My Experience Of Dance

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

Two years into the competitive dance world I felt like a machine.I wanted to have my own style,and to be an artist so I left my home-studio and became an independent dancer.Being an independent dancer gave me the opportunity to find my style and who I actually am.While I was finding my own style, simultaneously my personality shifted from close-minded and analytical to optimistic,quirky and outgoing.I found myself hanging out with my friends more,and trying new things, crafting in particular.Exploring the different realms of dance showed me who I genuinely

I started dancing at the young age of two years old. My parents tried to enroll me in many different activities. Such as soccer, play ball, judo, horseback riding, basketball, and more. Yet, there was nothing I loved more than being able to dance and prance through the studio, in my pink bodysuit, tights and shoes, during ballet class.I started as a Mini, then was moved up to junior level, then to intermediate. That’s when my parents starting asking me if this was for sure something I loved to do, because this was the level where the nights started getting later, and the costs increased. Of course, my answer was yes. My love for dance soon greatly grew, I started taking tap, jazz, and then started moving into taking more challenging styles, such as lyrical, and pointe. Dancing makes me happy when I am down, relieved when I am stressed, and I can honestly say that I have made friendships that I will cherish for the rest of my life through dance.

Since I was three years old, dance has been a passion of mine. Throughout elementary school, I tried many other activities, however, I never enjoyed anything as much as I enjoyed dance. In my fourteen years of dancing, I have learned to work with a team and to use constructive criticism in a positive way. Also, I have learned that hard work leads to performance.

I was always so unhappy dancing and I was never sure why I was doing it until I quit. Like I said before I was ten years old when I decided to quit dance. I quit dance because I always thought I was unhappy when really, dance was my passion. I told my parent the reason I quit was so I could focus more on school, involve myself in more extracurricular school day and have to walk into a cold and sweaty dance studio. Although I did not do better academically, I have

I remember the time I started dancing like it was yesterday. I was in 7th grade when I first joined a dance team. Dance became important to my life, due to the fact that when I was younger I would constantly get hurt a lot by being bullied, and also had my parents fight all the time until they reached a point they wanted to get a divorce. I got tired of it , and I started looking for horrible ways to blow away the pain I felt inside, finally I found the appropriate way to do so. Dancing was the perfect way to escape from all the pain that was holding me down. I look back so many times to the day I first did a solo;It felt like the wind was blowing towards my face every pirouette I did. It felt like if I was a bird flying free in the sky. I

Those girls were a division higher than my team; so, as I watched their arms gracefully swing from side to side; their legs kicking into the air in a beautiful battement; and, the nearly flawless transitions, I wondered how much hard work and how many rehearsal hours they put in to achieve those movements with such ease. The spotlight highlighting their every move had me in awe. The song slowly started to fade out and the loud, obnoxious thumping in my chest resurfaced. With shaky legs and uneven breathing I hesitantly made my way onto the stage and got into position. Looking into the crowd, I could see hundreds of faces staring back at me; some familiar, some I had never seen in my life. This gave me a feeling of nostalgia taking me back to that first day of dance class when all eyes were on me. I could not hear anything around me except my heartbeat in my chest. I remembered how aesthetically pleasing the dancers prior presented themselves on stage and told myself to get it together. I had to give it my all and not let my team down, but most importantly I could not let myself down. I looked at my friend, who posed just to the left of me, for reassurance and she gave me such a genuine smile. I could see it in her eyes that she believed in me. I looked at my surrounding and thought “This is what I’ve been working towards. This is where I want to be.” All the negative thoughts that previously invaded my mind faded. My breathing began to even out as the lights dim signaling that the song would start any

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

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.

I took several beginning classes. I took classes with seven and eight-year-olds. For months, I dedicated hours of my day to dance. I’d dance from three to eight and on some occasion six to eight. Day and night I took classes and kept improving. My teacher Ms. Kim noticed and pulled me aside one day, “I don’t think you should be in this class anymore,” she said. “You need to be in a higher level class. Something more challenging.” I was in complete shock. I knew I was getting better; however, I never thought I’d progress that fast. I left dancing with the little kids and started taking classes with people my age and older. People who have been dancing since they were

Being the youngest of three I grew up influenced by my older sisters and my parents supported me for everything and anything we did. Just like my sisters I had attended a dance school to learn the basic amount of moves to not embarrass myself at a party but the price of three children at the academy was just too much so we parted ways. We then

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

I was never really much of a dancer. At a young age, my movements were always stiff and slow and never matched the beat. It was hard enough that I could not dance, it was even harder on me when people pointed out that flaw, despite what people thought, I kept dancing because it became my thing.

I started dance at the age of 8, well officially that is. Long before then however I had begun to learn from my mom. We would spend our Sunday’s cleaning the house listening to latin music and she would teach me how to dance salsa. That was how I first discovered what it was to dance. I kept learning and having fun with her every week until a talent show at my school offered me an opportunity to showcase (what I thought at the time) was a vast amount of knowledge. So I told my mother about it, but she thought that our days spent learning salsa were just harmless fun with no big aims such as the one I had presented her with. So she said no. And

My name is Kayla, I am currently an 8th grader at Silver Hills Middle School in Westminster. Dance has been a big part of my life, even though I only started studio dancing 2 or 3 years ago. Before that, I looked up how-to videos and learned off of there. Studio dancing gave me a whole new perspective of what dance is, it’s a way of expressing myself and expressing my emotions. I remember the first time dancing at EVQ, it was an entire new environment where the dance instructors there treat their teen students as adults instead of children. Of course, this frightened me since it was all new and I didn’t know anybody there, everyone was ridiculously nice and I made new friends the second week I was