Natasha Mar reflects on why she loves dancing.
It seemed like since the day I could walk, I have been dancing. When I was younger, it was about sparkly costumes and twirling onstage, but as I grew older, dancing became something different. It wasn’t the same carefree moves as it used to be. Instead, it became about getting onto the best team, getting the best part in the dance, getting a solo, and coming in first place.
All I cared about was winning medals, and when it came to trying out for the dance team, I needed to get on the varsity team. I lost track of why I initially fell in love with dancing, and I didn’t even enjoy my time in the studio anymore. It was just competition, after competition, after competition. When I made it on varsity, I hardly rejoiced, it was just another thing to stress about.
I was worried about falling behind, or not being good enough, and at the studio, I got frustrated with myself when I wasn’t improving at the speed I wanted to. One day, my mom showed me a photo of when I was younger. I was smiling up at the camera, my hair in a bun and I was wearing a sparkly costume. You could see the happiness in my eyes. It was impossible to deny the fact that I loved to dance back then.
The photo made me miss that feeling, the feeling of being onstage without a care in the world. It reminded me of why I had started dancing in the first place. It was about that feeling when you danced and the whole world faded away.