What's not to love about being a dancer?

So, I haven’t been updating as regularly as I planned, probably for two reasons. Reason one: I was bored when I decided to create this blog, and this week I have not had much time to be bored, thanks to Reason two: I’ve had to work a lot this week.

I work at a toy store in Minneapolis called Creative Kidstuff. I’ve worked there for almost exactly four years. It’s an awesome business, locally owned and operated, and I love working there. It’s taught me a lot. I was thinking about it today, when I was at work, and I realized how funny it can be, working at a store aimed towards children. There have been times over the past four years, especially during high school, when I knew the words to every song on the Justin Roberts, Mary Had a Little Amp, and High School Musical CDs and I hadn’t even heard some of the popular songs at the time (and to be truthful, I would have known the words to High School Musical without the toy store). I get to deal with customers who are completely clueless. And of course, I see a lot of kids: kids messing around on one of the sample scooters, kids flinging merchandise everywhere, kids occasionally having accidents involving pee or vomit, and most common, kids having tantrums. I think it’s interesting that parents will often apologize to us for their screaming child because it’s clearly not their fault, and it’s hardly the first time we’ve had a kid throwing a tantrum in the store. It happens, and it’s probably more likely to happen in a toy store than other places.

I find it funny that, during high school, I had not one, but two jobs that involved working with kids, both directly and indirectly (I guess I had three jobs if you count babysitting, but it was so infrequent that I don’t). I worked at CKS, obviously, which involves less face time with kids, but I do meet a fair amount of kids each time I work. My other job was assistant teaching at my dance studio. Now, I find this funny because I’ve never thought myself to be good with kids. I’m not an outgoing person, unless you know me extremely well, as many of my friends and family will attest. An example of this is watching how my sister and I deal with the same family of kids that we used to babysit. My sister is friends with the kids, regardless of the age difference. She knows how to be fun, but also has that air of “don’t mess with me. I know what the rules are and you’re not going to get away with anything.” She knows what to say to make kids laugh and get excited. I, on the other hand, can’t always control the kids, my attempts at jokes are just awkward, and I know that those kids like her better than me. They also know her much better, and the difference between us is not so extreme. She’s not the most perfect babysitter that’s ever existed, and I’m not as socially awkward as I make myself sound. But overall, I wouldn’t say that I’m good with kids, nor do I really want to work with them in the future. I used to want to be a teacher, but I know now that it would be a disastrous career choice for me.
On the topic of career choices, I am a dance major, something that I am very proud of. Some of my high school friends tease me about going to art school, but it’s all in good fun, and I’m a little smug, truth be told, because most of them are either undecided or going into medicine. I’m happy that I’m doing something that I love, rather than doing something that I will earn a lot of money doing. I know (boy, do I know) that I will most likely not make a decent living being a dancer. I will almost certainly have to have another job.

There are a few things that bother me about my career choice, and they involve other people. First, I’m annoyed by people who ask me what I want to do with a dance degree. Sometimes it’s a person who would ask anyone that question, but most of the time it’s a person who has no idea what a dance degree actually requires, and is asking because, unlike a med student or a law student, my future plans are less obvious. Part of the reason why this bothers me is because people expect me to have a concrete plan of what I’m going to do, and being the artistic soul that I am (now that sounds pretentious J), I am not so much a concrete plan type person. I want to perform, and while there are certainly companies I’d love to perform with, I’m not going to have my heart set on one of them, because it’s very possible that I won’t end up dancing for them. This comes from the experience I had auditioning for the University of Minnesota Dance Department. It was my dream to go there and be in that program, and when I didn’t get in, I was crushed. Now of course I love Columbia and wouldn’t trade it, but at the time I was heartbroken. I went home from the audition and cried the rest of the day. And I don’t want to repeat that. I mean, obviously there will be auditions that I won’t get, and I’ll probably cry about them, because I cry at a lot of things, but the devastation that I felt is what I imagine going through an extremely awful break-up is like (it’s only a guess, myself having never been through a break-up, but that’s a whole other topic). So if you ever ask me what I’m going to do with my dance degree, and get a non-committal “I don’t know” answer, know that I honestly do not know what I will do. I know what I want to do, but I am planning on keeping my options wide open.

Another thing that bothers me is when my friends who go to what I call regular schools (not art school) lament how hard their academics are and how easy I have it. It’s true that most of my general education classes are not too difficult, especially after doing the IB program, but I am still taking these classes, and I still do a lot of work to get good grades. Just because my assignments are photography projects or dance pieces and artist’s statements doesn’t mean I’m not putting a ton of effort into them. Also, I am dancing for hours everyday, so I’m dealing with physical stress that most of my friends never have to deal with. That’s the thing about being a dancer: there’s not a day that goes by that you’re not sore or injured in some way. Random twinges of pain from my knees and hips are so common to me that I think nothing of them. Last night I went to bed with my shin throbbing dully, like I had shin splits. Last semester, in my dancemaking class, I hurt my ankle when another girl fell on it. We were studying riot movement, and my group purposely all ran into each other multiple times, and one of those times one of my group members landed directly on my ankle. I wasn’t badly hurt, and as it was my last class of the day on a Thursday, I had three days to recuperate before dancing on it again. I had plenty of time to ice my slightly swollen, very bruised ankle while thinking to myself, “This wouldn’t happen if I were an English major. Man, am I glad I’m not an English major.” If that’s not some hard work, then I don’t know what is.

Finally, one of my major pet peeves about being a dancer is people constantly asking, “So, are you going to try out for So You Think You Can Dance?” No, I’m not. It’s not the only thing a dancer can do with their lives. Believe it or not, a lot of people don’t want to be on a reality TV show. Also, I’m not talented enough. Or rather, I’m not talented in the way you need to be to make it on SYTYCD. I consider myself to be a good dancer; in fact, I consider myself to be considerably above average. I have more than decent technique in modern, ballet, jazz and tap, and I am okay at hip-hop. I have excellent timing, and I pick things up quickly. But on SYTYCD, you have to be flexible in all sorts of ways, and you have to standout in a particular style. The style I feel I do best and most is ballet, but I am still so far from being on the elite level of professional ballet dancers. SYTYCD is about doing tricks and having attitude and personality, and that’s not the type of dancer I am.

Even given those downsides, I love being a dancer. I’ve been dancing since I was five, and I will do it until I cannot dance anymore. So even though this turned into a rant, there are very few negative things about being a dancer, and that’s how it should be.