Free.

When I ask people why they gave up ballet, they often tell me:

“It was too strict.”

“I didn’t have the discipline.”

“There were too many rules.”

Yet I find the most freedom in ballet, in performing onstage. It’s a crazy schedule, grueling hours, and never a day without sore muscles -but dancers keep coming back for more. Outsiders are befuddled. They ask us: Why? How do you do it?

I have reached a place where I find beauty in the rules. I have a teacher that always says: “When you’re doing it correctly, you don’t need anyone tell you it’s right. You know it is.”

The beauty is in feeling absolutely correct, classical, and clean.

The freedom is having that pure technique so you can let go and enjoy yourself onstage.

It can be so addictive. To try it just one more time, to make sure it’s as close to perfect as possible. But what’s more addictive is the feeling you get onstage. Some dancers even describe it as, ethereal.

We say if you’re nervous before, it will be a good show. Waiting in the wings is always excruciating, waiting for your entrance to come. Waiting for the fingers of the light to draw you into the spotlight. The bars of the music feel like hours.

The scent of hairspray and lipstick.

The warmth of the stage lights.

The audience both collective, and individual. Clapping as one, interpreting the piece separately.

The pulsing energy of the orchestra.

All adding tension.

On the stage; In the lights. That is when I feel alive. Instead of finding the strict classical rules of ballet constricting, I find them comforting. I find them freeing.

Dancers feel the pressures of athletes to perform but they also have to make it look effortless. With the current topic of the Olympics, do you think dance should be an Olympic sport? How can you judge dance?