Hey, look over here…I’m gonna be a dancer!

By Rita Senger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I am going to be a dancer.

Let me rephrase.

I am a dancer.

I think you have to approach such things with a certain degree of stubborn resolve and arrogance. Like, it is not enough to say “I am going to write a novel.” You have to say “I am a novelist” and make everyone else believe that is true. Then you can get down to believing it yourself. And writing.

Same with dancing. You (I) first have to make our(my)selves(self) believe that this will be, or already is, true.

Therefore, I am a dancer, and you better believe it.

I should say a few words about myself. I just turned 33 last week. That is, I am in the fourth decade of my life, when most dancers start thinking about retirement. And I am just starting.

I’ve always loved to dance. My mother claims I already wiggled my tush at the tender age of two. I don’t remember too many moments of conscious (dance) movement until my late teens (high school and college years), but once I began, there was no stopping me (Taylor Swift can tell you something about this compulsion) 🙂

I remember one summer some 15 years ago when my cousin M. and I discovered reggae music. We saw an ad on one of those shopping channels for a compilation called “Pure Reggae” that contained some classics like Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and “My Boy Lollipop.” We were too young to go out and party in public, so we had our private parties in my bedroom that whole summer. Just the two of us: we were skinny and tall and our flailing limbs took up my entire room.

We made it to one concert that summer (Gondwana, wonder what happened to them?), but the rest of the time we were in my room or on the balcony, alternating between jumping around and eating cheese and peanut butter crackers.

I am the girl who – upon hearing that the whole summer language school was going to go out together that one night in Plzen, Czech Republic, with the intention to, well, dance their socks off – ran home to get her high-heeled, nude suede dancing shoes.

I am past the time when I could wear high heels and actually really get down to business (of dancing). Now my feet demand more sensible footwear, but the thrill I feel on that dance floor is exactly the same.

Do I want to be a professional dancer? Maybe. I haven’t decided yet. It is not a decision I have to make with my mind and heart only; my body has to agree with it. But I want to see how far I can get, how willing my body is to follow my heart’s desire.

I’ll have to negotiate: I’ll have to push as far as I can without overdoing it; I’ll have to, at times, plead with my tired tissue and at others, coerce my (lazy) limbs to move. And I will have to build up that core strength, a painful and gruelling process, but a challenge I undertake gladly.

I am a month into my Latin American Dance/Performance training programme. I take courses in different dance styles and techniques as well as core strength building classes like “stretch and shape”. The stretch and shape classes are a boot camp – the first time we novices laid there on those green and red matts, I puffed and panted through positions my body never dreamed someone would ask it to perform. “Pull your leg closer to you,” said my instructor. I gave the illusion that I had mastered the move, my luckily long nose brushing against my extended knee.

The day after my entire body ached, and that was just the beginning.

But I am looking forward – after a lifetime spent on giving attention to my head – to finally focus on my body. The muscles I did not know existed are yelping my name, the tissue hot and tender. I am in pain, but it feels good, this corporal awareness, this getting to know the physical edges of my being.

It is just the beginning, but already I am craving more.