What is dance?

When most people hear the word "dance," they envision a little girl in a tutu or Natalie Portman losing her mind in Black Swan. They don't realize that dance is both a challenging sport and a beautiful art. For me, dance is vehicle for expression. It enables me to express through movement things that are incapable of saying. Every year on So You Think You Can Dance, there are pieces that bring us to tears, make us smile and feel giddy, and pieces that simply make us want to get up and dance with the contestants. Like music, and theater,singing, photography, sketching or painting, dance is another art. It is a creative release that can enrage, enlighten and even heal. One of my favorite pieces from this year on SYTYCD was the piece with Melanie and the "star," Neil, choreographed by Mandy Moore. In this piece, Melanie took an unbelievable leap of faith (physically and emotionally), and threw herself across a huge portion of the stage into Neil's arms. This is a perfect example of another thing that dance can provide: trust. Dancers have to develop relationships built on trust and loyalty. Like athletes and teammates, there is a comradery that is developed over time. I think part of this trust is built because when we dance, we have to share a part of ourselves that we sometimes want to hide. Art in all forms can be a mode of therapy. What I love about dance is that, even if it is just for 40 minutes every morning, when I am in the studio, nothing else matters. And while I have so much to worry about with college and school and whatever else, it doesn't matter for A period. The studio is safe haven where the only thing that is important is the present. As a lover of the arts, and a hard-core thespian, I have learned over the years how important expression is. Some people express through ramming into another athlete with all of their body weight, some people draw skulls and weapons, and some people choose to move to the beat. It's the personal melody and spontaneity that make it exciting.


Melanie and Neil