When someone asks me how long I have been dancing for, I usually say all my life. I wasn’t taught the genres that I started with. I picked a couple of songs and started moving. Sometimes, I’ll gain inspiration from the movies I watch. Dancing came to me like flying to a bird. I never thought much of it at the time, but dancing became my getaway from chaos.
At the age of nine, I started to explore hip hop and breakdancing, casually mixing it up with moves of my own. Then, I picked up on contemporary dancing, though at the time I was just dancing to my emotions. I joined a dance team at school in the fourth grade and was even picked to choreograph!
This bolstered my confidence even more. I moved into the realm of Bollywood and expressive dance. Constantly picking out favourite choreographies from movies and music videos that so constantly played in the musicals that were Punjabi and Hindi movies. Worn out of the same genres, I discovered Giddha through family parties and the sassy nature of the dance came easily to me. Giddha is a traditional folk Punjabi dance performed by men and women originating from Punjab. It’s a staple in the Punjabi culture.
Suddenly, when I was 11 years old, my sister wanted to learn a new form of dance: bhangra. Bhangra is another folk dance from Punjab. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. I always knew it was a dance form specifically for guys. My family and I visited an academy and I was firmly against this. Though I didn’t voice these concerns, I was still curious. So, my sister and I joined the academy and slowly but surely, I began to master this genre as well. So much so that I fell in love with it. I even started my own Bhangra teams in my elementary, middle and high schools.
Soon enough, I joined dance teams. I remember going to my first competition at the age of twelve. The adrenaline of performing in front of hundreds of people. The togetherness and the excitement that buzzes throughout the venue. It’s a time of bonding with your team like no other. From the age of 12 through 17, we changed academies three times.
One was a trial and mismatch. The second used to be home but became an unhealthy environment. The third academy became home. This academy was called Nachdi Jawani or commonly referred to as NJ. So, next time you hear NJ from me, remember I’m not referring to New Jersey!
NJ has several locations and ours was the Melanie location. From the get-go, there was a sense of familiarity, that I belonged. I knew that this was going to be the place I wanted to develop as a dancer. My sister and I were put on a team. Low and behold, we immediately started bonding. Practices for us were joyful times filled with laughter. Competitions only brought us closer together as a team.
One year, my mother became ill and went abroad for treatment and that summer, I tried out for an international level team. To my surprise, I made it in! Practices were daunting but still fun. At that time, I was a part of two Bhangra teams. We also threw my sister a surprise Sweet 16 when my mother came back and there were quite a few family parties throughout the summer as well. So, obviously, being the dancer that I am, I choreographed a bunch of dances as well and guess what? I performed in heels too!
Ambitious as ever, I wanted to work and earn some money. Naturally, I got myself a summer job. I became a camp counsellor. Though it wasn’t an overnight camp, it was still a very active one. I was up at seven in the morning and in bed at ten. I was going to every single practice, making up moves and running around chasing those kids.
Then, it all caught up to me.
One day, I started to notice shooting pain in my legs. I didn’t tell anyone about it at first and like anyone, I Googled my symptoms. I tended to my pain as instructed by Mayo Clinic and the pain would go away for a little while. But because of the persisting agony, I came clean and went to the doctor for a check-up. I was told they would go away, that I should take painkillers and the pain should subside in about four weeks. So, I waited four weeks and went back to practices. Things seemed to be manageable until, unfortunately, one day at practice, the pain became so unbearable that I stopped in the middle of dancing and sobbed uncontrollably.
Just a month before the team was supposed to go to its first international competition, I had to start therapy and stop dancing. It felt like the doctor told me to stop breathing. I just couldn’t understand that this pain wouldn’t simply go away. I was given booklets of stretching and exercises and I went to physical therapy. Apparently, some muscles in my legs were overworked, overstressed and tightened which caused me the discomfort.
The pain would keep me up some nights. Sometimes it was difficult to walk. I quit the international team. It was gut-wrenching. It felt like someone pushed me off a mountain that I spent my entire life trying to climb. From there began what felt like my downfall. I was stress eating, barely practising due to fear of injuring myself again.
Eventually, I stopped going to NJ in early 2019. I thought I fell out of touch with who I really was. Dancing was in every last cell of my body. How could I give up all that I am? During my last year at high school, I was half of the Asian Heritage Month show. I feel cocky even acknowledging it. But I did that at a time where I was at my lowest. I put together a Bhangra team at my school, choreographed a contemporary/Bollywood dance, wrote spoken word poetry and performed it all.
I realized something important at the end of that show. That I’m not limited to what surrounds me. I have the power to create, express and spread the passion of dance. I learned that I am not defined by how many competitions I have won or teams that I joined but by the relationships and the people that I have shared the love of dance with. My affiliation and my love story with dancing isn’t over.
It has only begun.