Draft 1

The Stage
Dance has been a part of me before I was even born. When my older sisters were young
my grandma took them to the Nutcracker Ballet every winter. The tradition was passed on and
soon I joined them. Little did I know as I watched the pretty ballerinas fluttering weightlessly
across the stage that one day I would be like them.
Along with my grandmother, my interest in dance would not have taken flight without
the help of my best friend. Around the age of eight, my friend's mother decided to put us in a
dance class together so that we would have something fun and productive to do during the week.
She dropped us off in an old building near the Purdue University campus, and we walked down
two flights of stairs to a cold and dusty basement. Our instructor, Miss Anna, was waiting for us
in a leotard and leg warmers with her CD player ready. This was I had my first of countless
dance lessons.
I have learned a lot about dance and the body through the years, but my first lesson was
that dance is not always graceful behind the scenes. I saw this as I watched myself and my
classmates stumble around the room mixing up our feet and using the wrong arm while my
teacher smiled patiently. She would show us the steps at least five times before any of us could
get it right. As she plid and relevd gracefully, her knees cracked like lightening on tree trunks.
This was my second and more important lesson: dance is incredibly hard on the body. This was
my first glimpse into the bruises, cramps, pulled muscles, and even floor burn that I would soon
encounter. I was astounded at the sound of the pain in her knees, but soon I came to realize that
dance is like any other sport and takes a serious toll on the body. My bruises and sore muscles

became like battle scars to me, and I learned to love it because it proved that I had been working
hard.
The first word I learned in dance was "solo." Miss Anna told us that her ballet would start
with one solo, and then four more would join, then another group, and it would keep adding on
until all of us were on stage. I was the solo. Naturally, my eight-year-old self took that to mean I
was obviously a very good dancer and must be extremely important. I kept that notion with me
throughout my dancing career and it has taught me that confidence is key in almost anything you
do. Another word I learned very soon was "prop." My mother and I learned a hard lesson in my
first year that prop meant hassle and, even though it would sparkle on stage, props take a lot of
effort to buy, make, and transport. This is another word that, as much as I hated it, would stay
with me for a long time. The props only got bigger, brighter, and more of a headache as I grew
up.
I remember the spring of my last year of elementary school my class was bombarded
with information about classes and activities that would be available to us the next fall when we
started middle school. Honestly, none of it interested me. I was very shy and I didn't enjoy
sports, but on one of the very last days of the year I got a slip in my cubby about dance team. I
was ecstatic. I ran home to tell my mom and beg her to take me to the tryouts in a few weeks.
The classes I had been taking fizzled out when Miss Anna couldn't find a location to practice, so
I was excited to start dancing again. This was the opportunity I was waiting for.
Although I felt like I was already perfectly literate in ballet, I was the only solo Miss
Anna gave out after all; I soon realized that dance team was something totally different. I walked
into auditions confident and excited, but I left feeling about one inch tall. I was not nearly as
flexible as the other girls and it was hard to keep up with the choreography. However, one of the

leaders of the team, Shelby Bisher, took me under her wing and made sure I was ready and able
to make the team. It was her guidance, support, and pressure that really changed me as a dancer.
She taught me the fundamentals of what an eight count was, the basic rules for preventing injury,
and showed me that it takes hard work and incredible discipline to be the great dancers we
strived to be. Shelby was always one or two steps ahead of me and I spent my entire dancing
career chasing after her shadow, hoping that one day I would catch up to her.
The following year, at one of the last practices of sixth grade, I was telling Shelby and
her mom how I couldn't wait for the next year to start so that I could keep dancing. They told me
about Morton Community Center, and after much begging, we convinced my mom to put me in a
class there over the summer. Morton was where I would develop my love for dance and get to
know the most influential sponsors of my literacy in dance. The Bishers and my mother were my
first true sponsors, always encouraging me to keep dancing and making sure I got to all the
practices and knew all of the steps. Somehow, in the few shorts months that I took classes at
Morton, the director Laverne Mikhail noticed me and took a special interest in me. She
convinced me to attend the auditions for her company, Phoenix Fire Productions.
The day was a blur, consisting of about four straight hours of technique across the floor,
learning choreography, and performing in small groups in front of the instructors and a video
camera. In the next month and a half I became extremely literate in waiting, something all
dancers must know. I checked the mail every day, twice a day, anxious for a letter telling me
whether or not I had made it onto the team. Then, in late August, I got the letter. I did not make
it. As a dancer, one is constantly disappointed, and this was my first lesson. I learned that
rejection is a bitter pill, but when it dissolves, you are left with the will and motivation to work
even harder. After a year's worth of three hour dance classes four days a week learning jazz

technique, flexibility exercises, hip hop isolations, and winning facials, I auditioned again. This
time, I made it. The next couple years I learned a variety of dance styles and became
knowledgeable in jazz, contemporary, modern, hip hop, ballet, African, and even Bollywood. I
immersed myself in the study of dance. I watched dance shows like So You Think You Can
Dance and could critique the dances better than the judges. I followed famous youtubers like Ian
Eastwood, Chachi Gonzalez, and Kate Jablonski and learned their choreography over the
internet. I was constantly perfecting my technique and always pushing myself to stretch longer,
turn tighter, and leap higher.
While I was on the Phoenix Fire Dance Troupe, I learned that dance is as much of an art
as it is a sport. At Morton, we were much more focused on the emotion behind a piece as we
were the technique, perfection, or unity. We each felt the dances in a slightly different ways and
we all had our own styles. This is when I truly learned what "expressing yourself" meant. So
many teachers and counselors told girls my age the importance of expressing ourselves, but I feel
like very few of us really knew what that meant. I learned the role confidence in oneself can
really play in improving one's life. I was becoming literate in not only the physical skills of
dance but also how it can affect one's mind and spirit.
One very inspirational sponsor of my dance literacy was the TV show So You Think You
Can Dance. I watched the show religiously and always dreamed of auditioning someday. When I
was in high school I even got to take classes from some of the stars of the show, and each one
taught me something a little different. Although he was my least favorite, Alex Wong taught me
how important perfect technique is to an aspiring dancer. His class was miles above my level, but
as I had learned in the past, challenging yourself with things that are far beyond your league will
make you a much better dancer in the long run. I left Alex's class feeling frustrated and humbled

but with a drive to get better that I had never had before. My favorite class was Eleanor Scott's
because she taught the importance of being unique and making a dance your own. Kent Boyd
and Twitch's classes were the most fun. They taught me to never take dance too seriously but to
simply let go and throw yourself into the dance without worrying about what you looked like.
Kent and Twitch showed me that messing up is good and not to worry about being "cool when
you danced. It was a dream come true to even be in the same room as the people I had idolized
on TV and to actually be taking classes from them was amazing. This experience improved my
literacy in dance because I was truly learning from the best.
Competitive dance was a whole new world to me--it was like learning a foreign language
when I thought I had already mastered it. Instead of focusing on the passion and freedom
encompassing dance, I was trained to master technique in perfect form and to match the rest of
the team so that no one would stand out. Instead of being about having fun and expressing
yourself, dance was now about winning. This was something completely different that I had to
learn because I had never been a very competitive person. Dance was extremely important to me,
but winning was not my main goal. Now, everything was about the judges. The elaborate
hairstyles, rhinestoned and blitzed-out costumes, hundred dollar shoes, and larger than life props
were all tools to win the judge's attention. I was then taught the entire competition lingo from
"tiny shooting star large group" to "teen superstar line" and "honorable mention" to "elite high
gold." In the three years I competed, I learned Casey Tuttle's entire script and became well
versed in the hushed anticipation while we waited for him to announce the overall winners.
Although competition was stressful and expensive, I learned to take pride in my hard work. The
feeling of winning a top overall was something that can never be surpassed.

When I first started, the stage was something I wasn't knowledgeable of yet. I didn't even
know at first to be nervous or to make sure I didn't mess up. I just went with the flow and tried to
remember what move came next. However, as I got older and I took performances more
seriously the stage became a terrifying and exhilarating place. The concept I learned the best in
my journey to become literate in dance was "nervous pee." That nervous, excited, butterflies-inthe-stomach feeling was something that I have come to love and cherish. The adrenaline rush of
walking on stage and feeling the bass in the music was something I will never forget. I learned
that while I was on stage everything else was blurry and out of focus. Even my fellow dancers
and the music seemed far away. Most of the time, I did not even notice the crowd existed. It was
not necessary to imagine anyone in their underwear or to try to remember what move came next
because everything slowed down and came out naturally. I believe this is a feeling that is slightly
different for everyone and only truly literate dancers can relate to. It is impossible to describe the
weightless and jittery feeling of being on stage.

Warm-Up
Dear Reader,
I defined my literacy in dance. My sponsors I mentioned were my mom, grandma, the Bisher
family, and the show So You Think You Can Dance. I think I did well in explaining how I
became literate in dance through many examples. I described how I have learned a wide variety
of dance techniques in many different environments which has made me a well rounded dancer.
It was a little difficult to describe the process of becoming literate in dance chronologically
because some things overlapped and, at times, there seemed like there was too much I could

write about. I think my paper might seem unorganized because I had so many different ideas
going on.