Writer’s Note: I wrote this essay in the fall of my sophomore year, when the Covid-19 pandemic was still at its peak and Zoom School was becoming the new normal. Sophomore year was a revolutionary time for writer Sanai as I joined two online magazine publications that year, and this essay was published in one of them, Antifragile Zine. Now that I have freshly graduated high school, I have decided to revisit the original essay and expand upon my thoughts as I revisit the middle school years of my life for this project. It’s never too late to keep building upon the past. I will forever be grateful for dancer Sanai as I realize she is still a part of me today even if I don’t have ballet every week on Wednesdays anymore. 

That moment three times a week, and once for the end-of-year recital in the spring, when I would pull my tan brown tights over my thighs and up to my belly button and  everything would snap into place. My leotard hugged my skin. Lastly, I'd slip on my pink ballet shoes. Scuffs and dirt marks marred the bottom, from weeks of jetés and relevés. The calluses on my big toe sting again; I need a new pair soon. But when I walk over to the crystal-clear mirror with big bulbs overhead — the kind Broadway stars have in their dressing rooms —  I suck my belly in, and everything feels right. Staring at my long brown body and black bun with bobby pins spiking out the sides, I felt I could dance with the world on my shoulders. 

Dance leapt into my life when I was three years old. My mom took a picture on my first day of class. I'm sitting in a frosted pink tutu on the wooden dance floor, and, in the reflection of a mirror, I can see my mom in her flare jeans with her small Blackberry's camera flash sparkling, and my Mimi standing beside her. I only stayed at that studio for two years, but I would become a company member under that same dance team nine years later. I was a "studio hopper", jumping dance schools every couple years. My feet always yearned to try someplace new and my eyes would bulge when I saw dance programs advertised in bright yellow letters in the local newspaper. I was a nomad, always looking for a dance studio to call home. 

I always knew I was different from my dance mates. I was a shy child and would rather nail steps down than waste time with the girls in the back row. I was the polite exemplar student, who got a break from doing planks because "Sanai is the only one who behaves!" Despite all this, I never got to stand in the front row. When the dance studio owner would peek into class, she never complimented me, never told me my kicks looked great, like she did Anna, Madeline, and Jessica. 

Dance brought an isolation that left me frozen over, my black dance studio sweatshirt with bedazzled silver gems the only thing keeping me warm. I was almost always the only Black girl in any of my dance classes, the black licorice in a bag full of coconut jelly beans. Every day after dance, my mom would ask, "Were there any other Black students in the class?" and I could only say "No." I became so used to this fact that it didn't bother me anymore. I was one of few black kids in my class at school, then in my camp group during the summer; why was this any different?

But dance is different. If you typically find yourself a member of the audience, sitting in red velvet chairs and holding roses in your hand, you may not realize how much goes on behind the scenes.  That’s why when I saw my friend repost an infographic on Instagram titled "Here are a few ways you may have participated in systemic racism in dance" I felt a chill. I was the victim of almost every bullet point listed. I laughed bitterly as I identified with all the ways systemic racism in dance has stomped all over my Black body. "Making Black girls ‘tame’ their hair for ballet class." Yep, heard that before. "Not casting POC because most of your dancers are white, and you don't want your image to be broken by Black/Brown bodies." Too true. "Making an assumption that the Black/Brown person walking into your dance studio is there to take hip-hop." I was in my tenth year of dance when I took my first hip-hop class! "Making Black and Brown dancers dye their pointe shoes and accessories."Pointe shoes' production in varying skin tones is exceptionally scarce, pink/peach being the standard.

After I left one studio where the mothers and daughters were like those featured on Dance Moms, I returned to the first studio I ever danced at. After a year of classes and my first official company audition, I was accepted into that studio's Repertory 2 section. I felt like I had finally made it.

 That studio became like a home for a while. I was at the studio 90 minutes, three times a week, and my dad and I would get Popeyes on our drives home. The studio owner, a biracial woman who advocated for Black dancers and a proud vegan, would often reminisce about how she knew me from when I was "this high" and was proud to see me grow. I made my first ever real "dance friends" there. At our end-of-year recital I performed in all seven shows at least two times each night. Going on stage and making my mark as a "company girl” was thrilling. Right before we went on for one of our last shows, this girl was helping all the Black girls do their edges. My mom did my hair that day, but I wanted to join in on the fun, so I asked that same girl to do mine. She was Black and Dominican, so I trusted her, but I will never forget how she attempted to sweep my curls down and said, "Ugh, your hair looks a mess." I cried to my mom about it the next day, not believing that I let a 12-year-old bring my 14-year-old self-down. Even the Black dancers in your class can bring you down too. So much prejudice is internalized. But my mom gave me a pep talk, and I walked on stage and performed my best show of the  run. 

The last studio I went to was in the heart of New York City. Founded by a Black man, it always preaches how accepting it is. A Black woman taught my ballet class, with rigid toes and a strict demeanor. She scared the heck out of me. When I read the bullet point, "Saying someone doesn't have a ballet body because their body doesn't fit your image of a thin ballerina with no butt and no chest." I immediately thought of her frightening face. She constantly belittled me for "sticking out my butt too much” when we did barre routines. I wished I could slice off a hunk of my butt, like a slice of chocolate cake, and throw it in the trash so that I could fit in with the rest of my vanilla classmates. COVID-19 shut that class down, and I can't say I was disappointed.

Now I have closed the curtain on my dancing career and scuttled off into the wings. Dance, you and I have a messy, beautiful, and emotional relationship. You made me fall in love with my body, but also made me hate the way I looked. But you uncovered a piece of me that I don't know any other art form could. You will always be a part of me. Dance is in every Black body, always moving and grooving around; my large mixture of Caribbean and African American family members who would dance at the end of my shows prove that true. I am so proud and will always be a beautiful Black ballerina, no matter what dance teachers, classmates, or the whole world has to say.

As I re-read this essay, I am teary-eyed. It's always easy to reflect on younger versions of yourself and cringe. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a picture of myself in sophomore year (around the time I wrote this essay) and have winced. I ask myself Why did you wear your hair like that, Sanai? How could you think that was an attractive pose? When will you realize this Brandy Melville shirt doesn't fit anymore? All of those silly little questions to assuage some embarrassment I felt in myself. Yet as I read this piece, I feel so much love for sophomore year Sanai. You felt some real things, girl, and wrote it all out so beautifully!

Two years after this piece's publication, my feelings for dance have softened. I used to be so regretful that I stopped dancing and felt like I had lost a piece of myself that I would never get back. It is challenging to re-enter the dance world after taking a break, especially as you reach your teenage years and every other dancer your age is in a company, on pointe, and looking to pursue a professional career. I often compared myself to one of my best friends, Rebekah, a pre-professional dancer at Ballet Academy East on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Since I met Rebekah at orientation during my freshman year at Beacon, they have dedicated themselves to pursuing dance. I envied their drive and commitment to the art I had abandoned. However, I now realize that I just wished I could still pursue what I loved to the fullest like Rebekah did every day. 

It felt like my chapter on dance was closed — for good. 

But it turns out it wasn't.

Since writing that essay, I have yet to start dancing again formally by taking classes each week or joining a new dance studio. However, I have started to make dance fit into the life I have built for myself instead of trying to squeeze into an archaic dance world that isn't for me anymore. 

In private, I still choreograph dances in my living room and watch Dance Moms during dinner with my little sister Nailah. In public, I recently choreographed an entire 48-count of choreography for my senior theater thesis and performed it for an audience of friends and families. It was a small moment in my overall play, but I had so much fun being a dance teacher and seeing my movements embodied by three classmates in my piece. The former dance student had become the teacher, and I loved every moment. 

I will always love dance. I just now know that it plays a different role in my life. At Brown, I want to see if there are any dance teams, and perhaps I will stop by and audition. The critical dancer voice in my head still pops up when I have these thoughts, asking How could you ever think about joining a dance team when you haven't danced in four years? But I'm choosing to ignore her. Some of me still yearns to slip on some leggings and a tank top, clutching a water bottle, walk into a dance studio, stand in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and pop a move. And who says I can't still do that?!

Yesterday, at New York City's Pride Parade, I was walking down the streets of Greenwich Village with my best friends on our way to Chipotle; through the crowds, I saw my old dance teacher.

"Ms. Ariel!" I screamed and walked over to her. She looked just as I remembered her — bouncy curls, a vibrant smile, with a halo of good energy around her head. She was my dance teacher for two years in a row in middle school and even my camp counselor at one point.

She didn't recognize me initially, but as I explained who I was and where I knew her from, I soon saw the lightbulb click off in her head.

"It's so nice seeing you," she hugged me. I laughed at how she taught me to dance in middle school; I had just graduated high school.

"Are you off to college? Where are you going?"

I smiled with glee, "Yes! I'm going to Brown."

She cocked her head and snapped. Then she turned to her friends behind her and said, "Look at that she said she is going to BROWN."

I had never felt so happy.

Sixth-grade Sanai, who had looked up to this dance teacher like she was Madonna herself, was now making Ms. Ariel proud in her own special way.

Everything I do is to make my middle school self proud and look at me — I'm doing it, babe. 

- Sanai Rashid