My Art-- Allysa Weaver

Allysa Weaver   

                              My Art

            Dance is an escape for those who feel music; however, if you're a true adventurer, you do not need music to escape the feelings. Once you know the dance of life, everything around you becomes a prop, a costume, a spotlight. Music becomes something you feel; music is no longer just something you hear. Dance is a lifestyle; it is the way I live my life. Dance is more of a friend than a sport. It is more of a security blanket than an art. When dancers enter the stage, they lose all ties to the world. All dancers must stand together because as the world sees us, we are nothing, but as we see one another, we see everything that is beautiful in the world. 

             I was able to teach my very first dance camp recently. It is so refreshing to see such liveliness in young girls and their love for such an amazing form of art. Something that older girls lack a lot of the time. Older dancer sometimes have the tendency to goof around in class sometimes when our instructor has repeatedly told us to hush. Some take for granted what other kids would love to do every day.

            Dance is physically demanding, mentally exhausting, and emotionally freeing. A dancer pays such a small fee to get something so big in return. 

Over the years, I have put blood, sweat, and tears into becoming the dancer I want to be. When I say I've put blood into it, I mean I have danced on my feet for hours until my toenails cracked open and my toes and feet split from the pressure. When I say sweat, I mean I've sweat, physically yes, but I've sweat emotionally, causing myself to become sick but running the dance one more time anyways. When I say tears I don't mean tears because I did not win the title I wanted; I mean tears because my body aches, and my muscles are too tense to move.

            Being a dancer is hours of lying awake at night going over the combination that was taught in class that day because there was a section that was too complicated to perfect. Happiness is finding the love and passion for something that can be either lively or completely heart wrenching.

            Dancers get offended when people say that dance isn't a sport. Dance is physically demanding just like basketball, football, baseball, volleyball, and soccer. But to me, dance is an art.  beautiful, graceful, and lovely. 

I am an artist. 

 I have been reminded of that recently. 

            I may not always be able to dance, but I always be a dancer.

"You better slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short, the music won't last..."