The most important thing I can tell you about dance

What’s the most important thing I can tell you about dance and being a dancer?

In the dictionary the definition of dance is, "move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps".

Such a simple statement for such a huge thing to describe.

I’ve seen dance do so many different things for so many different people. It took an insecure girl and turned her into someone that grew up confident and went and achieved her goals. When someone was told not to dance because they had scoliosis and she danced anyway, and it made her better. People with no voice being heard. Spreading the word on important topics that effect daily life and the world. I’ve seen it allow dancers with disabilities to feel like they had some control and power.

For me it was all about expressing. I loved dance. I loved watching it, doing it, learning it, and training very hard for it. As someone that feels a lot it let those things out instead of keeping them in. But I didn’t realize how much it did for me until I was at a real low. Even though I always put emotion into my dancing I rarely let go in class. It was always using other people’s choreography. I would dance on my own at home but the day things got hard and I saw no support from my dance studio, I left. And I found myself. I found my movement. The pain I was going through was constant. It was emotional which made it physical. Leaving my dance studio was the best thing I could have done. Learning to move for me, learning to move the way I needed

to move and finding new and curious things along the way. Finding strength to dance in front of others, my way.  Allowing me to speak my pain to those that wouldn’t listen. To get those intense feelings out in a healthy therapeutic way. It got me through.

Dance is not a sport, it is not an art. It is a voice.

Learning how you move independently of how others tell you to move is the most freeing and valuable thing a dancer can find.

Technique helps, learning your body and exploring the movement, knowing the rules and then breaking them to find something new….

I wouldn’t dance without it.