This is a piece I penned for the Dancewear Center blog in July of this year. They are a local dance gear shop located in Kirkland, Washington with a heart for inclusive and diverse education in the dance world. Please support local and check out their website for gear and good reading, links below: The shop, the blog, and this post. Childhood body-negative studio experiences:
For all of my life, my body has been what most people would think is not a conventional “dancer body.” While there is no shade intended to be thrown to those who are of a different physique, I was never a naturally thin person and yet constantly felt like my life would be easier if I were, that the thin dancers at my childhood studio got the most attention and respect paid to their work. I knew there were certain roles I would not likely be considered for because of the aesthetic desired versus the one I represented. In another space, I was told that I am “the nerdy, girl-next-door type,” but “not the leading lady type,” and I felt that held true for how I was perceived in the dance space as well. Growing up in what I felt to be a body-negative/body-shaming dance space for me was almost like the old analogy of a frog being slowly boiled. You’re in the midst of the heat, yet being slowly desensitized to it until it’s too late to save yourself. From my personal experience, body negativity can be so ingrained in dance education spaces that it’s hard to even recognize it happening. Especially when body-negative messaging and practices are covert rather than overt. I became so used to feeling poorly about myself and receiving nonchalant messages about how my body was not quite acceptable, that I thought it was normal, even deserved. Throughout my young dancing years, I took hiatuses from dancing many times when the pressure and pain of not living up to expectations became too much. Then upon my return, I would see folks I was dancing with a couple years before were now a few levels ahead of me and being cast in principal roles in the dance company. So the vicious cycle would continue when I realized I was nowhere near as conditioned, technical, or artistically expressive as them, because time had gone by. My confidence would waiver again, the body image issues from my wee years would rise to the surface, and I would either severely cut back my class schedule or leave dancing for a season altogether. Yet, there was little time made for investing in the emotional wellbeing of dancers either in technique classes or in the member-exclusive company, and so there was no one there to notice that I and other dancers were slipping through the cracks. These turbulent years certainly contributed to the zeal I have for diversity in the dance world now, because I became exhausted with the old hat expectations of the dance world yester-years. For years, I dreamed of a more just and body-inclusive dance world… then I realized that it was up to me to make that world a reality, in whatever way I can. Choosing body positivity: Through mental health counseling, I have had an opportunity to explore how deeply negative thoughts about myself and my dancing have burrowed into my self-image as a result of the conditioning I’ve received since I was young. I’ve begun unpacking how those thought patterns have affected my life and thoughts, have led me to treat myself and my work with disrespect, and to self-harm through intense exercising and disordered eating. Yet, all the while, I know I just wanted to live in the simplicity of loving my art and self-expression. That is the evil at the root of body negativity; it robs everyone of self-love. I realized that the difference between body positivity and body negativity can be subtle yet pervasive. The difference between wanting to be strong or wanting to be a small leotard size. The difference between genuine happiness for someone else and toxic comparison. The difference between loving dance for itself and wanting to be admired. A subtle shift is enough to make what should be a joy into an obligation, or a mental prison. These patterns of pervasive self-harming thoughts and habits started shifting for me ever so slightly once I got to university. I could certainly feel myself holding onto the desire to meet superficial aesthetic standards for a while, even though I had hoped that at the university level such expectations would be a thing of the past. As I grew in confidence as a young adult navigating the world, I got tired of being evaluated on aesthetic standards alone. Since day one, I have worked hard in my university program and wanted to be evaluated primarily on my work ethic and attention to detail. For me, realizing that body positivity was the key to unlocking the rest of my dancing career came because of a breaking point. It came because I was exhausted with being counted out time and again, and seeing others struggle to stand out in the midst of a popularity contest. It came with growing up and realizing that dance can be (and has to be) many things to many people or it loses its joy. It came with a desire to help people of all body modalities to find the indescribable joy in dance that I found. It came with heartbreak but also hope: to be a cycle breaker, so that no other dancers will be made to feel less-than because of their body. Most of all, it came with solidifying my own philosophy. The way you show up on earth in your physical form is the most deeply personal and powerful thing we have available to us. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, that our experience of being human is one and the same with our bodily experience. So, to me, devaluation of the body is devaluation of the spirit, a disregard for the core of humanness. Not everyone approaches it with that set of beliefs, but from a pragmatic standpoint, our identities are intrinsically tied to our physical bodies, while at the same time transcending the physical. We perceive each other physically, as well as emotionally and intellectually, simultaneously. There are levels to being human, and each one of them counts. I believe for that reason, there should be awe when encountering a human with a body; there should be respect and love. There should be joy and acceptance. This is especially critical in dance spaces. When I realized that some part of my dance career would include being a teacher, I recognized that I had to unpick my own body-negative thought patterns. I had to heal myself from my internalized self-reproach, I had to get healthy, or any teaching I do would be heavy with judgement toward myself, and most likely toward others as well. My aesthetic judgments toward myself and toward other dancers had been taken over by the body-negative language and practices I received as a child and young adult. The next generation of teachers need tools for making body positivity an inherent part of their curricula, and unteaching body negativity in the dance world has to be intentional for us to make any progress. Body positivity in the studio: On my journey of deconstructing my own body-negativity, I have had to employ curiosity and become very uncomfortable, and ask questions to form new patterns of thought. Some key questions I ask myself regularly are:
Asking myself these questions has already led to really positive results. I have found freedom in working with my body on a daily basis, wherever I find her at and without judgement. I find that I see the beauty in other dancers more readily because I am working to shut off voices of judgement about their work and mine, because I believe that setting yourself free also sets others free. I have found work by other dancers that is truly comforting, inspiring, and refreshing because it breaks down barriers and creates new possibilities. If I were to give a short list of suggestions to studios and universities about how to train with body-positive frameworks, it would be:
I offer these suggestions as one who has not yet been a dance educator, but has been a student for many years. I acknowledge that there are unique challenges to educators within different dance spaces, but since dance is a physical art, I believe it to be imperative that we work to get the body positivity issue right. I offer these suggestions as a student who knows what it feels like to have had a few very encouraging and life-giving teachers, and unfortunately, a few teachers who added to my pain in this area. I offer these suggestions with the hope that more dancers will receive from their teachers what I ultimately had to learn for myself. Self-love and body positivity in dance spaces must be intentional, and educators are the first line of offering dancers a healthier way to see themselves and a brighter way of looking at the world. So that dancers everywhere will know their body (and every body) is a dancing body.
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