Dancing Days

I can't believe it's two weeks until finals and three weeks until my junior year finally comes to a close. Where did all the time go? I'm not ready to be a senior yet! But that's they way life goes - fast, and it changes whether  we can believe it or not. I love college with all my heart. The classes, my friends, dance my service sorority - the list goes on. And my senior year I'm going to make sure to soak it all up.  Saturday April 29th at 5pm is the Orchesis Showcase, so if you don't have any plans, now you do! Admission is free but donations are highly encouraged. The show is located on the Markin Performance Court.  Two of my teammates and I just finished choreographing our pom dance for it and we begin practice Sunday. I'm SO excited to be practicing again. Dance, and my teammates, are just my absolute favorite thing in the whole world.  I also can't believe I've been writing this blog for 14 weeks now. This went by fast too! I really like havi...

One of the things I love about dance is the bond it creates. There's something about spending hours practicing together - trying, failing, achieving, losing, winning. And we do it as a single unit. The struggle or success of one is that of us all.  A huge part of what bonds dancers, especially a dance team, is the vulnerability dance demands. You have to be willing to try and fail at new choreography, tricks, technique - and trust that your team will support you no matter what. When I first made the Bradley Dance Team, I had never done pom before. Pom is a style of dance that includes sharp movements and complex formations while holding pom poms. Though I had extensive ballet, jazz, modern and lyrical training, pom was something I had never even attempted before. The first time I held a pom was the weirdest feeling in the world.  But thanks to my incredible team and my endless practicing on my own, I look as though I've been doing the style for years. My team was so understand...

Like any other sport, dance is demanding. Dance requires an immense amount of physical exertion, so dancers need to train their bodies to have extensive endurance and strength. Here's the catch though: dancers have to make it all look effortless.  A lot of people will say "dance looks easy." And that's exactly the point. It's our job to make it look easy. The reality is the exact opposite. Football players can grunt, soccer players can yell, volleyball players can frown. All of those sports are incredibly difficult - it's true. Most of them are harder than dance. But dance is still difficult. Dancers are expected to smile through the pain, to make each movement look effortless, to hide all of the "ugly" and only present the pretty.  With that being said, the expectation for dancers' body image is quite different than the average athlete. Historically, dancers are supposed to be "skinny" - have minimal muscle, lean, long proportions and ...