From the ages of two through eighteen, I grew up in the dance studio, dedicating hours after school each week to perfect a grand jeté or to have the highest grand battement. Disappointingly, the dance world has painted what the “perfect dancer” should look like – tall and lean with long, skinny legs, a tiny torso, and a flat chest. Well, I’m five foot two, and I don’t fit this mold, nor have I ever. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I grew up feeling as if my physical body was holding me back from my full potential, and even though the only dancing I do nowadays is Salsaerobics, the insecure little girl that grew up in the studio has followed me offstage.
Due to constantly taking measurements for costumes with girls who weren’t as curvy or as short as me, I started to think that my body was inadequate. Constantly being surrounded by comments such as, “Look at my belly fat in this costume,” and, “These shorts make my legs look huge,” really took a toll on me during the most crucial stages of my life in terms of my personal development. I was constantly worried about my “numbers” and how I looked rather than how I felt on the inside, and I realized that I was only worried about how my measurements compared to those of everyone else.
While I will always appreciate dance for what it has gifted me, I walked away from my last performance mentally exhausted and with low body confidence. There is a difference between being skinny and being healthy, and I didn’t realize that until after it was too late. I equated being bony to being perfect. I personally believe that the dance industry needs to have the conversation of how being skinny and being healthy are not the same, whatsoever. Healthy looks different on everyone, and as long as one is happy and healthy, then our skewed ideas of how our bodies “should look” doesn’t matter. This idea was never taught to me, so I had to learn it myself and reinforce the idea that as long as I am happy and healthy, I should feel comfortable in my own skin. In order to erase this toxic ideal, society needs to emphasize that our physical appearance is not the sole indicator of whether or not one is healthy.
While I still have a long way to go on accepting my body, I think that I will always be a work in progress as long as my body keeps changing. I hope that little boys and girls at the barre can be taught as soon as possible that their body doesn’t define the dancer or the person that they are, that we are more than a measurement. I wish that I could go back in time and tell myself that I am more than enough, no matter how I look.