This fall is the 25th anniversary of me starting ballet classes. That means I've officially been performing, in some form or another, for 25 years.
Especially in dance, and especially for a 'late starter' like me (I was six), 25 years is fairly monumental. Dancers often age out in their mid to late 20s, so for me to still be going is a blessing I don't take lightly.
Don't get me wrong, I feel the years a bit. My back has never been the same since my work injury in 2023, and my ankles are often grumpy in the mornings. But I have a HUGE body of work to look back on, and for the time being, I'm still able to add to it.
I'm currently working on a (non-dance) project that chronicles every show I've ever performed in or choreographed for, and so far there are over seventy-five shows represented.
This has made me look very hard at my constant feeling that I don't know what I'm doing. Imposter syndrome has been a thread throughout my entire life. In everything -- school, chores, work, performing -- I have always felt like I wasn't meeting people's expectations of me. And sometimes this perception was enforced by instructors. My childhood ballet teacher literally told my parents that I would likely get a failing grade on an upcoming RAD exam (I passed that exam with my highest score ever, probably because my parents chose not to tell me what she had said till months afterwards). More recently, my college professors would tell me to my face at least once a week that I 'wasn't even trying.'
I've mentioned before how I literally made it my goal in my final year of college to practice myself to death, (and almost succeeded) and the reason I made that goal was to prove, once and for all, that I actually was trying (spoiler alert: as far as I know, that professor still doesn't believe I was trying despite me turning in practice logs of 60+ hours weekly, despite my frequent hospital visits because my body was disintegrating in the wake of the effort I was putting in, despite me being the only one from both of my graduating classes from that college still actively performing). Even though I'm no longer actively trying to practice myself to death, the same feeling of inadequacy that drove me to make such an unthinkable goal still lingers in the back of my mind every second of every day. Living in a tiny, artless, colourless, forgotten, literal-hole-in-the-ground desert town has only strengthened that feeling of falling behind... the lack of artistic opportunities make me feel like the few meagre skills I had managed to cobble together are atrophying.
But then I look at my list of shows for my project, and I see how I did four shows in 2024 alone, and have added six shows to my résumé in the first eight months of 2025. I'm getting opportunities. I know what I'm doing, and I know how to learn new things.
Maybe I'm not the lazy failure that my professors, the church, and my extended family made me out to be. I have 75+ shows and 25 years on a CV that say otherwise.
