Personal Narrative-Dance Analysis

I started taking dance lessons at the age of three and once I started you couldn’t get me to stop. I was at the studio more than I was at home, if I wasn’t dancing I was watching the older girls, wishing I could be as good as them. Although I almost quit when I was eight, after my mom left. She said she just couldn’t do it any more and the next morning she was gone. After

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

Dancing has never been a huge learning experience for me and I never saw the potential influences it would have on my life. Believing that teamwork or leadership meant nothing when it came to dance, Only it could have just been my ignorance as well never actually spending time to develop myself in this art. Until I reached high school where I joined dance class and started to become more

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

When I first received the word that the University of Southern Mississippi was going to be offering a jazz dance technique course, I could not have been more ecstatic. Jazz dance has always been a major passion of mine, and I plan on continuing to broaden my understanding of this form of dance. In this course I hope to grow as a jazz dancer so that I may be more equipped to teach others jazz dance technique.

Beginning this class I had taken some ballet before and had a good understanding of the basics even if I was not totally comfortable doing them. However, I still struggled with turning out at the hips, balancing on relevé, maintaining por de bra in an exercise, tilting my head when needed, keeping my neck long, engaging my core (especially when balancing), and using my plie in almost everything. While I was comfortable doing several other things, I know that ballet requires everything to be specifically engaged and that I could not slack in any part of my technique. Things like tilting my head, maintaining por de bra, and keeping my neck long, I am still getting used to but they are becoming more natural as I repeat them each week. It really

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

The music was blaring. Beach balls were flying everywhere. The smell of pizza, pop, and the sound of balloons bouncing to the ceiling fills the air. It was the first Middle School Dance. I had been helping set up the whole thing. Some children looked like they were dancing too hard, and were going to have a broken back in the morning. Then there were the kids who just hung back in the corner. Why do they even come? Then, I heard the stereo DJ start to move the records around. After a few songs, a Rihanna song came on. By that time the DJ and flashing lights were only about 4 feet away from me. The DJ looked at all of the teachers including me, and said, “It’s Karaoke Time!” A kid looked at me and said, “Hey,

I now write my name in all of my shoes and I have an extra pair in my bag, just in case. My dance studio reflects me as dancer, also. I dance at Miss Shelly’s School of Dance and have been since I was two years old. My mom tells me about my first dance class all the time. It was a few weeks before my younger brother was born and I had never done anything without one of my parents. My mom walked me into this new and unknown place and I was in my brand new pink leotard with my brand new pink tights and skirt. I had my tiny pink ballet shoes on my tiny feet and proudly walked through the door holding my mom’s hand in one hand and my adorable dance bag with a princess doing all five dance positions on it in the other. Once my mom let go of my hand to say goodbye I bursted into tears and would not let go of her leg. Miss Shelly came up to us and said, “give your mom one more big hug, the biggest, tightest hug you can, and then we are going to dance with our new friends! Does that sound okay?” So I did as Miss Shelly told me, but, as she closed the door, I ran back through to my mom in tears because she left

My life has changed drastically ever since I started dancing. I’ve always wanted to dance ever since I was a little girl. I remember when I used to mimic my sister whenever she practiced for her ballet recitals. When I got older, I taught myself dance routines I saw on YouTube. My first time ever attending a dance class was in high school. It was through my first performance for this class that I realized I wanted to be a dancer. That class also paved my way into becoming a member of my high school’s drill team. I would have never realized how truly important dance is to me if I didn’t take dance in high

I stood in fear in front of hundreds of people, and the entire time I could feel them judging me for being a terrible dancer. I remember it vividly. Never in my life had I felt so embarrassed, so unconfident in my skills. In my childhood, I was always praised for being an extremely good dancer but now, at such an important moment of my life, my skills betrayed me and the tables turned. Every time I heard the sound of laughter from the audience it felt as though they were laughing at me. In one day, in a single hour, on a single stage I experienced my worst nightmare. To become a laughingstock at my school, reduced from a popular girl to a dorky clown who is just there for people to laugh at, it was unbearable to think. As I was dancing horribly, it happened, I fell.

Growing up, dance has been a very important aspect of my life. I dance every chance I get, whether that’s in my bedroom, by myself, at Walmart listening to the radio, or around anyone really. I tend to not talk a whole lot, and over time, dance was a way to help me express myself, since words couldn’t. Moving away to Kansas was probably the worst but best decision I’ve made. It was nice because I got to meet new people and learn new things that really helped me become who I am now. It was upsetting to leave behind my friends, and most of all, my family, and the place I called “home” for so long. As long ago as it was, I still remember the first friday night football game I went to as an 8th grader. Colby was up by two points against Norton and there was about a minute left of the first half of the game; when I noticed a group of girls in these black and orange uniforms with poms behind their backs and smiles on their faces. When they walked out onto the field, the crowd went silent, and the announcer announced them as “The CHS Dance Team.” Watching them was incredible. They were so in sync with each other and they looked like they were having the best time ever out there. After that one time of watching, I went every Friday night just to watch them at halftime.

Dance became my ‘happy place’. There, in front of all the crowds of people at the football or basketball games, I was no longer the shy little girl who was embarrassed to speak for fear of being made fun of. My self-image of being a scrawny, crooked toothed, flat-chested little curly mop-head didn’t matter when I was performing. I was so good at it, that I was able to show off those skills with confidence. This form of dance saved me from a life of cowering in the corner or in the shadows of my peers.

When I was 9 years old, I never imagined dance would change my life the way it did. While I was growing up I was secluded. I did everything I could to keep to myself. Going to school was difficult for me. I wasn't very popular in school, but I didn't mind that. As a child, I felt out of place and I strived to have the feeling of being noticed. At home, my life was unfortunately no different. My life began to feel as though I was a record on repeat and I had no way of stopping it. I needed to put myself out there, but I wasn't ready. Until I made the decision to take dance lessons at a local company. The beauty of dance always caught my eye. The way the dancers gracefully leaped across the stage mesmerized me. We got on the phone with the Studio and signed me up for the earliest I could come. Within that week, my life slowly began to change and I went with my gut.

With each passing day, I actually started looking forward to dancing, I only got better, and better at it. It became a part of my identity, it was no more just an extracurricular activity, it was ‘me’. I had never enjoyed doing something more, it gave me a kind of satisfaction no materialistic thing could ever give.