My Experience : My Dance Experience

As a youth, I engaged in many forms of dance expression. I studied tap, jazz, and ballet for fifteen years. During these formative years, I choose to forgo many youth experiences so that I could participate in advance dance programs. The hard work paid off when I received a college scholarship to a performing arts

When I was four years old I was introduced to a tall, petite, beautiful ballerina who spun around the room with elegance, and effortlessly captured the crowd with her stunning abilities. As a little girl, I sparkled with admiration and was inspired to be all she was, it was from that point on, that I ventured into an unknown world of art, strength and expression. Now being eighteen years old with about fourteen years of experience in the dance world, I have learned and developed the norms, values and practices of the culture, and the conflicting theory within it.

I have been dancing since the age of two. When asked about my career aspirations, there is no hesitation before saying “I want to be a dancer.” Being a dancer means putting all other distractions aside, and focusing on my craft. Currently, I dedicate over forty hours a week to dance, which is a schedule that requires sacrifice. When I am dancing, the rest of the world fades away, slipping out of my mind with relaxed importance. For that moment in time, I am completely free, wholly focused on my goals, letting me know dance is what I’m meant to do. With this realization comes a responsibility to myself and the work I have put into improving my craft thus far, and I know I must seek out the best opportunities for growth and continued learning.

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.

I am still that little girl who felt freedom as she danced along the floor. I am that little girl who never gave up on herself even if I wanted to do so a billion times. I am that girl who never stopped believing in herself, yet many people told her to stop. I grew, and thanks to “Dance” I survived. I became a strong independent women. Now, I am close to ending my last season in dance as a high school student. One more year and it will all be over, and all that hard work will be worth it when I walk out of that stage on graduation day, and say “I did it , I passed through the pain that stopped me from living, from achieving”. I am now proud of the girl I am today, and no matter what happens next I will always feel love for that dancer and the person I now

From kindergarten until high school, I was a member of the Jean Wolfmeyer School of Dance. Up to 5 days per week, I would be at the dance studio taking classes, rehearsing for shows, and helping out in the less advanced classes. Regardless of skill level, Jean never hesitated to speak the brutally honest truth about students’ performances and she never settled for anything less than perfection. Jean would often preach that she is only the instruction manual and she cannot make us good dancers, we had to do that for ourselves. However, it was not her critique or teaching alone that motivated dancers to perform well, it was her relentless work ethic and commitment to her studio. As a 70 year-old women, Jean held classes as much as 7 days per

Of all the values that dancing instilled within me, I believe I learned the greatest lesson when I forfeited my first love. In my mind, I rationalized that school’s importance outweighed my devotion to dance. In my eighth grade year, my studio encouraged me to join their dance company, while my school implemented an academic plan for me that met my educational needs, which included placing me in ninth grade honors courses. Faced with the truth of the difficulty of balancing schoolwork with a demanding practice schedule, I reluctantly withdrew from my dance

I had just moved to Washington state and I auditioned for the local dance studio’s competition team for fun. I had no idea how talented they were. And I was just an untrained recreational dancer…Not surprisingly, I didn’t earn a coveted spot on the team it the first time I auditioned. That didn’t stop me from training seriously and auditioning for the team each year until I made it. And here I stand, now starting on my sixth year on the team and as one of the last people from my original team who decided not to quit when they started high school. Dance isn’t just twirling around in pretty pink tutus. What the general population doesn’t picture when they think of dance is the tremendous amount of strenuous work and the blood and sweat and tears that goes into every performance and competition. Certain dancers can’t handle it and quit when they realize they don’t have the passion. My passion keeps me living and breathing and most importantly, dancing, when times get

Dancing is the movement of one’s body in a rhythmic way. The art of dancing is performed by skillful dancers who can turn the movements into something expressive. Many have said that dancing is not a sport; some say it in a positive way and some in a negative way. Most dancers argue that dancing is a sport. The positive people would say dancing is not a sport because it is art; however, the negative people claim that dancing is not a sport because it does not involve physical contact like football, or the blood, sweat, and tears in the hot sun like other outside sports.

Jaspreana Tobias, a young girl born in the vibrant city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was a child who had grew up around music and rhythm and soul. Born to a family where the last person who was not from New Orleans was born two generations ahead of her, one could assume the rhythm was in her blood. Since she was little and could feel the music, the young Louisianan danced and did so with passion. Though her family loves music and all its counterparts, Jaspreana is the only dancer in the Tobias family tree. In high school, Jaspreana, a determined dancer, tried out for her school’s dance team. Unfortunately she did not make the cut. As any young woman would be, she was disappointed in herself; heart-broken actually. In her mind, she had a great chance at making the team, due to her skillful footwork and elegant grace as a dancer. In her own words, the result of her not making the team was “devastating” as it shook her confidence to the core. On that day, Jaspreana swore she would never try out for another dance team ever again. After months and months of sulking and great disappointment, her love and passion for the art of dancing returned. Not only had it returned, it returned with a new fire which burned deep in her soul. Dancing was her passion and being a professional dancer had been her dream since she could ever even two step to the sound of a simple beat. Jaspreana practiced and practiced. She would dance and think about dancing from the break of dawn until dusk. Finally

The dancers in the earliest ballets were highly skilled professionals capable of feats of strength and agility.

My personal aesthetic in the terms of dance extends far beyond mentioning what I like and what I dislike. It unfolds the layers of my personality, my style, and my past experiences. I tend to think of aesthetics in the form of a jigsaw puzzle. Within a puzzle there are hundreds of important pieces that fit together to make a grand image and each puzzle piece requires a process of development and self-discovery. My aesthetic puzzle pieces include confidence, vulnerability, dynamic, high energy, illusion, and emotional connection. Most of my aesthetic is initiated by personal preference or a significant event in my life, but I will start with the foundation of my dance training first. I was raised in the dance studio where I regularly practiced ballet, jazz, tap, musical theatre, and contemporary. I was blessed to have the opportunity to explore multiple genres of dance at a young age and as a result of this, I began my aesthetic development with a very versatile palette of movements and interpretations.

The dance community that surrounds me has been the most impactful in my life. My mother first signed me up for dance classes when I was only four years old, and now almost fifteen years later I am still dancing. I started out at a dance studio in Gresham, Oregon, where I then danced for ten years. I took classes, performed, and started competing against other dancers and studios around when I was nine years old. It didn’t hit me that I enjoyed performing until I started dancing in more and more shows. Dance was a struggle for many years at this specific studio. There was a lot of moves that I couldn’t do, and I got left behind, as the other dancers my age improved and became more flexible. I felt like I owed the teachers, staff, and other

Dance has been apart of my life ever since I can remember. When I was young, before I officially started my dance training, I was always up on my feet and moving. No matter what hobby I took interest in (whether it was cheerleading, musical theatre, or jump rope), I would always find a way to choreograph little routines a show them to my friends and family. Even when my parents tried to put me in sports, I would do cartwheels and dance on the playing fields, completely oblivious to what was going on during the games. When I look back at how I started my dance training, I just smile and laugh because I was so naïve and unaware that it would become such a huge part of my life. In 5th grade I was put into my first dance class as a hobby. It happened because I watched the Disney Channel movie High School Musical and immediately fell in love with it. I showed the movie to my parents and told them, “This is what I want to do.” At the time I thought I excelled in both signing and acting and that all I needed were dance classes. So in 4th grade I was put into my first dance class and I began to scratch the surface of the basics of dance. What I didn’t know then is that dance would slowly but surely influence my entire life and

My dance studio is where I have learned many life lessons that I would have never learned elsewhere. With the discipline and corrective criticism that all of my dance teachers have thrusted upon me over my past fifteen years of dance experience has shaped me into the dancer and the person I am today. However, with all the difficult practices and many long nights at