The adrenaline, the rush, that stage all lit up with the dark crowd staring front and center. Maybe you know those people whether they are friends, family, or acquaintances. Everything that you have spent months crying over, screaming, losing sleep over is all out there on that stage.
Dancing is much more than just remembering how to plie, battement, or do a grand jete, or remembering an entire routine. It is about conveying a story and telling it while ignoring the people who are watching.
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Choreography was something that I was not able to comprehend until I joined my school’s dance club in the beginning of my Sophomore year. Yes, I have taught other people how to dance thinking that it was a piece of cake but I was wrong.
When I joined my college’s dance club with my ten or so years of dance experience I had a completely different concept of choreography. I thought that I would be able to take three girls, including myself and dance without fully analyzing the song and say that we had a routine. The first practice came and I started doing choreography to the song that I chose and I did not feel a connection to the song. Eventually, I started to work on random choreography in hopes of matching my movements to a song that I would randomly stumble upon.
Working with two other people with different capabilities as well as dance experience was very complex. I changed the song as least twice until I happened to find the song that I thought was perfect. I was at a dead end when I found the song that described the exact story that I tried to tell in my dance as well as my own personal story.
I often found myself in the dance studio at midnight or one in the morning letting out all my emotion with this one song. I would focus on angrily turning during my a la seconde turns or my high leaps. Tears were shed but the choreography that I poured out with that dance is something that I will never forget.
These nine weeks have taught me the true meaning of dance that I forgot to focus on all this time. The performance happened to be in the same place that taught me my valuable lessons, the dance studio. I have never danced my heart out as hard as I did during those three performances. The girls who I taught to do the same choreography as me also did such an amazing job with getting the story across. The story that I struggled to tell for a while and get off my chest.
I had no idea how much telling a story through my movement meant to me until my dancers and I took that final bow.
When the curtain closed, I knew I completed my goal of telling my story. Never underestimate the power of choreographing your own dance, and telling your story. You will be amazed how much you can tell with your movement.
Dance club has come to a close for the semester and I cannot be more thankful for the great, valuable lessons that it has taught me.
