Tonight, I'm Going To Take A Dance Class

Tonight, I’m going to take a dance class. How long has it been since I’ve last been in a studio? I know I fool around at home on my weekends and occasionally film myself, but being in a formal studio setting - it’s been a while. So what are my thoughts before stepping in later tonight?

Well, I hope it goes well, first and foremost. Well? What does that mean? Well, there’s this creeping anxiety that it will be underwhelming and disappointing rather than freeing as I yearn for. What is drawing me in? It’s a series of 6 dance composition classes to be held on the Thursdays’s taught by Jessica Nicoll, a professor from Hunter I continue to admire. A writer. An educator. A dancer. A composer. And so... here I enter the classroom again. Alone. With nothing but a familiar face at the head. It’s exciting. Nerve-wracking. Invigorating.

Time to be done with the incessant guilt that I am not taking class enough. Time to jump into a class. This class appears to be especially accessible to me, as it is not being marketed specifically for trained dancers, but welcoming people from all sorts of walks to enter the studio, discover, and compose. I look forward to observing others. Witnessing. Reflecting. And, of course, discovering myself further.

I think back on my first, awkward experience with dance improvisation, not at Hunter, but at Stony Brook University, taught by Amy Yopp Sullivan, a wise, grandmotherly angel in her own right. Her emphasis on each student articulating their voice and owning their movement sticks with me till this day. I recall when she’d run though a check in with each of her students, working her way around a circle. And how, on my turn, my voice was meager, quiet, and overall difficult to hear. How my anxiety would hinder my articulation. And how she would kindly demand of me to repeat my words louder and clearer. To articulate and own them. Love them. And be me. In those moments, I learned of the valuable connection between dance performance and knowledge of self-worth. How In order to peak, I needed to break out of myself, let myself live, rather than shut myself out. Getting there was a process, but I made it there gradually over the years following.

So, tonight, I once again enter a studio. A public -safe?- space of self-revealing to the world, or at least a small part of the world. How will I negotiate this? How will I stand, or shall I say, dance, in this new foreign environment? How will I give myself permission to soar amongst strangers? Time will tell. I will reflect again after tonight. For now, I simply say, YOLO.