Movement, Color, Life... Is there MORE to dance?

The answer is YES! Dance is so much more than the movement and the liveliness of a scene or an act. Dancers are more than perfection, the perfect movement, the perfect ensemble, the perfect direction, the perfect music, the perfect choreography or the perfect costumes. Dancers pride themselves in their work, in what they do and the visual art they provide to the world. The motivation for dance is abstract, untouchable, yet, always there. I've always been moved by the saying:

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"  ~Constanze

Just like we don't really know why we dream what we dream, I dance because its innate in me. I can't ignore it. Its something inside me that needs to dance. Whether I'm injured or not. Whether I can do the movements that are being asked of me, I want to do it and I get frustrated when I can't. Sometimes realizing that you can't do something, whether is dancing, running or even writing a paper is a mental let down. We are raised in a world where everything CAN be done. The mind CAN control everything and the only person that sets the limits is yourself. But, what if I want to, but I can't? 

Realizing how far your mind and body can go in a given activity comes with age. Doing something about it, comes from within. As a dancer, I realized that given my long history of injuries and bad habits, at age 18 it was next to impossible to break away. Given this realization, I quit dance during my first semester in college. Needless to say, WORST SEMESTER OF MY LIFE! What now?

I realized that I needed to dance and that when I danced I did more than injure myself countless times, I gave myself mental peace for an hour each day I went to dance class. During that hour, keeping up with counts, rhythms, movements and combinations was what gave me sanity from everything else that was going on in my life.

For me, that hour of peace is PRICELESS!