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How I Became a “Failed” Dancer

I’ve always said that if I had had the choice, I would have become a professional dancer. 

I grew up in a sports world – soccer and basketball mostly – and I hated all of it. It was a required activity from when I was young because my dad was a coach and held firm to this grandiose idea that all his kids would grow up to be professional athletes. My older sister really inspired this, as she showed great promise in her athletic ability from a young age. Plus, she was naturally tall. I, as the second child, showed little promise as an athlete, with no indication of being tall, coordinated, or athletic, but was still forced into the activity against my will. 

I hated running and sweating. I hated the competition. I hated trying to coordinate my awkward limbs. I hated all of it. My very first soccer game at the age of 7 or 8 encapsulates perfectly my relationship with sports. During the kick-off – the very first kick of the game – the other team launched the ball square into my face, it toppled me over crying, and I sat out the rest of the game, refusing to play anymore. 

My younger siblings were also naturally gifted as athletes and excelled in both basketball and soccer. In middle school, my older sister, younger sister, and I were all on an intramural team that my dad coached. The team was split into the gold squad and the blue squad, both my sisters being natural stars of the gold squad, and I being the skilled bench warmer of the blue squad. I was content in that role, though, because it meant little play time on the court and I could goof off with the other non-athletic girls relegated to the blue squad, pretending to be cheerleaders instead. 

Dance was never an option for me. Growing up in a conservative religious household, dance was seen as inappropriate in nearly all forms. Most types of music were also forbidden so it wasn’t until I started sneaking around listening to “bad” music in my teens did I realize how much my body enjoyed moving to certain rhythms. Movement felt natural and instinctual, and it allowed me to tap into a confidence about myself that never existed when I played sports. 

As soon as I graduated from high school I left home, got a job, and immediately enrolled myself in jazz dance classes. I loved most everything about it, with one exception: as a late bloomer, I had grown into a decent basketball playing height (ironically) and was taller than every single person there, most of whom had been dancing from a young age. My lack of experience and lanky stature made watching myself dance, in the ceiling to floor mirrors of the dance studio, difficult to bear. As natural as I was, my inability to embody dance technically was frustrating and I did not have the self confidence to persist and give myself the time and consistency needed to improve. So I quit and moved on, swallowing the disappointment that dance was not the pathway I had thought it could be. 

Since then and throughout my adult life, I have enjoyed many different forms of dance, but have had to work through bitter feelings of not being able to dance at the level I wished I could, had I been able to pursue learning from a young age. Really, I think the bitterness stems from being forced into the years of experience I have in a form of movement that I dreaded every moment of, instead of having the opportunity to explore areas of movement where my heart was just as engaged as my body was. 

A friend who knows this story about me likes to joke that I’m a “failed” dancer, a seemingly cruel joke about something so dear to my heart, but one that actually makes me smile and gives solace in framing my experience through; because it implies the potential of what was that failed to be, rather than the potential of something that was never even given a chance to begin with. 

How I wished I could have played soccer:

Image: A female ballet dancer dramatically dances atop the bent knee of a kneeling male ballet dancer next to two soccer players diving for a soccer ball in the middle of a soccer field.

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The Many Facets of Dance

Dancing is both an art form and a sport. It is one of the few places where the mind body connection is joined and exhibited in a such a way that it can be seen as tangible. There is beauty in watching a piece, its emotions and story, be fully embraced in this more visual way. There is also beauty in being able to commit to the act of dancing, training the body in a way where one can escape the mind and rely solely on the body to perform as it has been practiced. The experience of dancing can be further nuanced depending on the circumstances in which the action is taking place. In the case of dancing competitively, there is the need to have the physical body look and move a particular way and if the situation calls for it a reliance on the team and the desire to feel like a full accepted member for which the utmost requirement, in my experience, has often been felt to be the amount of skill one possesses.  

As someone who has been training in dance since the 1st grade, and allegedly dancing well before then, my experience with the art has been multifaceted. When my skill-level increased to the point of notice to others (around my last year of middle school) I was offered positions to teach a few classes weekly for my dance school. It was during this time that I finally felt the most included by my peers and their parents. Rather than commenting on the shortcomings of any rehearsal, parents would instead exchange niceties. I was able to exchange practice questions and answers with my peers as they began approaching me in a way they had not before. As the chubby, short girl, I was finally able to prove that I belonged in a space that revolved around bodies, despite mine not being of an “acceptable type”. Such dynamics can, in many cases including my own, a dual judgement first from the other players/teammates and their respective communities as well as judgement from the internal self about the internal self which can have long lasting impacts on self-esteem and the mental self.  

The point of team sports like this can and should be to have fun, create community and experience movement in a healthy way. However, in spaces where the emphasis is placed first most on the body and the specific ways in which it moves, it can be difficult for bodies that do not conform to social expectations to achieve the same community experience.

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Little Has Changed

In the last few weeks of class, we talked about black bodies and trans bodies in sports and in general. Instantly my mind went to analyzing and drawing parallels from the past. I thought back to how black people were made to do entertainment and labor for the white masses with little regard for their own financial and physical well-being. I thought back to trans women who did the labor during Stone Wall and how they are still ostracized in the LGBT community.

Black and trans bodies will be seen as discardable despite all we do continuously for our communities and society as a whole. Our bodies are integral to keeping society running yet there are no thank-yous, kindness, or consideration when making a newer and supposedly “better” society. This echoes the history of America, using black bodies to progress in capitalism with no remorse for those that it hurts. Then when black people demand that we get our fair share we are met with violence and get called ridiculous. When will this stop? How long do black people have to get the short end of the stick and get robbed of our fair share?

Trans people are killed at alarming rates and nothing is happening. There is no justice even when we give so much of ourselves to the public. We put ourselves out there to normalize our existence through stories but still, we are called less than. This world does not allow trans joy. When trans people try to do things that would be called normal for any cis person we get called predators and freaks. It is not fair, plain and simple. Society as a whole hates that trans people are being normalized and the last bite of conservatism is fighting for dear life. I wish it would die quietly because I don’t know how much more I can take.

I don’t want to undermine the major improvements in life these communities were able to accomplish but I do wish things were going faster. All of this moving at a turtle’s pace is not enough for me. I want radical change in society, not centimeter towards centralism.

smiling Martha P. Johnson
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Higher The Competition= Less Fun :(

In its simplest form, soccer is a joyful and expressive game, especially for young players between the ages of 6 and 13. Carefree practices marked those early days, when the main objective was to enjoy yourself and the pure joy of playing with friends. The teams were chosen by us, and halftime snacks consisted as much of eating orange slices as taking a breather. When the game moved into the collegiate and professional levels, it changed dramatically. Soccer transformed from a hobby into a career, requiring a level of commitment that was unthinkable in the carefree days of childhood. Turning in phones the night before games and arriving hours before a game were part of the preparation rituals. retaining strict bedtimes. During training, the intensity increased dramatically, and friends turned into rivals as they competed for a desired starting spot. Managers upheld a no-nonsense personality by carrying severe expressions. Coaches had little patience and their window for players to make mistakes narrowed as players advanced to higher levels. The significance of roles and the seriousness of competition gradually stole the shine from the game, which had once been a source of pure joy. On the field, there was less freedom to express yourself and more pressure to live up to high standards. In this journey from youth soccer to profession, soccer underwent a change, leaving behind the joy of youth in exchange for the demands and pressures of the elite levels, ultimately transforming the beloved game into a serious business.

I remember in class we talked about how at some point when we love something I think someone mentioned dance and how they started to hate it because it became much more serious than dancing. So I thought of this because when I played, I just remember how serious the game became the higher the level. My coach would stop the entire session during a drill if you made a mistake. He would say things like “Immaturity you’re 20 years old making mistakes my youth team makes. USE YOUR BRAIN AND PLAY!” it would get to the point where you would doubt your own skills. But off the field he was calm and cool. I know it’s constructive criticism, but sometimes it would get so serious you ask yourself “how is this fun?” Overall I just think sometimes people never understand how sports become the older you get. Theres no longer any fun, it’s a business and competition.

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Gender’s got nothing on me.

Alt text at bottom of page.

In high school, I heard the rumors. I knew that I was not the epitome of femininity. It was not the first time I had to evaluate what being a woman meant to me.

It started in 3rd grade, with the best friend of my best friend, who asked why I had a mustache. I didn’t think I had one, but suddenly it was all I could see. Only boys had mustaches—but I was a girl. When I went home, I begged my mom for help. We spread pink Nair on my face and I locked myself in the bathroom where no one could see me washing away my insecurity.

But that wasn’t enough (spoiler: it never is), so in 4th grade, my crush told me my new haircut made me look like a boy—but I was a girl. The “teasing” didn’t stop until my hair had grown past my chin again. I still flinch when I pull my hair too far back and see the more masculine features of my face.

In high school, I’d had enough of hiding behind long hair and getting chemical burns underneath my nose. I decided I would try to stop caring—or at least appear to stop caring. I shrugged off the barbed comments about my face from classmates, refusing to give a reaction, even if it made me think no one could ever love a face like mine. Even if it shook my femininity to the core, even if I began to think my own face was ugly, I refused to cave.

In college, I tried to leave it all behind me; I was grown now. I could shake it. But some people never grow up, and they would match with me on dating apps just to ask me if I knew I had a mustache. An ex of mine told me I should shave my eyebrows and my lip (I should have left him right then).

Then the pandemic hit, and I had more time on my hands than before. I had a coworker who identified as nonbinary, and I started to wonder what that would mean. I shrugged off “woman,” which had caused me problems for so long, and I tried on something different.

But gender is weird. I found myself somewhere in between the two, sometimes feeling like nothing but a person inhabiting a body, and at other times like I was more of a woman than I’d ever been (occasionally, I even reveled in my masculinity). But the more scrutiny I put my identity under, the more it seemed to move. Like my gender, my identity is fluid.
When I shook off the weight of performing femininity, my biggest insecurity became nearly null. If I don’t have to identify as a woman, then it’s not an insult for someone to point out the ways in which I don’t perform as a woman. Rather, it can signal to others that my identity is not what they assume it to be. Most importantly, it is a (much needed) reminder to myself that I decide what I want my body to look like—not others.

♥ ♥ ♥

ALT TEXT: An image excerpt from “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation” page 177. In background: Grayed out images representing an insecure internal monologue. They are saying: “Have I always been this way? Which way? Have I always had a sense that I am neither man nor woman… well… no. I was quite certain that I was a girl, even as a teenager. Have I always straddled the line between masculinity and femininity in my presentation, likes, dislikes, mannerisms, activities? …I suppose so. Have I always…”

The internal monologue is cut off by the person in the forefront, saying, “Fuck this ALWAYS nonsense! How could I always be anything? I’ve been constantly changing and growing and adapting since I was born! Isn’t that what humans are meant to do? Every piece of information, every experience, has served to mold me into who I am at this moment just as what I am undergoing in this moment is shaping who I will be tomorrow. The only thing I have always been doing is growing. Who cares whether we have always been this way? Let us instead say: I have always been becoming what I am right now.”

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I always feel like somebody’s watching me

To be a woman is to perform, I believe this all while hating the idea of it. I don’t want to perform, I don’t want to be watched– I don’t want to be judged.

Before I turned 16, I refused to dance. This is difficult as a Latina with a big female-dominated family where the women are bodacious and in sync with their bodies especially at family parties– AKA your chance to show out and show these muthafuckers the kind of moves you got. Dance for me was uncomfortable as a fat girl. I felt judged, keep in mind I never danced but I had felt so uncomfortable with my own body shape, size, color– whatever, that I just refused to move my body for the majority of my life.

I grew up around a lot of white kids. Kids with complete families and what I deemed “normal bodies with more physical potential” whereas I had been told my whole childhood that I was overweight by doctors and that made me retreat back into my own little shell. Moving my body was always calculated, suck in stomach here, tip toe there, and don’t let people see you’re out of breath bc they’ll just think ur fat (I still struggle with this). My elementary school PE curriculum required students to choreograph a dance as a group, keep in mind this was every year approaching the last day of school. Every year I knew it was coming and each year I almost couldn’t handle the panic and sheer mortification that that stupid gym curriculum put me through. I had most of the same friends throughout elementary school: A fellow fat girl who was heavier and taller than me, Shelby, she always saw my beauty and although we aren’t friends anymore I think about her beauty and grace always. Then there was a girl with some kind of physical disability, Ellie, who the other students treated very differently, but she was my friend so I absolutely didn’t give a fuck that she was “different” I think it’s what brought us close together. Although she moved to Cali and we didn’t keep in touch I think of her every time I drive past her childhood home. It was us three against the other groups the class had formed based on who was friends with who. We were the odd ones out, the outcasts and I think everyone could feel it radiating off of us. Shelby was extroverted and took the role of group leader, together we choreographed probably the shittiest dance ever to the song Royals by Lorde. The best dance won and the original plan was for each group to perform in front of the whole class (MORTIFYING TO EVEN THINK ABOUT) but I think the PE teacher felt bad for us so he let us simply perform in front of him in a corner of the gymnasium (while the rest of the class could still watch from about 50 feet away LMFAOOO.) These dances were graded which I think was really unfair and I think this is where my “hatred” for dance began. The feeling of being watched and judged when you’re forced to move your body for the “health benefits”. I hated PE class, the world truly hates fat kids.

picture of a random school gymnasium

Anyway, I never danced at family parties, not even by myself in my room. It felt weird and unnatural “not meant for me.” My mom and sisters are amazing dancers, I was always the only one seated at parties just watching everyone else have a great time. There is nothing scarier than watching the people on the dance floor start pulling the people who are seated onto the dance floor. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tugged and so awkwardly, painstakingly freed myself from the grasp of someone trying to force me to dance. When avoiding eye contact or pretending to be distracted on my phone didn’t work I would simply run off into the bathroom until the picking was over. Moving my body unwillingly had planted an anxiety seed in my heart from a very early age. Not being a dancer for the majority of my life set me apart from my family. It felt like I didn’t know how to have fun and it’s a very lonely feeling to believe that you may be boring.

I can’t remember when exactly I started dancing, but it started in the room I used to share with my sister, she must’ve been 16 or 17 which meant I was helping her sneak out every other night, so I had the room to myself. That means I was 14 or 15. Around this time I was getting into more spanish music, merengue, cumbia, norteñas, bachate, etc.. These genres of music are the kinds we play at parties these are the ones that every latino “should” know how to dance. At least this is how it feels growing up a first gen American. Gotta stay hispanic enough to not be one of those white washed hispanics (no shade). I would get high off my sisters empty weed cartridges and just dance in our room until she texted me to let her back in the house. Dancing alone was the first step I took into getting in touch with my body. Don’t take it as a recommendation, but weed really helped crack me right open. I would practice for hours I would literally break sweats, if only my elementary school gym teacher Mr. B could see my fat dancing body now. It took a few parties to get comfortable enough to dance in front of other dancing people, I thank my older sister for being willing to embarrass herself next to my horrible inability to move my body fluidly or on beat for longer than 4 seconds.

I feel that my body is still thawing from all the years I spent so locked in fear of judgement and I still have a long way to go, but I try to be okay with being uncomfortable for a few songs because dancing, as I’ve found, is electric and so fun. Especially now that I have a boyfriend who loves to dance. He dances to make me laugh, he dances to have fun, and he’s ok if I lose the beat every couple of steps. He helped me realize that nobody else is really watching and if they are to not give a fuck because we’re not doing anything wrong. Dancing is better when you have a partner, romantic or not it’s fun to move together with someone and be in sync. I know that now and look forward to the moments I get to dance with people I love. I like being silly, I like moving my body and everyday I get closer to feeling secure in my fatness and how that affects the relationship I have with movement.

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Happy Phantom!

I am making one extra post because I just remembered a song I should’ve added to the class playlist. Coincidentally I made it my username for WordPress at the beginning of the semester. For me this song means hope and transcendence. I used to listen to it all the time before transitioning. The lyrics really spoke to me:

“And if I die today I’ll be the happy phantom
And I’ll go chasin’ the nuns out in the yard
And I’ll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I’ll wake up in Strawberry Fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The happy phantom has no right to bitch”

The line “I will never need umbrellas in the rain” was super important for me because it felt similar to my desire to take my shirt off and feel the rain on my chest. It was all I dreamed about before getting top surgery.

Now looking at the lyrics I think of the word transcendence. Being a happy phantom seems to Tori Amos like she would not feel the limits of being in a human body. She sings about how she can do anything she wants: “I’ll run naked through the streets without my mask on.” That line in particular paints the picture of a mask giving her the feeling of immanence. Wish I remembered this in class!

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Wait, Can I Dance?

It is a silhouette of a person performing a jete.

My last formal dancing experience was in the sixth grade, when I decided to take dance as an elective. I had never tried it before and I was curious about how I would fare. I remember my favorite part being our lessons on ballet. Beyond the basic positions, I do not recall much from that class except how liberating it felt to be able to move my body in a way that was not to endure labor or stress. Evidently I was not very good because I was always placed in the back during performances. Facing dejection, I have since then subconsciously internalized the notion that I am not meant to dance and I am not ‘good enough’ to. 

As I have matured and spent more time in my own company, I have grown to appreciate music. Music has been there through all of my car rides, relationships, breakups, breakdowns, and the many other aspects of my life. Similar to dance, music has allowed me to feel liberated by providing a space where I can feel different emotions. But now I realize how much I have limited myself. Aside from the occasional dance session when I am alone in my car, I have not considered dancing to music. I have limited myself to a life where I can appreciate music but not be able to express it through my body. I feel that dancing along to music can make my lived experience more enjoyable, as that is the case for numerous people. 

LaMothe, within “As the Earth Dances,” explores the relationship between dance, philosophy, and the human body. She advocates that the human body is constantly changing and can develop with the help of dance and movement. I resonate with her idea that dance is a method of expression that embodies individuals’ relationships with the world and ourselves. Engaging our bodies can help to shape our relationships, experiences, and personalities. I look forward to reconnecting with a lost part of myself by allowing myself to dance and express my emotions.

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Trans comfort music, volume 100

The reason I like the coed 7v7 soccer league that I play in is because I get to play the sport that I have always loved, it makes my body feel good to move and run and think all at the same time, I get to play with all kinds of people and bodies, and no one is really policing gender. No one is really policing gender until there are not enough girls that show up. The rule the league goes by is that there should be a max of 5 men on the field. Even though I am non binary and I “used to be a girl,” people read me as a boy when I show up to play. That is fine with me because no one is counting us off as men and women/boys and girls. I am safe under the radar and no one is picking apart my gender. But a few days ago we had 7 total people, and only one girl. My sister is usually the second girl, but she was out of town on a work trip. Her boyfriend, however, was set on all of us playing because he knows I am not a man and the rule only stated 5 men max can be on the field. He told me he was going to talk to the referee about it and that was cool with me. After he talked to the ref, he walked over to the other team and talked to them as well, presumably asking for their permission for me to play as a non-man and for their trust about there actually being a non binary person on our team. When he came back he told the team we could all play. Naturally, they asked how/why, since we have 6 guys and 1 girl, right? I was hoping he would say that maybe the other team was okay with just letting us all play just to have a fair game instead of playing a player down. Instead, he told them all that I was non binary. I just kinda stared off into space. Then I thought to myself… “I think maybe I was just outed?” Then the ref blew the whistle and we all ran onto the field. I was shaking and wondering if I was overreacting. I just felt very anxious and was hoping that my teammates weren’t still thinking about the conversation.

On the car ride home he apologized because I think he realized I was uncomfortable. I was glad he checked in and we got to talk about what he could have done differently.

Now to the point of this post. Once I dropped him off, I was sitting in my car and decided to put on 100 gecs. As soon as the song Dumbest Girl Alive started playing, followed by Money Machine, I immediately relaxed and felt so much better. The music got me back into my body. 100 gecs is not usually my go-to artist. The music is very electronic and experimental. It serves very specific purposes for me, the moment in the car being one of them. The group is made up of 2 people, and one is a trans woman. I like listening to her voice and the sounds of the songs. 100 gecs uses autotune and pitching on their voices, and a lot of electronic sounds. The techniques they use are often considered fake or unnatural in music, and the fact that this is the case makes it even better that they lean so hard into it. Their music embodies a lot of trans experiences. At that moment in the car, I was feeling really anxious and nervous and unintelligible to my sister’s boyfriend and my teammates, and playing the music immediately put me at ease. It was like I was in the room with Laura Les singing about how she “did science to [her] face.” Most 100 gecs songs are almost too much for me because of how experimental they are, but that honestly makes them even better. They are a big “fuck you” to what you would expect, just like being trans is.

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Love for Artists

Up until now, I do not think I have had a music artist that I am attached to. There probably is not an artist that I would cry about when they are gone. Although I do have love for many musical artists that I listen to, I do not think I am passionate about them. When listening to the podcast “Fresh Air with Hanif Abdurraquib,” I realized how sad it was that I did not have an artist that I was passionate about. At one point in the podcast, Abdurraquib and his class all took a moment when one of their favorite artists died, and he spoke about how hard it was for them. They all went around and shared their favorite songs and talks about that artist throughout all of class. I have had friends who have had the same experience with other musical artists. I think it is a beautiful thing to be attached to someone because of the words they use and the emotions they invoke in others. All of this without personally knowing that artist must meant that that artist is special and dear to them. I look forward to when I can be that passionate about a music artist one day like them.

Here is one of my favorite songs So Good by Dove Cameron. She sadly deleted all of her past songs, but I listened to this song all throughout my first semester at university so it means a lot to me.