The beginning beats of the music tingle through me. As I warm up, my body stretches as if it is taking a much needed breath. The sprung hardwood floor is home; it is exactly where I belong. Dance is the sanity in my overloaded life. It is my escape and my chance to focus on what I as a human can do. I feel free when I dance as nothing else matters. It is about improving myself, for myself, and not worrying about anyone else. Every effort I put forth and the sweat that runs down my face is a personal achievement, a testament to my indomitability. I love knowing that I am the best I can be at this moment, yet striving to be so much more. Dance is about never-ending aspiration.
I am dancing all the time. Every gesture, the body line of every pose, the way I get from place to place, the movement in the acting-none of it would be the way it is if I were not a dancer. It both defines and liberates me. For me, dance is catharsis. After struggles in my life, dancing is a way of proving to myself that there can be emotional pleasure after physical pain. There is a way to make the tragic seem infinitely beautiful, and I have complete control over it. It is all in my hands and mine alone . . . the technique, the presence, the artistry, the musicality, all of it. It is mine. For me, dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty. I play the guitar as well, but dancing is so much more. Instead of just feeling the music in my fingertips, I feel it in my soul. My body is the instrument. Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the substance of which it is made.
As I age, I find my focus shifts from the image in the mirror to the internal feeling. Movement is primary and raw. The dance ceases to trickle from my mind, but flows from my soul in an undeniable spiritual experience. I find my dharma, my perfect being. I feel that connection to the world around me that we as humans strive to grasp. I can sense just how I small I am in this world, how my lifetime is barely a flicker in the eternal flame, yet I still matter. Dance teaches me self-discipline and lends me a medium in which to express my most extreme rapture and crushing sadness. Dance is the song of my body, steps of joy and pain. I listen to my body, and it listens to me. To dance is to be out of myself, to be larger, more beautiful, and more powerful. To dance is simply to be more. It is not a question of how dance makes me feel, but the certainty that I cannot feel anything without it.