Red Shoe Diaries

push.

Right now, between work, dance, and life, this is how I feel. Up against the wall, pushing. Pushing to meet deadlines, maintain relationships, and meet obligations. Pushing to be stronger, faster, better, legs higher, more graceful, we'd like to see that be a double, can you get a beat in there before you land? And always, always, my feet hurt. There's a unique form of exhaustion related to being a dancer. At best, it leaves you fatigued, just on the edge of truly aching through your whole body, at worst, it leaves you sore to the touch, stiff, shin-splinted, bruised and bleeding. I think that one of the driving forces in dance is the concept of "never enough". There will always be someone in the room doing it better than you, there will always be room for improvement. And in time, you learn that your body will, in fact, always give you a little more. But it means you have to push. Always.

Complacency in dance, as in most things in life, breeds inaction and mediocrity, the all too familiar dangerous and unfulfilling tenants of our modern society. Right now, I struggle to find my point of balance, that place between the push and pulls of life that allows me to manifest the things I work for.

"I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing."~ Hillel