Performing onstage is as exhilarating as it can get. There are swarms of people watching, eyes trained on every move your body makes. But once you’re on stage, as a dancer, your main job becomes to entertain the crowd. While doing so, it is very easy to hide your emotions behind charismatic facials, moments of weakness behind strong and powerful movements and imperfect thoughts behind the near-perfect imagery your body creates. However, there are a few thoughts that run through the mind of a dancer one time or another, and as I pen down my thoughts on World Mental Health Day, I aim to make sure every dancer knows the things that follow.
It is okay to not be creatively productive all the time. Creative burnout is a very, very real thing, and it happens to the best of us. There are times when we tend to criticise ourselves for making the choreography look repetitive, or for not making something that is as good as we’d want it to be, or even for blanking out while trying to create new steps. During these times, it is easy to forget that our brain works just as hard as our body, and burning out does not mean that you have exhausted your creativity; it just means that you have overworked the organ that helps you create. Resting it is imperative, and before you know it, you’ll be creating again.
It is also, sadly, more common for dancers to admonish themselves for making “mistakes” than it should be. Sometimes, not every performance turns out to be perfect. While it is good to practice loads and make sure that everything goes according to plan, we must also acknowledge that mistakes happen, and they are not the dancers’ fault more often than not. Forgetting steps, clothing becoming a barrier, injuring yourself and not getting the style quite right are natural, and not things you should be blaming yourself for. While a performance can have imperfections, the audience is there not to pinpoint every small fault, but to have fun and watch you dance. Being real and showcasing your passion for dancing is what makes a performance beautiful, and small moments of vulnerability, while natural, are not what defines you as a dancer.
Not every moment in your time dancing has to be a learning opportunity. Of course, learning is an important aspect of growing as a dancer and broadening your horizons, but it’s okay to just go with the flow and enjoy what you’re doing in the moment. Enjoying the things you do are paramount for your health and satisfaction, and at the end of the day you might forget all the new steps or styles you’ve learned, but it’ll be hard to forget the way you felt in that moment.
Talking it out really does help. All of us have those days where things just aren’t going right, practicing isn’t very productive, and our insecurities like to rear their ugly heads at the worst possible moments. On those days, it is helpful to open up and talk to someone you trust, or let it out in other ways, by writing your thoughts down, or even talking and reasoning with yourself. Pent-up frustration brings nothing but harm, and while it might feel weird or uncomfortable to address your thoughts, letting them out in healthy ways does bring a sense of relief, lifts the weight off your shoulders, and helps you clear your mind and find solutions to problems you’ve faced.
These things that I’ve addressed are only a few out of many, many more issues we, as dancers, face. As I sign off, I’d like to say that it is crucial to create an environment that lets you enjoy what you love, set goals for yourself and helps you recuperate from things that can go wrong. We all need to go a little easier on ourselves and accept the things that come our way. Hold your head up and give yourself a little more credit, you’re doing better than you think.
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