the air. Watching a ballet, there is a feeling of wanting to be graceful, as well as the warm sensation felt by a little girl as she slips into dream land. My mom had taken me to my first ballet when I was 11 years old. When we returned home home, she signed me up for classes at the local dance center. The expectations to become a prima ballerina would involve much hard work and concentration. I knew when I started it would take years of steady practice and commitment. Learning the history of ballet and the famous

My whole life has been of dirty mirrors, old ballet shoes, and ripped tights. I was 5 years old and a beginner at a dance academy. I didn’t quite know what dance was when I got in, I thought it was just a place to spend time in and just enjoy the music they played. Over the years I learned that dance is way more than just a hobby or a place to go when you are bored. It is art, you are the one making art. Your feelings are the story to your dance, and your moves are the music. People will see your pain or happiness through these ways. Dance is not just a hobby, it’s an art, it’s something that you don’t actually have to throw music at when the steps and feelings you add are the music to your dance.

At 6 years old, I fell in love with ballet. I remember when I walked into my dance class on a Monday evening and we had the older dancers visiting us. They were amazing to me. They had brought their pointe shoes and presented to the class what a ballerina looked like. I was mesmerized by how beautiful and graceful they looked dancing up on their toes and spinning across the room. I clapped along with the rest of the little girls. We all attempted to do the dance moves that the older girls had done but we didn't do very well. I remember the older girls giggling and smiling about how adorable we were and how cute we looked clumsily dancing ballet. I went home after class and explained to my mom, with my voice full of hope and wonder,

Striving for perfection is something that would better improve our society and really change the way we see what society is because everyone would be making an effort to really strive for the ideal world of flawlessness. Just the mere idea of getting closer to perfection is something that makes us attempt to be more perfect. In the article, “Cheaters Never Win,” Christopher Bergland, a Guinness World Record holding athlete says that, ¨yes, you want to be your absolute best and to try our hardest to win and to be thrilled if you are victorious” (Bergland 7). Bergland is trying to inform his readers that our society would be a better place because everyone is trying their best to succeed and in this case, be their most perfect self. In order for the society to reach perfection, everyone should be trying their very best in order to strive for perfection. We should all be putting forth all our effort we have in order to get just a little bit closer to the idea of perfection and flawlessness. Society would improve for the better if all individuals strived for the world of perfection because every single person would give all that they’ve got in order to make this world just a little bit more perfect. This quote from Bergland is saying that we all need to try our hardest to strive for flawlessness and that we should be thrilled if we do achieve this goal. Trying our best from the start just makes us closer to reaching perfection which allows us to have the driven passion to be

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it so my mother allowed me to quit. Then a few years later when I was in fourth grade I saw that my elementary school had a dance team/drill team and it looked like tons of fun. I then realized that dance seemed like a hobby that I would enjoy. So my mother let me tryout as long as I promised not to quit. Of course I made her that and I auditioned for the next dance season and made it. I was extremely shocked that I had been asked to join the team seeing as I had no previous dance experience. Now ever since that moment dance has been more than just a hobby for me. I continued to dance through the rest of elementary school. However I did discontinue when I reached middle school due to my mother getting divorced and my family and I moving to a different town. I did try tumbling and cheer for a while, but it wasn’t befitting. I recognized I did not have a connection to tumbling and cheer like I did with dance, and that’s when I realized dance was my passion. After I came to this realization I auditioned for my high school dance team and this was the point in my dance career where I became extremely involved and also when I began to take it more seriously. I began to take it more seriously because at this point in my life I was out of shape and my body was not built to be a dancer. This was because during the time my mother had gotten divorced it was a difficult transition and I

I was a dancer for fourteen years, beginning at the age of four and ending at the age of 18. I participated in basically every type of dance including ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, modern, lyrical, and contemporary. Each year, I would participate in more classes than the last, and it eventually got to the point where I would be attending dance classes five or six days of my week. It definitely got tiring, but I still loved it. Dance is a great way to be able to portray emotions through movement, and I think that is very unique and special to participate in. It was a very huge part of my life, and so were the people teaching me. Dance and everything that came with it was a huge influence on my life, and it helped shaped me into the person I am today.

At the age of four my mother enrolled me in my first dance class. I dread going for many years; however, whenever I complained, she would say “you will thank me later” and mercilessly dragged me off to class. Fortunately, at about nine years old, my mother’s prophecy came to pass when suddenly I fell in love with what would become a passion. Dance began invoking feelings of strength, comfort and empowerment. Imagine, feeling the smooth and polish surface of a studio floor as it supports the movement necessary to strengthen and form a graceful tempo. Somehow, like a

I was born in a seaside city where people enjoy the first ray of sunlight of a day. Running and playing on the beach is my favorite routine of my childhood life, and all my friends said that I was good at “dancing.” Frankly, I did not know what dancing was at that moment, but every time I moved my body that made me satisfied to see how it could move and make all those beautiful curves. Noticed that, my parents sent me to an after-school dance class to study when I was five, and I kept studying for seven years during which I got to be more attracted to this form of movements. In 2005, when I was twelve, I started my professional dance study in a local technical secondary school. Then，I realize that “dancing” could be my future and my life.

important to me. It breeds both discipline and creativity. There is a never ending well of knowledge that can be accumulated within the wall of a dance studio. It is extremely easy to lose yourself in dance, I truly have an unconditional love for it. I am strong and I am confident because if dance. I feel inspired and I feel loved because of dance. All positive traits in myself, I can relate back to dance. Dance has continued to engage me for almost fifteen years because it is my saving grace in life. I am eternally grateful to this lifestyle and art that both I have created and has created

Before I began formal training in classical dance I was performing vocalist and actor. As a performing artist, I had already gained a deep appreciation for dance, leading me to take a ballet class. When I first began, ballet was just an extension of my performing resume, something I did only to so I would be a more castable actor. Nevertheless, I soon after I began dancing it became my focus and I began the normal daily training schedule of Pre-Professional student. Throughout my career, it was the art of dance that inspired me. Although important, my technique was just a tool and my body was just the canvas.

I was only a toddler when I first saw Irish Dance, but even then I knew I wanted to be an Irish Dancer. This was an odd choice for mainstream American culture pressures young girls to practice ballet, for all other dance forms are seen as either irrelevant, or as the support for a different art form. Irish Dance is only reverent year round in Irish Catholic communities of which I am not a part. Therefore, it took time to convince my family to drive to a southern suburb for my dance lessons. At first, I tried to make myself a dancer, but it became rather clear, to those who saw my dancing, that I needed lessons. Thus, before my second year of preschool, I began training.

Taking this non-dancing lifestyle in a pretty harsh way, I decided that my back and my pain was not going to stop me. I joined my school’s theatre program. Along with musicals, comes dancing. Oh but this dancing is much different. Now, with the realization that I could actually participate in dancing and

“I am a dancer. I don’t dance because I want to. I dance because I need to. I tell a story by the movements of my body. I dance because I get this amazing feeling through the movement of my arms and the rhythm of the music. I dance because it makes me happy. I am an artist an athlete and a dreamer. I am a dancer” – Unknown. Ballet is my way of destressing and getting out of the world, it’s a way for me to be myself without having to use words. Ballet to me is so much more than a hobby, it’s a lifestyle, a creative outlet. I can’t describe how important it is too me, all I can say is that I love it. In my opinion, Ballet would have to be my favorite hobby. I get to perform on stage, meet lots of people/make new friends, and it keeps me healthy and in shape.

To begin with, people usually start ballet at a young age such as 5. However, I started when I was 12. My inspiration was Misty Copeland, the first dark skinned dancer that became the ABT’s soloist which also got in ballet at the age of 12. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed about dancing but I couldn’t afford lessons. 6 months after I finally got in, I was promoted to the most advanced group. They say I was born with talent and now, I stand doing endless turns and jumps, performing my heart out during solos. Ballet has made me not only and expressive person throughout dance, but only a hard worker because after working hard, I got to be this high and now I apply this for school and everything I do.

The day I chose to take dance my freshman year was the best choice I could have ever made. I knew that I was a decent dancer, but I was so insecure and unaware of what I could do. As I transitioned to dance two, I was so afraid. Afraid that I wasn't good enough, that I wouldn't be able to grasp the choreography quick enough, that I wouldn't