No One Wants to See a Soccer Mom On Stage

When I was a little girl, like many little girls in middle-class, mid-western suburbia, I was in dance. I belonged to one of the thousands of small dance studios that were comprised of open floor space in front of a wall of mirrors in the town's strip mall. The walls were painted pink, there were cheaply framed portraits of all of the dance classes for the past years, surrounded by plastic shiny trophies everywhere there was room. Dancing gave me permission to be visible and take command of people's attention. This was a valuable gift to a very shy and socially awkward kid. As I got a little older into junior high and high school, I joined the competition teams as well. While never among a highly talented pool to begin with (you had to pay for and be accepted into a more prestigious studio to dance with the real big dogs), and never the best one on the stage, I loved it.

When looking at colleges as a senior, one of my criteria was there needed to be a dance organization at the school I would choose. And so there was at the school I picked, and I joined the university dance theatre as a freshman, and continued as a sophomore.

Then. Life.

As many hobby dancers will tell you, most adults who love dance stop dancing around age 22. That's when college ends, and that's where most hobby dancers like me stop dancing en masse for a few reasons: lack of time, lack of opportunity, and because we feel like we're supposed to. Grown-up hobby dancers don't fit in at those pink-walled strip mall dance studios for kids, and other dance schools or companies are for professionals or aspiring professionals. There are drop- in classes as an option, and that's about it, and that's just the way it is. Or at least I thought so.

I became pregnant my sophomore year in college, so life took a little 180 for me pretty fast. Before my 19th birthday I had quit school, purchased a house with my high-school boyfriend and baby's soon-to-be-father, and started working full time in an entry-level retail job. We were doing ok, our daughter was born, the bills came pouring in every month, and life happened in the meantime.

An opportunity came up a few years after my daughter was born to coach the cheerleading team from my alma mater, where I had also cheered. I figured cheerleaders are a distant cousin to dancers, and wasn't it said that "those who can't do, teach"? (or coach?) I figured as much and signed on, and while I enjoyed my time coaching, it did not scratch that dance itch.

I went back to school when I was 25 and eventually finished my bachelors degree, but it was a chance meeting during one of my classes after I returned to college as an adult that changed my life in an unexpected way. I had taken a summer writing seminar and sat across from a student named Alex. He was very gregarious and interesting, so we talked a bit. I learned he was a dancer too, and danced locally in a small non-profit dance company that had been started a few years earlier, that wasn't associated with the university. I mentioned I "used to dance" and how much I missed it.

"Well, you should audition this fall!" he encouraged." They hold auditions every fall and even the current members re-audition each year. You should do it!"

I politely laughed off the suggestion and made my excuses. Too busy. Little kid at home. Work. School.

Time went on, but the conversation with Alex stuck with me, and I bought tickets to his company's next dance show. What a game changer that was for me. On the large downtown historic stage, brilliantly lit by the professional stage lighting, and beautifully executing the choreography were people that looked not like professional ballerinas, or teenagers at a recital. But like me. Adults, of various sizes and most of intermediate dance ability, and they were on stage, putting on a wonderful show for a packed audience. They had a question and answer portion with the dancers after the show. The dancers ranged in age, and a few of the dancers said they were married and/or parents. Grown-up PARENTS! Dancing! I sort of fell in love immediately.

I'd like to be able to say that I showed up to the company's next audition, but I didn't. Over the next five years, I graduated college, looked into grad school, and marveled as my daughter turned into a pre-teen. I stayed busy as many working parents do. Soccer mom, school concert, laundry, days at the office, mow the lawn, repeat. I was in my early thirties now, and my body was not used to much physical exercise, let alone dancing like I still dreamed about. I had grown complacent, a little more than slightly pudgey, and was pretty unhappy with myself, physically.

Then in 2014, when I turned 32, something changed. A slight tilting of my perspective for some (still) unknown reason, and I found myself preparing for my first dance audition in 17 years. I showed up to the company's fall auditions that year, prepared with a one minute routine I had choreographed myself, my "dance resume," and a bottle of water.

The artistic director lead us through warm-up and stretches, then explained that she would be teaching us two separate short pieces of choreography, which would be part of the audition process as well as our own one minute solo we came prepared with. I was sweaty and out of breath by the end of the warm up. I kept mopping my face off with my black tank top, hoping no one would notice.

When we were learning the two pieces of choreography, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I still managed to pick up and remember choreography relatively easily, just as I had over a decade earlier. It was more difficult to keep up physically, but that could be changed with some conditioning and time.

I was offered a chorus part in the company and gladly accepted.

The company met every Sunday for rehearsals, and those ran for four hours. This made being a working parent with a normal home life possible. I wasn't expected to be at evening rehearsals several times a week, it was just Sundays, at least until close to show time. Those first several Sunday rehearsals were brutal. I went to work the following Monday, barely able to move. My feet were bruised and bloody and the rest of my body felt like it had been kicked around by a football team. But I loved it. Those pains were a rejoicing of sorts, and I began to feel at one with my physical body and my soul.

Dance once again became a beacon for me, making me want to better myself physically and to socially make myself available to the community of people that this new world opened to me. There's nothing quite like realizing you still have the ability to surprise yourself, and to find a way to do what you love.

That spring, I was not in the audience, but on the stage. Our opening piece began with all the dancers in the wings, so there I stood, stage right in the dark, and looked onto the brightly lit stage, empty and expectant, and full of possibility.