How I Found Dance

Most people you meet who are trying to become professional dancers will tell you they’ve been dancing since they were 3. That’s not the case for me. I didn’t discover my passion for dance until much later.

I took my first dance class when I was around 7 (I know what you’re thinking, Topanga you said you didn’t start dance as a kid. I’ll explain!). It was one of those little kid classes and I was loving it, but ended up having to stop because dance is a really expensive art form.

So instead I decided to take on the world of pep and cheer and didn’t think about dance for years. I started in 3rd grade and had so much fun with the pom poms, uniforms and sparkles that came with everything! I kept doing cheer until 6th grade when I switched to pep. It might not seem like it, but while pep and dance are similar on a structural level, the movement is entirely different and the two are hard to compare. The type of dance I love today is everything from tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop to modern. They are all vastly different but share a lot in common artistically. Pep is much more about uniformity and creating clean, crisp lines.

I remember very clearly why I started taking dance classes again instead of just focusing on pep and cheer. I was in 7th grade and was crying to my mom that I didn’t make the competition pep team. I did however make the regular pep team, but I’ve always had very clear goals and when I don’t achieve them there’s a grieving period. My mom made it sound very simple what I should do. She told me to go to the head coach and ask what I can do to improve for next year. I didn’t want to do that, I was nervous. But I did it anyway and Coach Clark told me to take a technique dance class. So my mom and I found one for me to take.

While I started taking a dance class a week for technique, at this point I was still very focused on pep and cheer. The dance class was kind a stepping stone for me to improve in the cheer world. That was, until 10th grade.

When I was in 9th grade I didn’t make… you guessed it, the competition pep team. I was absolutely devastated. I had spent my freshmen year on varsity pep and loved it but was ready to move back to competition. This time I didn’t ask the coach what I could do. I sat in my room eating a piece of chocolate cake, felt what I needed to feel, and then I got back up. In all honestly, I couldn’t really tell you how it happened but suddenly I knew about the competition dance team at the studio I had been taking technique classes at for 2 years. Overnight this became my new goal.

Now, I won’t lie, this was a hard idea to sell my parents on. I was proposing I do varsity pep, competition dance, and keep taking all my honors classes in addition to Girl Scouts. I didn’t get it at the time, but seeing it all written out I see why they were skeptical. On top of that, dance is a very expensive art to pursue and being a part of a competition team would mean taking about 4 dance classes a week, buying costumes, paying dance convention fees, and the list goes on. So I made a PowerPoint, put on a nice outfit and presented my ideas to my parents. (I don’t remember exactly when it started but I would tell my parents a crazy idea I had and my dad would say make a PowerPoint about it. I feel like it started as a joke, but I really ran with that and have made many PowerPoints in my day to try and convince my parents of some out there dreams of mine.)

So after I made my case and my parents considered, it they agreed to let me do it! 10th grade would end up being one of the hardest years of my life so far because of how busy I was. It was really a lot but it taught me a very important lesson. Sometimes you can’t do everything, but you can give your everything to what matters most to you. So, that year when tryouts rolled around I didn’t go. I chose dance over pep and cheer because I was feeling so fulfilled in the dance studio. It was then I discovered what passion really feels like and how important dance was to me. It wasn’t a hobby, it was something that made me feel complete.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of dancer I would be today if I started dancing when I was 3. The truth is, I’ll never know. But I’m happy that on my journey I found my passion in my own time.

PC center photo Gregory Crosby, far right photo One Good Shot Photography