As a dance major in college, I am put down almost every day about what I do. This literally goes from things as little as being told that my college major is "easy" to things as extreme as people treating me as if I'm incapable of understanding or keeping up with an intelligent conversation. Dance, for me, isn't something to just pass the time. It's a lifestyle, a way for me to express who I am or how I feel, and it's my escape from reality.
Honestly, I am sick and tired of the way people talk down on dancers. And hopefully, by addressing the many questions and statements I receive for being a dancer, people will start understanding that we are not empty-headed people trying to make a living out of a hobby.
"So is being a dance major just loads of fun? You just get to dance all day."
Don't get me wrong, I love being a dance major. I would hope that nobody would pick a major that they don't enjoy. However, being a dance major isn't all fun and games. We have to work just like everybody else does. There is so much that we have to memorize and that goes beyond just learning a dance routine. There's tests. There's terminology. There's history. Just because we physically move, it doesn't mean we don't have to study, too. We do dance all day, which takes a massive toll on your body. We are more at risk for getting injured by what we study. And, just because dance is our major, it doesn't mean that we dance 24/7 and that's it.
We take written exams, we attend performances, we write critiques and papers, we study dance history, we study dance anatomy, we learn to teach, we learn how to make a change through dance, we study emotion, we learn tech design, we learn stage management, we perform, the list could go on throughout this whole article. So yes, I do enjoy being a dance major, but it's a lot of hard work that takes a toll on your body and challenges you physically, academically and emotionally.
"What do you even get graded on? All your classes must be an easy A."
That definitely isn't true. We do a lot to earn our grades. Like I said already, we have many academic assignments that go beyond movement. We also have a much stricter attendance policy that has a direct impact on our grade. In our courses, we are only allowed one or two absences per semester. Anything beyond that automatically deducts a letter grade from your final grade. We also get graded on our work ethic, level of improvement, and performance quality.
In many classes, we learn mid-term and final combinations. These are often filmed and we perform for our instructor where they then grade us on our performance quality, clarity of the combination, and our ability to pick up and take in corrections. So no, our classes are not easy A's. They're challenging and we have to work hard to earn our grades.
"That's impractical. How are you ever going to make money?"
It's not impractical, actually. Most of us have trained our whole lives to get to where we are today. That training goes into the career we are establishing for ourselves. There are many job opportunities when it comes to dance. There are performance-based jobs that allow dancers to perform for thousands of people, getting paid for their rehearsal times and their performances. We could join dance companies, getting paid to travel around the world sharing our art with people across the globe. We could teach dance, training young dancers to grow into where we are right now. We could choreograph and establish a name for ourselves, making a paycheck by putting our own creative works out there for the world to see. We could even find jobs working backstage, directing or stage managing performances.
"So have you like been dancing your whole life?"
Yes, actually. Majoring in dance isn't something you can just audition for after taking a dance class and realizing it's something you enjoy doing. Now, if you're referring to those who claim they're dancers after being in two recitals during 5th and 6th grade, no that's not how it is. Many of us have actually trained throughout our lives thus far. However, we do all have different backgrounds. Some of us trained commercially, meaning we grew up competing in competitions, studying multiple styles that change throughout time, like jazz, contemporary, hip-hop, tap, etc... Others have a more classical and concert-style background. This means we've trained studying classical styles that don't change as much over time, like classical ballet and different modern techniques (such as Horton, Graham, Cunningham, etc.) and we perform in concerts.
There is also a handful of us who have experience with both. For me personally, I started dancing at the age of two. This started the training that allowed me to perform in a recital every year. By the age of six, I started competing, alongside with daily training still. Once getting to high school, I continued competitive dance, as well as daily training in the studio, but I also started studying more concert style dance through a program that allowed me to go to school for half a day, then the other half study dance and get transcripts sent to my high school. Throughout high school, I was spending at least 50 hours a week training, whether it be through technique class, rehearsals, or performances. Keep in mind that I had to maintain good academics at school on top of all of this.
"Oh, I wouldn't expect you to understand that... I mean, you are a dance major."
So do people actually believe that being a dancer lowers your IQ or something? People assume constantly that I'm not going to understand something based solely off the fact that I am a dance major. Now what I actually don't understand is where in the world people are getting this idea from. I don't know a single unintelligent dancer and I have never not been able to hold an intelligent or intellectual conversation. People expect us to have lower grades in our general education classes, when I have witnessed just about all of us getting A's or B's in them. I honestly can't even go in depth with this one, because it still blows my mind how stupid people think we are and it actually really infuriates me.
"Why do you even dance? You're going to school for a hobby."
Like I said at the beginning of this article, dance is not a hobby to us. It's our passion. It's our identity. It's our way to make changes in the world and show who we are. However, dance goes beyond just us. Dance has been proven to be a form of therapy. Therapeutic dance is on the rise and has been making a difference in many lives. This gives me the comfort in knowing I'm not only going to school to follow a passion, but I'm also developing the skills to help others by being able to offer dance therapy to help people heal.
So, with that being said, I dance for myself but I also dances for others. I dance to seek change in the world and make people feel. I dance to heal myself and help others heal. I dance because I don't know a world without it, and I wouldn't want to exist in a world where dance doesn't. I live by it. I breathe it. Being a dancer does not make me a hopeless dreamer. It does not make me unintelligent. It does not make me poor. Dance makes me strong and ambitious. It allows me to have an impact on others. It allows me to actually earn what I work for. It allows me to free my soul from all the very evil things in this world. And who I am because of dance is somebody that I will never apologize for being.
