My On/Off Relationship With Dance

Unless you know me personally you won’t know that I used to do a lot of dancing when I was younger. I was around 6 or 7 when I first started dancing, which was back in summer school. I gravitated more towards street dancing over any other style of dance. I’m pretty sure being born in the 90’s played a big part in that choice. I was surrounded by rnb and soul.

If you loved B2K then you probably know about a movie they were in called ‘You Got Served’. I love this movie till this day. I also loved ‘Step Up’ even though it’s a predominately white cast, I still loved it.

90’s videos were filled with dope styles and amazing choreography. If i could go back I’d take dance more seriously, because it honestly made me feel so good about myself.

When I was in secondary school (high school for the Americans) one of my friends Jade was really into performing arts and got me into a dance class she went to. It was at that point I fell in love with street dance, it wasn’t just fun for me, it was something I was good at and it felt really good.

Not being strong academically, I struggled in school and dancing gave me something to be proud of. I did a few shows and our friendship group in school would perform at any talent show or event we could get into. Black history month in school was something we always got involved in.

It was something we was known for, we even performed for our leaver’s day assembly. I was really close to not doing it, in fact a few days before I said I wasn’t going to do it. I was nervous but ended up doing it and tried to put my all into it, but after watching the video back I know I could have gone harder. I was holding back, which was down to a lack of confidence.

I took dance as one of my GCSE options and sadly didn’t do so well. Dance in school was about creativity, confidence and it was all new to me. I’ve never done any contemporary dancing before so I guess it was something not only my body had to get used to but also my mind. There had to be more control, looking back on it I regret not taking it more seriously and just passing the exam, as it was very simple. I’m better at learning than teaching or coming up with my own ideas, which is what caused me to fail, I had to come up with my own contemporary choreography and it just didn’t work out for me.

Going forward I would love to get back into street dancing, I would love to get that feeling back. The joy and buzz I get from getting the choreography, I want to feel this again.

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