This Is A Love Story

If this were a movie, and I was sitting down to be interviewed by someone, and the recording device clicked and whirred to signify its start, and the interviewer asked from off camera, “What does dance mean to you?” I would probably respond with something vague like, “So many things.” I mean, how else do you answer that question? I’ve been spending a large majority of my time in this life dancing and interacting with the concept of dancing and the people who do it.

It is all of the cliches, the “dancing is like breathing”s and the “sorry I can’t, I have dance”s. It is spending way too much time stressing over your quick change or practicing how to make your bun look like Sophia Lucia’s or fumbling your way through your first lead role or auditioning for professional companies and trying not to look like a total poser. It is all of these things and none of them. I guess what I’m trying to say is that dance is an abstract world that has, for the longest time, eclipsed my “real” one.

Dance exists in a space where nothing else can enter. And maybe my biggest fear is that I won’t get the privilege of entering that space anymore, that I’ll be exiled from it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to start from a beginning.

. . .

I suppose the first time I declared my dreams of being a professional dancer was when I was 10 years old and in my first year dancing for my studio’s competition team. I started rehearsal at 7:45 a.m. every Saturday morning. I was taught by Broadway choreographers and competed live in the final round of a regional competition. I was ambitious and unaware and ready to rocket my way to a Dance Moms-esque stardom.

At that blissfully innocent age, I could see nothing but the near future, in which I would finally get a solo and be able to do my oversplits. I had no knowledge of life, I simply flitted from month to month and from accomplishment to accomplishment with a feistiness I sometimes worry I may lack now. I didn’t really know my connection to dance beyond a fierce attachment that felt more like it grabbing hold of me instead of me grabbing hold of it.

When I was older and long graduated from those 3 years of whirlwind competition weekends and holding the knowledge of 30-odd dances in my head, I would go back and perform at the team’s end of year showcase as a filler. I would usually perform that year’s contemporary solo. It was an honor to be asked, because it made you feel valued and wanted and to be able to perform in the place you once were but as a different, more grown-up version of yourself.

I remember my sophomore year performance, and how I chatted with my friends who were also there to perform as fillers backstage and cheered on our friends and younger members who looked up to us. It felt powerful, in a way, to be someone looked at and whispered about. A celebrity, but in the eyes of twenty under 10-year-olds watching you warm up instead of in the eyes of the world. As I entered the stage to do the solo I’d done a thousand times over for the last time, I became aware of the audience and their collective expectant gaze. I remember briefly wondering if I would forget my choreography and have to make something up. I mentally shrugged and felt adequate enough with my improv skills.

I began to drift and dance and I thought to myself how beautiful I felt, how effortless, how uncaring I was whether or not I was doing everything perfectly. It wasn’t the first time, but it was a fairly rare time, in which I danced. Yes, I always tend to attempt to forget the watchful eyes of the audience, because to think too much of them is to fixate on what they think of you (even though as a dancer you should always welcome the audience in with your dancing), and yes, I always try and put all of myself into my performances, but this one simply felt right. That’s all there is to say. And then my time was up and I drank in the applause and the lights and the way my ownership of the stage made me feel invincible for 2 and a half minutes on a Saturday evening.

. . .

Dance is hard. That’s just the truth. It’s hard and it’s unforgiving all the time. It requires all of you or none of you. It wants you to lay yourself down before it and be consumed by it. I did that willingly.

For 16 years and counting, I’ve danced ballet, jazz, tap, modern, contemporary, dashes of hip hop (not a skill I would say I possess much of) and taken everything from African dance to character. I’ve danced 30+ hours a week since I was 10. Not to mention countless tech weeks and weekends spent traveling and performing.

I know what it is to work so hard for something and to feel that you will never achieve it. Dance exists on the principle that there is always something more to reach for, that there is always something that can be done better or brighter or a little more to the left. The very reason you must be in the studio, doing the same barre and center patterns every day or even twice a day, is to put yourself squarely on that path to perfection.

It is a lesson that must be learned by every dancer who wants to make it out alive that you will never reach that point and that no one ever reaches that point, and you must become okay with that.

You must become okay with sweating until it physically disgusts you and bleeding out of your toes. You must become okay with well-intentioned teachers yelling corrections at you and realizing that it is not, in fact, personal, even though the tears that threaten to fall may want you to think otherwise. You must become okay with rehearsals late into the school night and then going home to begin the day’s homework. You must become okay with pushing your body to its limits every day and then waking up to do it again, every day.

It turned out to be relatively easy for me to become okay with these rather unseemly facets of the dance experience. Because it’s not about what you give up, it’s about what you get in return.

It went like this: When I was 13, I was okay with my body being on its last leg when I rehearsed my solo because it was downright euphoric to dance through the collapse and to feel my soul bursting out of my chest at 10 p.m. on a Thursday. When I was 16, I was okay with stepping into a role in the place of someone who got injured because I got to run around the stage barefoot with my hair flowing behind me as I leapt and contracted and became a part of a select corps of women who had performed Elegie onstage. When I was 18, I was okay with almost breaking my back to do 38 arabesque penchés in a row because despite my efforts to concentrate I felt like I was floating through the mist of the rest of that year, but I was surrounded by this group of ethereal women in white who were pushing me on and in spite of everything, I was okay.

. . .

A hard year of my life was freshman year of high school, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever experienced a freshman year of high school. I was unsure I had any real friends at school, and so I turned to dance, as I often and still do, as a refuge. Also that year, I was cast as Clara in The Nutcracker. Anyone who knows the story of this ballet knows that the entire thing centers around Clara. This is her story, she is the main character, the first one on the hypothetical call sheet, and to be able to dance that role is practically every ballet dancer’s deepest desire since birth. (Until they/me get older and realize that much more technically and artistically challenging roles exist, like Giselle, Odette/Odile, Juliet, etc.). Naturally, I was thrilled. I still existed in that liminal space between my competition youth and the professional ballet maturity I was attempting to fit into. Every aspect of everything felt like it was at a crossroads, but this thing landed in my path and made things make sense for a while.

I danced in every scene. I got to act comical and dramatic, be the focal point of the Christmas party, be saved from potential death by way of giant rats by a handsome prince, and be whisked away to a dream world where I was crowned princess and sat on a throne. I got to do a shoulder sit with New York City Ballet principal dancer Daniel Ulbright. I definitely peaked there.

The thing with Clara is that you, as an audience member, really have to believe her story for it to transport you. That meant that I, as the dancer portraying her, had to believe in it too. I had to be a diva at the center of the Christmas party and saddened when Fritz broke my Nutcracker and terrorized by the life-sized mice and surprised but thankful when the Prince saved me and humbled when the Sugar Plum Fairy placed that crown atop my head.

Throughout my time in this pre-professional ballet setting, I had somehow been typed as a dancer that doesn’t “let go” and “show my emotions” while dancing. I didn’t have expressive enough facials, and I never did anything big enough for it to register. Supposedly. What I was essentially being criticized on was my artistry.

I remember at this amazing juncture in my dance life, in this time when I was a lead in a show, I was unsure of myself. I hadn’t really felt that way before. I had always just pushed harder, or practiced more.

Dancing is hard not only because of the physicality, but because of the artistic value you put into it. It requires your soul and your heart and your true vulnerability. You have to let your body and face express all these gently and powerfully. It is not simple. It requires thought and work and practice, just as it would for any performer.

I remember trying so hard everytime I danced a part that required more of a character or “story” to convey those expressions and feeling like I was falling short.

I would also get the note to use my face more, and to be bigger. It hurt to receive that note, as if they were saying my heart wasn’t in it; I wasn’t really giving it my all —that I didn’t really love to dance. I never stopped getting that note until I graduated.

As I sat onstage before the curtain went up on opening night, I fidgeted with my costume and I ran through my scenes and choreography and staging in my head and took deep breaths and felt elated but terribly nervous. What if I forgot? What if I couldn’t do it? It was a lot of pressure for a 14 year old with braces and mild social anxiety.

I could hear the orchestra warming up, and then playing the prologue, and then the curtain rose. From the start, I folded into Clara and never looked back. At the end, after we bowed, I remember feeling like I had come to after somewhat of a possession. I had done it, and the best part was that I was in it; not in criticism or in a reach for perfection or in cognition of my faults. My body took over and my heart bursted, the whole time. And I didn’t care what anyone thought of my performance at that moment because I had done it. I did it. No one can ever take that away.

What I didn’t fully know then and what I do know now is that artistry is not a commodity. I felt what I was feeling and I was expressing it. That was artistry. That was care and openness and vulnerability. Just that. I didn’t need to emulate someone else’s brand of artistry to be a mature dancer or to try and get certain roles. I didn’t need someone else’s permission. When I dance and put the energies of my thoughts and ideas and wishes into my limbs and throw them into the space, I am being a true artist. No one can ever take that away.

. . .

In addition to the physical, mental, and emotional tolls dancers take on from a young age, there is also the issue of auditions. As a performer, auditions are simply part of the process, but I don’t think anyone can stand up and say with complete veracity that they aren’t still the teeniest bit nervous whenever they go to one.

So here’s how that goes: you put on your best pink tights and black leotard and slick your hair back into your best pristine bun and put some light makeup on and then a little bun adornment (so that the teachers evaluating you could write down, for instance, “Girl with the purple flower in her hair is a yes. Girl with the silver barrette is a no,” or some similar scenario I imagine occurs). Then you head to the location probably 2 hours early if you’re a competitive and slightly obsessive person like I was and still can be to sign in, get your number, and warm up. The warm up involves trying to calm nerves and making sure every possible body part is ready for whatever possible combination they could throw at you while simultaneously judging every other dancer in the room under the pretenses of “focusing on yourself.” I would whisper with my friends (she went to ABT with me last summer, she won Top 12 at YAGP, etc.) while excitedly considering the possibilities of each audition outcome.

With most of the auditions I attended being for summer intensives, for which thousands audition and 200-300 dancers will be accepted for most, I was concerned with how the intensive would help me progress in the dance world and how popular the intensive was. Although I thoroughly researched and vetted every intensive I auditioned for, I couldn’t resist the thoughts of the potential clout I would receive from casually dropping that I went to SAB or something.

In my third year auditioning for summer intensives, I was 15 and had been accepted to most of the ones I’d auditioned for previously. Over that past year, I’d developed a somewhat unhealthy view on my body, convinced that it wasn’t the perfect type to become a professional ballet dancer, and focused a lot more mental energy than was necessary on scrutinizing it. Whole classes could become ruined because my thought process was basically just internally yelling at myself for getting things wrong and looking bad, which would only cause me to have less focus and to get more things wrong.

Typical ballet bodies, popularized by the Balanchine aesthetic that rose to prominence in the mid-twentieth century, consisted of long, thin, lithe legs and arms, a long neck, a small head, and a shorter torso. At my full height, I am 5’2, have a similar torso/leg balance, and while I am not heavy for my height, I was never the skinniest person in the room. These slight discrepancies became larger than life to me. My body warped in the mirror to that of a square with legs. I became overly critical of myself and constantly compared my body to those of my peers.

After that disappointing audition season of 2016, in which I only secured spots in two of six intensives, I chalked this failure up to being “too fat.” It is a cliche that this is the problem that dancers deal with, and while it would never be outright alluded to by any artistic director, it is a factor. It is a fact. Strides have been taken to end this mindset, and I’m proud to be a part of a dance world today that is working to be inclusive in this respect, but while I never struggled in the way that plus-size dancers do, this still consumed a huge part of me, to the point that I considered quitting. I thought that I knew it all, that because this was what I thought of myself, it was what everyone thought of me. Obviously, this is not true.

That summer, the intensive I chose to attend renewed my love for the art form, not the illusion of the art form, or the illusion that my only currency as a dancer existed with my outward appearance, and I felt the glow of hard work and unconditional love for something that I now made the conscious choice to grab hold of. I’m sure you’ve heard of love being a choice, not just a feeling; in dance, as in a relationship, you must wake up every day and choose to love it.

During the summer of 2017, I attended Boston Ballet’s intensive after a year of hard work and an improved audition season. I danced intensely and ran around the city with the ragtag group of fast friends I had made.

One day in pointe class, close to the end of the five weeks, we were doing fouettes. The teacher, Anaïs Chalendard, then a principal dancer with the company who would go on to teach me at Nashville Ballet two years later, was evaluating our turns one by one. When it was my turn, I completed the fouette sequence and awaited her response. She simply said, “Julie, you are good.” The whole class began to clap for me. My cheeks flushed and I put on a faux embarrassed smile. What I was really thinking, though, was I made it here. I’m not a failure. I am good. I am good.

. . .

I am a memory hoarder. I can admit that. There’s no other way to describe it. I hoard movie tickets and concert tickets and pictures and letters and any little thing that could be considered a memento. I have boxes chock full of past awards, programs, passes, and pointe shoes. Whether it is of consequence or not, I always elect to keep it. This memory hoarding extends to the files in my brain, where I try to hold on to specific moments exactly as they occurred, even though we all know memory is unreliable and will eventually fade. If the show Hoarders was to enter my brainspace, they would be disgusted with the clutter and immediately jump ship. My episode simply would never make it to air.

My earliest memory of this tendency dates back to the year 2009, when Hannah Montana was still on T.V. and my celebrity crush was Jake T. Austin of Wizards of Waverly Place fame. I was a fourth grader and had received my dream Nutcracker role at the time of, wait for it… Little Party Girl. That’s right. The hierarchy bleeding down from Clara went next to Clara’s Friends, then to the Young Ladies, to the Party Girls, and finally to the Little Party Girls. It was my first experience in the Party Scene, and I was excited to wear a circa 1890s dress and curl my hair into sausage coils. Every little girl’s dream.

I had wanted so badly to be cast in this role, and I was. I got to dance the part with two of my best friends who were also Little Party Girls, and I was elated the entire time.

I made sure to skip extra high and to act extra bratty in my special moment at the opening of the act in which I annoyed the nanny and then led a mass of party children into a disruptive riot. Nothing has changed.

After the last show, I laid in my bed and thought about the experience from start to finish: my joy at getting the role, the fun I had practicing and then performing it. I started to cry, silent sobs that held a much heavier weight than any other crying bout I’d experienced before.

In that moment, I realized that the experience was over and that I would never get to relive it again. I cried as though for a pet who had passed; the memories of that time were so dear to me that it hurt so much to wrestle with the fact that I wouldn’t make any new ones.

From that time onward, I’ve collected as many physical artifacts of my memories that I possibly can. I’ve shed tears bitterly after more performances than I can count. It just comes down to the fact that I hate having to leave behind experiences that I love and want to keep reliving over and over.

Cut to December 2019 (this is what cut to means to me). I am driving home after a Nutcracker performance, and I am feeling melancholy. Harry Styles’ “Fine Line” comes on. I can’t help but start to feel my eyes water and let tears roll out of them. Why wouldn’t I, when I drive home knowing that this Nutcracker season will be my last? The last time performing at Tennessee Performing Arts Center with a professional company, dancing in the ballet that has been a seasonal staple in my life since I was 7 years old. The last time I will spend the entirety of December in a basement dressing room laughing, putting makeup on, passing the time with games, hooking up friends’ costumes. The last time I will make these memories. The last time.

Harry Styles croons “We’ll be alright” as I speed down Charlotte Avenue, feeling anything but. The truth is I’m not ready to move on. The truth is that dancing has been a part of me from age three, to age fifteen, to my freshman year of college, to now, and it continues to save me in little ways every day. The truth is that dance is my first love and the relationship I’ve given up everything for. To not see that career to fruition seemed like the ultimate betrayal.

I felt so torn that December night. I felt done, but I wasn’t. I felt burned out, then I wanted to up the ante. I couldn’t stop the flurry of thoughts that had plagued me ever since I had softly made the decision to accept the end of my professional career in 2020. It felt right, and then it didn’t. To be honest, I don’t think it ever will. There were so many factors to consider, and I felt like it was inevitable. But what can you say in response to that?

These things I hold so dear to me will take up more of my memory than I care to admit. I know that I will constantly go back into storage to relive this era of my life, over and over. I will probably never let go of any personal item remotely related to this period.

I count that as a good thing. In all this, I am glad to be a hoarder.

This way, I get to remember.

. . .

I’ll never be able to convey all that dance means to me in hundreds of essays, let alone one. There isn’t enough space in this world for me to expound on every class, rehearsal, performance, intensive, partnership, character, friend, teacher, experience, or situation that make up the very atoms in my cells.

When the hypothetical interviewer sits me down, I’d love to have a snappy, witty, slightly irreverent but totally smart and sincere answer to the question. I don’t.

Through dance, I’ve met some of my best friends, had some of the craziest and most surreal experiences of my life, and learned lessons that I will carry with me everywhere I go, tucked into a safe inner pocket in my backpack where all the most important personal items are stored.

I said earlier that I’m scared I won’t be able to enter that specific space that I’ve spent pages attempting to describe, and that’s true. I am scared.

I will still dance; I will still love dance. The fear comes from a tiny Julie inside of me that whispers, “What if?” What if I am unable to have access to the artistry that is my lifeline? What if I lose my artistic credibility? What if my dancing becomes irrelevant? Another pretty pressing one: who will I be without this? Without a professional career track, without the special badge. Who will I be?

I suppose that’s the only question to which I’ll eventually find the answer.