I took my first dance class when I was 3-years old. It was an introductory ballet class for toddlers at the community center around the corner from my house. I’m pretty sure I spent the entire 45 minutes crying for my mom while confused about why everyone was in tights. I have no memory of it beyond that — just a picture in my family’s photo album of me decked out in a yellow tutu and ballet slippers.
There is a lot, however, that I do remember about my early days in dance classes. I remember my teachers: bright and energetic and invincible — everything I wanted to be in the world. I remember how I hung onto their every word like it was scripture, ecstatic when they complimented me and breaking into a million pieces when they criticized me. I remember how satisfying it felt to have finally found something that I loved — that I was good at. It felt like a key locking into place, filling me with a sense of belonging that I held onto tightly for years.
By the time I was in fifth grade, I had joined a competition team that became my entire life. Every day, I woke up, went to school and then went to dance practice. I got home late at night, stayed up to finish my homework and climbed into bed around midnight before doing it all again the next day. I was a tiny machine, synonymous with my passion for dance. When people asked me what I liked to do, or what I did when I wasn’t in school, the answer was always the same: “I’m a dancer.”
Then I came to college.
Having an identity crisis during one’s freshman year is not unusual, but while most people I knew freaked out about what they should major in or who they should be friends with, I was in search of something different: what should I do with a passion for dance that was so deeply intertwined with my inner identity that not doing it felt like a betrayal to myself. This wasn’t unexpected — I had known that graduating high school meant leaving behind my hometown dance team, whether I wanted to or not. Regardless, it still felt like when I picked up and moved to Ann Arbor, I left behind a giant piece of myself, and I had nothing new to fill the void. For the first time in years, I wondered how I was supposed to answer the “What do you like to do?” question. Part of me still wanted to say, “I’m a dancer.” But was that true?
Stubborn and unsure of myself, I joined one dance club on campus, but practicing a couple of times a week with people I hardly knew didn’t scratch the itch. I was used to my dance team being my entire life, so feeling unfulfilled by it was uncharted territory. But I also didn’t want it to be my entire life anymore. I wanted to move on and learn more about myself outside the walls of a dance studio. Determined to find a solution, I dedicated my first semester of college to putting my passion for the sport on the back burner and searching elsewhere for the fulfillment I craved. But even with the hundreds of student organizations offered by the University of Michigan, I struggled to find a place where I fit. I quickly realized that I didn’t even know where to look, considering I had never had an extra breath to express interest in anything besides dance. The only hobby I had taken up was wondering: What should I do now? Was it a mistake to not hold onto dance in college? Should I have majored in dance? Should I have joined another dance club? Was I quitting something I loved when I didn’t have to?
For those first few months, I was sure the answer was yes. I vividly remember wandering through my first Festifall, feeling lost without gravitating toward any particular section of tables. The only non-dance clubs I offered a second glance were the writing-related ones and, at the time, I was sure that was nothing more than a pointless hobby. Every important figure in my life — my family, friends, teachers — had always told me, or at least implied, that my passion for art and writing wasn’t going to take me places. In their eyes, it was an unsustainable career, and even if it weren’t, they had only seen me engage with art and media in a rather unserious manner. They were the ones who had to endure the brunt of my excited energy when a new season of “Stranger Things” dropped or Taylor Jenkins Reid released a new book. My friends and family knew how closely I held my favorite media to my heart, but my fangirl energy didn’t scream “serious writer” to them. I don’t fault them for this. While the belittling of fangirls now enrages me to no end, I didn’t even take my own passion for art and writing seriously at the time. I thought I was going to be pre-med.
As I struggled through my freshman-year identity crisis, I realized that while the University didn’t have the solution to my complicated relationship with dance, it had something else: a vibrant, thriving writing community. Wildly unsure of myself, I enrolled in writing courses and offered my time not to additional dance clubs but to publications and magazines that allowed me to learn more about myself. I received feedback on my writing from professors and peers who motivated me to write more and become a dedicated reader of The Michigan Daily, so much so that — at the start of my sophomore year — I applied for The Daily’s Arts section and became immersed in a community that celebrated everything I was passionate about but had been told to repress for years: art, media and writing. Around the same time, I took a writing course in the Residential College and, after much back and forth, decided to major in creative writing. Like magic, every feeling of inadequacy and confusion that had been sticking to me like glue for the past year dissolved.
I began to wonder if I had ever actually missed dance, or if I just missed the sense of belonging and identity that I associated with it. I was starting to enjoy the dance club I joined more and still harbored a passion for the sport, but I felt no desire whatsoever to return to the soul-sucking, all-consuming dance practice schedule I’d been trapped in since middle school. I liked having time to dedicate to my writing and to myself, and I definitely didn’t mind my body not being constantly sore. I was surprised to realize that, in many ways, my relationship with dance was healthier than it had been in the years prior. I’d finally struck a balance between continuing to pursue something I loved while leaving room to explore my other interests.
A year and a half later, I once again don’t hesitate when someone asks, “What do you like to do?” I’m a writer. It still feels weird to say aloud — even just to type — but it’s comforting to know that the passion I was so anxiously searching for in my freshman year was there all along, hidden beneath the hours of dance practice and competitions. It was in the way I always asked for Barnes & Noble gift cards for my birthday or in the way I spent far more hours than I’d care to admit writing fan fiction under my comforter. I had always cast aside my passion for media and art as a useless hobby when, in reality, it was far more meaningful to me than that.
Sometimes I still think about that little 3-year-old girl in her yellow tutu, and I wonder if I betrayed her. Then I shake that thought off because I know that can’t be true. Dance will always be central to my life. The U-M dance community has been a huge part of my college experience and the friends I have made in my dance club are some of the most important people in my life. Heck, my Instagram username is still @becca.dance12, another telltale and mildly embarrassing sign of just how important dance is to me. And even though I don’t miss the stress, tears and constant soreness, nothing could ever make me regret the years I spent pouring everything I had into my dance studio. Those years taught me what it meant to be truly passionate about something and helped shape me into the young adult I am today.
But I also don’t regret quitting dance when I did. No matter how much I beat myself up over the decision, it opened up a part of me I didn’t realize was there and led me to places and people on this campus I never would have discovered otherwise. Because I quit dance, I know I was never just a dancer. We are not defined by one thing or one interest. I’m a dancer and I’m a writer, and those things might change next year or 20 years from now, and that’s OK. Dance still holds a special place in my heart, and probably always will, but by stepping away when I did, I could explore myself and my other interests that may have otherwise been dormant forever.
For that, I’m eternally grateful.
Senior Arts Editor Rebecca Smith can be reached at rebash@umich.edu.