The Body Issue: Part 3

This is the story of my first year as a wannabe dance major at BYU.

I graduated high school with the expectations to go on and do music. I was good at music. I won scholarships for music. I had been actively involved in all music-like activities. It was my "thing".

So I think I kind of surprised everyone in my choice to major in dance. I had done after-school ballet off and on since I was 18 months old. But I was never excellent at it. And I didn't have the dancer body with Heidi Klum legs. (Who even has Heidi Klum legs? Heidi Klum, probably).

So my first semester of BYU came and with it my first day of dance in the RB. Dance 241. I wore skinny jeans and my hair down, thinking we wouldn't dance on the first day. I'm always that person who doesn't get the email about "what to bring/wear to your first day of school". We danced. And I somehow managed to walk with driving hips and work on head-tail connection (because that's what you do in modern dance) that first day of class. We were doing the most simple of movements, but I loved every second of it. I was in my "happy place" outside of real life. I remember thinking This is going to be me for the next four years! It was one of the best days I've ever had at school. Dancing all day every day sounded like complete bliss to me. And a lot of it was. I met some of my best friends in those classes, I had some of my most spiritual experiences dancing at BYU, and I had some out-of-this-world-incredible teachers.

Auditions for the major came around the end of October and I remember all the sophomores and juniors in my classes saying, "Oh, you'll get in no problem. You have to be pretty bad to not get in." Well, audition day came and I didn't make it. I didn't even make callbacks. 

I was devastated. And embarrassed. I asked one of my teachers what I should work on and she very bluntly told me, "You're weak. And you're dancing is all the same. You're like one big bowl of vanilla ice cream. I want to see some chocolate and strawberry. You need to be more dynamic." Okay, if you're going to insult me, at least let me be the chocolate ice cream. Ugh.

So I lost all confidence and gained a whole lot of determination to prove this teacher (and the whole dance department) that this girl could dance every Cold Stone flavor and then some.

That first semester was probably my hardest. Dance tests are hard. They were for me at least. I struggled remembering the routines and one of my teachers liked to throw in handstands (um, hello girl who never learned how to cartwheel). I had issues with being upsidedown. Basically I did bad on the tests. Which were 90% of the grade. So basically I did bad in the class. I got a C+, missing the B's by .16 percent. My first C in my entire life (okay, not true. I got one my last semester of AP Stats senior year because I was in the musical and never had time for math homework). I begged and begged for a B- and finally got it, but still felt like a C+ dancer. C definitely stood for "crappy" in this situation. I was a crappy plus dancer which is the worst you can be. They might as well have given me a T for Troll.

The semester after that was better. And the spring and summer terms were better. Like I said, I was determined to prove I could dance. I didn't take a break. I worked and worked and worked and went to school year-round. Finally, fall 2010 arrived and I was ready to be an official dance major at Brigham Young University.