Personal Narrative: A Double Sided Dancer

A Double Sided Dancer When watching the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, we laugh at the sight of the mayor with his two rotating faces between a devious grin contrasting distraught hysteria, but the representation is not too off when we truly observe our own rotating faces. My version of the ‘distraught hysteria’ side is the occasionally introverted, focused and hard-working, honors student, Danielle. I keep this side of my face on throughout the 6 1/2 hour long school day, along with my 3 hour homework routine after school. Things start to change around 5:30 when for 3-4 hours a day I transform into the much more relaxed and fun but still focused dancer, Dani. Dancing is my portal to a much more desirable place. Just as dance is

What you see is what you get. I am your typical diligent, obedient, nerd and I work hard to maintain strong averages in my classes to see as little red marks on my papers as possible. I am my biggest criticizer so when my grades start to drop, so does my confidence and sanity. Against my will I motivate myself to sit straight for as many hours I need whether that is 1 or 5, to write formulas or essays or reports and get ahead of the load of work because I do not have enough time during the week. Unless I am with some of my good friends who bring out the personality in me, I generally tend to stay quiet in school and avoid participating in class. I used to be much more outspoken but slowly went back into my shell. Of course some view me differently than others but I have gathered that the main consensus is that people see me as the opposite of wild and crazy. Those who think of me this way would have been surprised if they saw me on the floor of an auditorium crying tears of laughter next to my best friend after a very unusual dance was performed wholly about sneezing in the ‘open’ category of a dance

Setting my alarm clock is not something I eagerly await to do, but knowing I get to go to dance afterwards is what keeps me driven. It has been 11 years since I started and joy still fills my heart while walking into my favorite building and being greeted by my favorite set of twins jumping on me and screaming “DANI!”. When I’m in the dance studio I am at ease. When we are doing our fondu combination in ballet I am focusing on keeping my knees back and lifting out of my hip, not the global test I have tomorrow. I can legitimately let go of all anxiety, worry, or drama that had happened during school as I step into my pointe shoes, tap shoes, half soles, or converse. I love dance because I know there are many who are better than me and that I am nowhere near the best at it. There is constantly something you need to work on because you can never by definition have something perfectly. I am sure there are many people out there who think I talk too much about dance, and they are right. In fact, it is probably what I talk about the most, but it is my heart. While I am supposed to be listening in bio I am thinking about the jazz combination I did yesterday and anytime I am in a desk I am tapping my feet underneath it, while running through my competition dance. I will never forget the memories I have gained from going