The first time I remember dancing was at the age of eight.Â
It was a fleeting interest of mine throughout my childhood, which I’m pretty sure most girls had at some point in their lives. All I wanted was to be able to express myself through dance, to put on a cool outfit and perform something I learned on stage. I was already knee-deep in softball, the complete opposite of the spectrum when it came to sports, so I kept trying dance every year, from jazz to hip-hop to tap, until maybe one day I would consider myself good at it.
It was safe to say that didn’t last long.
Watching everyone around me receive private training and move their way up the youth dance ladder, I felt as if I were stationary. My one true love was softball, and it showed in the way I had the focus to learn a dance but not the grace or body control to truly perform it. Going into middle school with this past love, I continued to pick myself up again and tried to dance in my own time (which was hard, since the only music I was into at the time was emo and alternative rock), but it never seemed to stick. I just wanted to be good at something musically.Â
Growing up with a friend group who each had their own special talent was extremely rewarding, but also made me struggle to find my own passion. I had picked up skiing, adding it onto my athletics roster; yet still, I was determined to find a way to express my deep love and appreciation for music. It seemed like that came easy for my friends, all exceptionally talented at singing and the performing arts. And there I was, the notorious music-addict since the day I started middle school, with nothing to give.Â
That is where I stayed for nearly 10 years, until college came along.
It was my first semester of college, and the urban dance crew on campus held a K-pop workshop for a song I wasn’t familiar with, but my best friend and I were excited regardless. I glided through the choreography with the dozen other people there, and I thought maybe, just maybe I could finally be decent at this. I wasn’t remotely close to being an expert, but it was comforting knowing that my body was able to follow the instructors and I was able to remember the choreography despite the memory issues I had developed from a high school accident. It was a type of enjoyment I rarely felt through the competitiveness of everything else I had done.
Yet as soon as the camera was revealed, and the instructors filmed our mini groups performing the dance, I blanked. My body stopped moving, and I felt teary all of a sudden. Forgetting the choreography is one thing (I mean, we only had a little over an hour to learn it), but blanking was so terrifying and turned all of that previous enjoyment into the question: Am I really fit for this? Was I fit for remembering choreography and putting my personality into a dance, then performing that in front of people? My anxiety and insecurity was telling me no.
But even though that day I trudged back to my dorm, defeated, I had already reignited a passion that was going to be hard to throw away again.Â
Later in the semester, a new club popped up on campus. A brand new dance crew, branched from a larger organization, led by three instructors and no media team. They began holding any-level workshops weekly, mostly songs that I knew and somewhat enjoyed. With the company of my roommate, I built the courage to go to these workshops and, even though some people there were much better than me, I didn’t let that make me feel inferior. I felt comfortable around fellow beginners and those just sharing the love for the genres of K-pop and hip-hop.Â
I watched the crew grow from the sidelines. Our name popped up at events on campus beginning in the spring, and by then I had become a regular. This small group of people, around twenty of us – they showed me what it was like to grow into the love for dance. For years, I had watched artists I like dance on a screen, but my fear of dancing has always gotten in the way of replicating that art. But as I showed up to these workshops and events and watched my friends bloom into performers, professionals, putting their unique personalities into what they did, I decided it was time for me to do the same. It was time for me to grow with them, instead of being stationary.
Fast forward to the fall of 2023. The crew had grown exponentially into a full-fledged team stacked with captains, instructors, a media team, and a film team. We launched social media covers consistently, as well as performing at all sorts of events with double the performers we had before. I reminisced on the spring, watching the performances from that semester, wishing I could be like them too. And so in the fall, that’s what I did.Â
Somehow, in the midst of my borderline stagefright and jam-packed schedule, I found the time to put my full effort into two songs to perform. The Fall Showcase would be my first performance ever with the crew, which brought stress and exhaustion as much as it did happiness. Months passed of frequent practices, trying and failing, making progress alongside some of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting through this dance crew. Looking back on practice logs, you can see my body blend more and more with the songs, some personality shining for once. I felt like I was finally improving at something, and I was successfully beating the habit of frustration and giving up after only a brief time of trying something new.Â
Of course, I’m not perfect, not even close. But the number one goal for me, in school and personal life? Improve.
I can safely say that the day of the showcase was one of the most euphoric days I’ve experienced in my adult life so far. Because that’s exactly what I was doing – I was growing into someone who accepted failure, who found passion in something and never let go, no matter where I fell on the imaginary pyramid of those with the same hobbies as me. Self-criticism comes naturally, so I bet you could imagine that’s all I did after watching the videos back from the showcase. I replayed my eight minutes of energetic performance over and over, embracing the cheers and going straight towards my mistakes.
But, in my opinion, that is how you realize that something has become a true enjoyment and passion. When you look back at it, you not only see happiness, but you find ways to make the art more your own.Â
I’m still on a long road of improvement, however, I find comfort in knowing that whenever I want to express myself through music, dance is now something I am pretty decent at. And that’s all thanks to the people who supported my growth, looking past my frustrations and low moments to see someone who just loves music.Â
Just as I do with academics, this semester, my priority is improvement and discovering new aspects of myself I may not have dived into before. And luckily, I have the best support system one could ask for in that – one that I was missing a decade ago. I just know that if preteen-me saw herself ten years later, in college, finally finding her place in the world of music – she’d be very, very proud.Â
So to anyone trying to find that passion, anyone who may be reluctant to stand back up after failing: just know that in the end, the younger version of you will always be in your heart cheering you on, which makes all of those trials and triumphs worthwhile.