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