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Beginning to dance as an adult
Dear Frankie -- I can relate to the position of being strongly drawn to dance at a "late" age. I was 18 the first time I stepped into a dance class, and didn't get the chance to really start training seriously until quite a few years later. So I would be the last one to tell you that you won't be able to have a successful dance career if you start now. Still, it's a hard truth of this field (and very few others) that if you fall in love with dance in your early twenties (just the time that many of us are discovering our true passions), you have to seriously consider whether you are "too old" already, and to know that you are compounding the already difficult odds for success in a very competitive and demanding field. Because following one's dreams is a choice that has utterly worked for me in my life, I tend to be someone who urges others to do likewise. I believe firmly in following your own heart and your gut instincts rather than being swayed by the naysayers. (I had plenty of naysayers as well, people perfectly happy for me to regard dance as a passionate hobby but shocked that I might seriously consider it as a career.) However, throughout these pages you will find that I have always urged pragmatism as well. To train seriously in dance is expensive, time-consuming, and requires an extraordinary amount of discipline and commitment. Serious training usually requires taking one or more technique classes daily (each lasts one and a half to two hours), and as I've noted elsewhere, it has been said that it takes about ten years of training to fully produce a dancer. In addition, unlike other fields where you might emerge with a diploma that more or less ensures entry into your field, in dance there are no guarantees. Dance has a lot of elements that make it look fun and glamorous to those outside of dance. Generally, it's an art that's built to be that way: to mask the immense effort and strain that might be going into each graceful moment. Think of ballet dancers who appear to effortlessly float across the stage and swoop each other up into gorgeous lifts. If you've ever been in the first few rows at a ballet concert however, what you hear is the thunderous pounding of toe shoes against the stage, what you see is the sweat dripping off bodies and knees awkwardly trembling with the effort of supporting those lifts. Dancers leap off into the wings, but once backstage they might literally collapse to the floor from sheer exhaustion (and then recoup just in time for their next barreling entrance). From another angle, the prospect of going on tour, for instance, might seem exciting and glamorous as well -- but any dancer will tell you that mostly what you see on tour is a succession of anonymous hotel rooms, sticky dressing rooms, cheap restaurants and long hours of travel. It wears thin quickly. Another way to put it is that dancers' work is just as demanding, draining and perilous as that of any other professional athlete, only we aren't allowed to show it! (Incidentally, some studies have suggested that of all the professional athletes, percentage-wise, dancers sustain the most injuries. And often there is no workers' comp or insurance to help us through those potentially career-halting months or years.) If you are talking about training seriously to become a dancer, make no mistake, what you are talking about is aspiring to become a professional athlete. So despite its glamorous trappings, dance is not a field that can be -- or should be -- entered into lightly. But lest the above sounds too grim altogether, I would remind you again that the professional dance field holds plenty (nay legions) of late-starters. I can remember the moment when I realized I could not use starting late as an excuse -- it was when my umpteenth esteemed dance teacher or much-admired choreographer replied casually, "Oh, I started in college too" when I mentioned my "unique" come-from-behind status! Truly, if you really believe that you are meant to dance, there is no reason that you can't be the next Martha Graham (who herself was 22 when she started). My strongest advice to you would be to give yourself time to discover and sample dance before deciding whether or not you want to commit to attempting a professional pathway. (See: How to start a dance education for more suggestions on how to do so.) There's plenty of time to get serious about dance if it proves true that you will, as you suspect, fall in love with it once you try it. But that initial trying stuff, that should be all about fun! If upon exploring dance you find that indeed you want to continue more seriously, first allow yourself the time to narrow down what it is you are interested in. There are innumerable styles of dance and a vast array of types of dance careers available. (See: Job prospects for dance majors for a list of dance careers.) Immerse yourself in all things dance and soon your particular tastes and proclivities will begin to emerge. Once you have more of an idea of specific goals and directions you might want to pursue in dance, you can start to assess how realistic you are being. For instance, if you are aspiring to be a join a professional ballet company as a 22-year-old female beginner, I can tell you flat out that your chances of success are pretty much close to nil! I was fortunate that the style of dance I fell for is modern dance, which is among the dance styles that is somewhat more open to late starters. As you become more familiar with the dance world and your own interests within if, you can start to better gauge the specific qualifications you might need for each specialization, and if those are realistically attainable for you. Know that in technique classes, as a late starter you will have to do a little running to catch up! When I started, I took literally every class I could -- this meant that sometimes I was in intermediate ballet classes where everyone was more advanced than I was, or eventually that I would take beginner classes that I was well past (I knew that for me there was no way to overdo the fundamentals). I took to heart the example of one of my first teachers, Nusha Martynuk, who as a professor of dance at Oberlin College would regularly attend beginning classes taught by other teachers, and who taught me as a 'fellow student' in those classes to stay in the studio after EVERY CLASS and work through those exercises and sequences you just couldn't quite get right during class-time. (I do this to this day -- almost always it will mean that the teacher or other students will come offer you free extra tips as well, all of which goes towards improving more quickly!) Know that you might constantly feel at a disadvantage while training next to those who have been doing it much longer than you, and resist the insecurities that may come from that. (It's helpful to realize that at some point, the disparity will cease to be obvious to the eye.) At the same time, I always felt that I had an advantage over those who had been doing this since they were three years old: pure, unbridled enthusiasm. As an adult beginner, I truly felt that every single class was a gift, and I treated it as such: I might not be the most advanced dancer in class, but I knew from the start that I could be (and in a sense had to be) the hardest-working. Especially when I got to more of a conservatory atmosphere, I realized that some who were "born into" dance, if you will, were much less likely to feel that sense of urgency and honor. As you progress, you will find that your explorations might lead you to career paths you can't foresee until you start sampling the wide world of dance. For instance, you might find that you are more drawn to creative dance or improvisation rather than technical dance per se. This might lead in turn to a teaching career, for instance, or to your starting a company to do your own kind of work. In my opinion, some of the most interesting work out there comes from people who were late to dance. One of my absolute favorite dance artists, the dancer Eiko from a company called Eiko & Koma, has never had a technique class in her life. In my opinion this has enabled her and her partner Koma to create immensely compelling work that is entirely fresh, original and non-derivative. So the moral is: you never know what might be out there for you -- until you start. Happy starting! -- Nicole p.s. For advice about increasing your flexibility, please see my response to Flexibility. You also should look at Things to know before becoming a dancer for a selection of wise words from professional dancers. Related Web-sites: For a great article on late-starters which includes interviews with several professional dancers that started as adults, go to: http://www.dancespirit.com/backissues/sep02/lateStart.shtml To look at the work of the remarkable Eiko and Koma, go to: http://www.eikoandkoma.org
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