Dreaming in Choreography

If you know me from my post-high school days, there is something you may not know about me. I LOVE to dance. You may have heard me mention dance parties in my car, or my apartment or... the grocery store but my love for dance is much more than that. It's more than country, or Latin dancing or even hittin' up the club. It's one of the few things in the world that really makes me feel alive. 

My family began to get dragged to my performances beginning when I was only 3. It started with clogging and expanded into several different genres as the years grew on. Dad used to say it made him tired just watching me but I'll forever be grateful to my parents for giving me the opportunities to dance and their continuing support.We didn't have a lot, monetarily, growing up so I remember when my dad said we didn't have the money for me to take dance lessons and private violin lessons and invited me to choose, there was no contest. 

Dancing with the dance company in Jr. High and High School only fueled my passion and although I definitely wasn't the prettiest or most popular girl in school nor even close to the "best" dancer, when I danced it was like nothing else in the world mattered. Even through hours of rehearsal and feet that were battered and blistered I felt like nothing could touch me, like I was in a different sphere. That world only grew when I was introduced to the subconscious world of dance; choreography. While some kids were daydreaming about what they'd do after class, or that weekend, I was dreaming in choreography.

I began choreographing dances for shows in Jr. High and High School and discovered that choreography was the way for me to dance 24-7. Even when my feet weren't even touching the floor, I could still leap and turn through space.  I remember choreographing a solo for a dance final and had a friend of mine tell me it was so moving that it made them emotional. That's the magic about dance, it can invoke feelings in you you didn't even know you could feel. If you feel it as a dancer, it's not difficult to portray that to an audience. For me, dancing is the ultimate form of expression. It's the most beautiful art form there is, maybe that's why it makes me feel so alive. 

If I were stuck on a desert island and could only take 3 things, one of those things would be a stereo. I would be content to be shut in a room with nothing but a stereo trying to dance out the visions trapped in my mind. At my desk at work, or anywhere where I hear music, I see choreography, I feel choreography. Sometimes, I get so lost to the point where I am extremely distracted, that is when I have to close my eyes and let the choreography dance through my mind. I picture the different steps, how it flows, the scene and everything down to the number of dancers and what they would be wearing.  Sometimes I just turn on some music, lie in the middle of my floor and dream about choreography. For me, it's the ultimate therapy.

Post high school, I was strongly discouraged from continuing in the course of dance. I was told it was impractical, I was starting "too late" to think about any career in dance, and in particular that I didn't have the body-type for dancing. While some of these things are the hard truth, my biggest mistake was that I listened to these people to the point where I withdrew from dance declaring it to be an impossibility somehow. Despite everything I felt about myself and my talents, I let someone who didn't know me at all determine what I could and couldn't do. 

I continue to have a deep appreciation for dance and yes, I'm the girl that gets teary in every episode of So You Think You Can Dance because those dancers are incredible. Each dancer tells a different story through the eyes of their choreographers whose visions are painted on the stage transcending the limits of television reaching the audience farther than the stage. That is the beauty of dance.

Even though I "don't dance anymore", I still dream, and when I dream, I dream in choreography. These are dreams nobody can take away kept safe in my subconscious. In what time and space I can find, but most often in my dreams, I imagine routines that may never be seen but I do it because it makes me feel alive. Perhaps it is my subconscious's way of doing what my body no longer can, still allowing my spirit to soar. 

Whatever it is that allows me to dream so beautifully, I know the day I stop dreaming, will be the day I die.