Wednesday, January 16, 2019 // The Statement 
7B
Wednesday, February 19, 2020 // The Statement
7B

I

t was recital day, and all of my stu-
dents were lined up backstage; these 
girls formed a perfectly straight line, 
no taller than my knee. I had been teaching 
dance since I was an adolescent so I knew 
what I was doing. My ballet teacher — whom 
I so badly wanted to impress, even though 
no matter how hard I tried, she would never 
compliment me — smiled at the sight. She 
loved lines, especially straight lines. She 
examined the girls as she approached me, 
and she invited me to admire how small 
all the girls were while they adjusted their 
frilly lavender tutus. She squatted with an 
exaggerated grunt to pick up one little girl 
with brown skin, big brown eyes and messy 
curly hair. 
“This one,” she started, “this one is 
dense. Small, but dense.” She 
paused, waiting for me to agree. I 
watched in disbelief as this child, 
who looked a lot like me, cocked 
her head to the side in confu-
sion, her limbs dangling like dead 
weight. 
I knew what my ballet teacher 
meant. She picked out the girl 
with brown skin in a line of white 
faces, only to lift her up and down 
and mock her for her weight, and 
I could tell she had done it many 
times before with other girls. I 
wanted to cover the child’s inno-
cent ears — she was four years old 
and already being subjected to the 
beauty, race and weight ideals of 
the dance world. I wanted to look 
at my teacher straight in the eye 
and tell her the damage she was 
causing, but I pretended I had not 
heard her comment while a hard 
lump formed in my throat. 
I thought back to when my 
ballet teacher opened up about 
her past struggles with anorexia 
as a young dancer. Thirsty to 
achieve perfect lines in both her 
technique and her physique, she spilled 
every detail to us in between barre exer-
cises about how she would not eat until her 
stomach growled with pain. When she said 
this, she looked straight at me. 
There’s an unspoken truth in the per-
forming industry, a long-kept secret that 
artists and producers discuss behind closed 
doors: The lack of diversity and visibil-
ity in the performance industry from body 
shape to ethnicity to gender. It’s pointed 
out by directors on admissions boards at 
the University and by top casting direc-
tors when they are thinking of quick fixes 
to the diversity problem. However, these 
problems can only be solved with systemic 
change and courage. 
As a performer and arts journalist, I 
become increasingly frustrated every time 
I enter a rehearsal room or sit in a plush 

theater seat to watch the same stories being 
told over and over again — stories of white 
suburban families, whitewashed stories of 
cultural happenings. 
I grew up in dance studios where tight 
leotards clung closely to my newly formed 
curves, and the surrounding mirrors ampli-
fied my image and mocked me for my devel-
oping shape. My brown skin and curves 
stuck out from the pale skin and thin bod-
ies of my peers. Unlike them, I felt like I had 
no one to look up to in the ballet or modern 
dance world. No one who looked like me. 
As my physical body grew, so did my shame 
for the shape of my new womanly form; my 
body was a terrain with hills and valleys 
that no leotard from Capezio’s dancewear 
store would contain. 

I entertained dreams of becoming a pro-
fessional dancer — taking masterclasses 
with the Rockettes and with “Newsies” 
men — but there was a voice in the back of 
my head that told me there would be no way 
that I could make it in that world. It wasn’t 
made for me. 
The professional performance world is 
where straight hair transforms effortlessly 
into a tight, neat bun atop one’s head. It is a 
place full of people who fit into any leotard 
they pick off the rack at Capezio. There is 
no room for girls whose first thought when 
choosing a leotard is, “My God, I hope this 
can hold in my boobs.” There was no room 
for my thick, curly hair that weighed down 
my messy bun, which gave me headaches 
and pulled me down during pirouettes. 
I feared a world where I would audition 
for Joffrey or Martha Graham. I didn’t have 

the lines they were looking for. The panel 
would take one look at the fat on my stom-
ach and my breasts, scoff and not even both-
er to look at me dance. I accepted that as a 
fact because, as a young artist, everything 
seems so out of reach — so much bigger than 
only you. 
I stopped dancing. In my mind, I was 
making the choice to stop living in a fan-
tasy world where curvy, brown-skinned 
girls like me could dance in serious ballet 
or modern dance company stages. I love to 
dance, but every time I looked at myself in 
the mirror, it was a reminder of why I could 
never make it.
I 

was raised on Broadway and books. 
I grew up getting lost in the magical 
“Wicked” soundtrack, felt love and 

heartbreak through the musical journey of 
“The Last Five Years.” 
The 2008 musical “Next to Normal” edu-
cated me about mental health issues and 
taught me that musicals do not all have to 
sound like Disney princess movies with 
light, airy instrumentals and simple melodic 
motifs sung in a fluttery tone. 
I buried my nose in the “Junie B. Jones” 
books and turned to the philosophies of 
Dr. Seuss when I was in crisis. I constantly 
ransacked Barnes and Noble for the next 
best book, where I was introduced to “One 
Hundred Years of Solitude,” the Greek clas-
sics and random poetry books. Words rang 
in my mind like musical lyrics. I learned that 
I hate Hemingway.
Those are the memories I hold closest to 
my heart: reading a chapter book in my bed 
all day, unable to put it down, becoming the 

characters I read about or getting lost in the 
velvet seats of a Broadway theater, imagin-
ing myself on the big stage. Theater was 
the manifestation of the wonderland that 
existed in my head. Theater showed me 
there was a way to make all the stories I read 
about come to life — from “Alice in Wonder-
land” to “The Lords of Discipline,” anything 
could be made for the stage. There were no 
limitations to live theater; it was like seeing 
a book being read in front of me. 
My whole life, I watched the experiences 
of others play out right in front of me; how-
ever, it wasn’t until I saw “In the Heights” 
in middle school that I finally felt heard. 
Familiar characters who shared my cul-
tural identity took the stage, and the sound 
of the clave echoed through the Richard 
Rodgers Theatre. I was ecstatic to 
see others around me having fun 
watching a reflection of my life on 
stage. The characters were finally 
articulating my own feelings: the 
experiences of being a Latina in 
New York City and a proud daugh-
ter of immigrants. For the entirety 
of my childhood, I never consid-
ered the possibility my own story 
was worth sharing on a Broadway 
stage.
Experiencing “In the Heights” 
helped me find my voice, liter-
ally and figuratively. I thought: I 
don’t have to be skinny or white 
to have a nice singing voice, 
right? Who said I couldn’t audi-
tion for Broadway? I auditioned 
for my dream school, a perform-
ing arts high school named Fio-
rella H. LaGuardia High School 
located in NYC. When I got 
accepted into the voice depart-
ment, I knew it was my turn to 
tell others my story with my 
newly-found medium. 
However, somewhere along 
the way in high school, I lost 
sight of the story I was supposed to be 
telling: my story, the one of a short, curvy, 
Latina who gets cast as a lead in a Broad-
way show, or the first one of her kind to 
make it onto the Rockettes. Mine was 
supposed to be the story of breaking the 
mold, but as I found myself struggling to 
find a sense of belonging in a mostly-white 
school, I no longer felt like I deserved to be 
heard. It was like being back in dance class 
again, surrounded by people who look 
nothing like me, who seem so carefree 
walking into audition rooms with confi-
dence that you can only get from growing 
up with money and never being told “no.” 

On (a lack of) diversity in the arts

BY ISABELLE HASSLUND, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR

Read more at 
 
MichiganDaily.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISABELLE HASSLUND

