By Isabelle Klein

There are many ways to express yourself: through art, music, writing, and dancing. I believe that expression is important anyway you do it. When you put expression in whatever you are doing it comes alive and there is a better product. I believe in the power of expression through dance.

I was sitting at the large oval brown table in the ballet library at my dance studio. I checked the the time on my phone, it was 4:45 and I still wasn’t even halfway through my homework. I started to panic. I had two classes and they didn’t end until 7:30.

The music started for the first combination. I started to put my frustration into working harder. Instead of worrying about when I was going to finish my social studies I used that energy into pointing my feet harder. And, instead of worrying about my math I focused on turning out even more. As class went on, I started to forget about my homework. I was just thinking about the combinations and doing my best.

When people dance with expression, it makes everything come alive. When dancers are on stage they are putting emotion into the dances they are doing. They have to make us think that they are really a swan girl or a mother and father from the 19th century.  They do that by expressing how that person would feel.

“ … and finish,” my teacher Mr.Hird was saying as the music was finishing. Finally I could relax my muscles. We had just done our first 3 combinations in one exercise.

“ Ok everyone, it is not enough to yous know the steps,” Mr.Hird starts to tell us. “You need to perform the steps and put expression into them. You need to feel like you’re always on stage. You have to put yourself into the steps. I want to see your differences. The day robots start to do ballet I will quit because they are all the same,” Mr.Hird finishes his speech. As soon as we started the next exercise I started to feel something. I was expressing myself. When you put yourself into dance you look alive and not like a robot.

When you put expression into dance you can express many different emotions. Sometimes you can put in your own emotion, but sometimes you have to become a character and act how you think they would feel. It can be hard to express sometimes how you’re feeling because you are concentrating, other times it is easy.

I was in modern class and we had just finished taking attendance.

“Ok today you are going to make an improv dance that shows us about a hard time/ dark time in your lives,” Ms.Flora our modern teacher explained to us. We all spread out and the drum beat started. I got an idea. I started to move. I clenched my muscles and did very ridged and close to the ground movements to show my frustration with myself.

After we finished and did it in two groups she told us to add on to our dance to a time when there was hope and the dark time started to get better. So after I had finished my dark mouvements I started to unclench my muscles move farther from the floor and do more fluid movements to show when I figured out what was wrong and found a way to make it easer. I had to put a lot of expression into my dancing to show the audience how I was feeling.

Not many people know how express a feeling in regular life when they dance it is hard thing to add to already difficult choreography. But it is also a great chance to express feelings. I believe in the power of expression through dance.