Confessions of a Late-Starting Dancer: 9 Things I Secretly Loathed Hearing

1. “How long have you been dancing?” / “How old were you when you started?”

This seemingly basic and innocent question always left me between a rock and a hard place. I understand the people who asked never meant anything by it other than polite conversation and didn’t deserve to be reprimanded for it. At the same time, there is a widespread stigma that if you don’t start at an early age, you’re probably never going to be a great dancer, leading people to assume you’re in it strictly for recreation. And in dance, “early age” means no older single digits.

By no means did I expect anyone to presume I was anything special. But no one wants the assumption that they have a lower ceiling as far as their potential goes attached to them.

I always ended up dancing (no pun intended) around the question. I always felt bad as I didn’t want to come off as full of myself or unfriendly. But I also didn’t want to fall victim to a stigma that I found most unflattering and untrue.

2. “Dance is the kind of thing you have to start when you’re little to become great at, isn’t it?”

Yes, I really was asked this question once upon revealing to someone that I was a dancer. Part of me can’t blame them for thinking this way, though. Just go to a performance of your local professional company and read all the dancers’ bios in the program. It is almost a given that most of them started formal training by the age of 8 (most by the time they were 5). Go into your local dance studio and ask for a class schedule. It will be dominated by classes intended for people who started as children with maybe a few once-per-week teen/adult classes. Even just talking to your average serious dancer or listening to interviews will reveal a childhood almost wholly spent in a dance studio.

My only saving grace was that I had been experimenting with artistic movement my entire life and had had training in diving, cheerleading, and martial arts in addition to being naturally strong and coordinated. I could therefore get away with telling people I had been dancing as a young child without it coming off as a total lie.

3. “[Insert famous late starter here] went professional after starting late. But then again, he was [insert famous late starter here].”

This statement may seem reasonable at first glance, but it actually has one glaring flaw. No one bothers to think about where the great dancer who bucked the late starter rule would be if s/he were treated like most late starters.

As stated above, most studios don’t even offer classes for teen and adult beginners beyond the weekly recreational variety. Opportunities outside the studio, though far more plentiful in the recent decade, are still pretty sparse. And they were next to nothing in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s when I started, especially as I did not grow up in (or near) a major performing arts-oriented city.

I have heard numerous stories of instructors telling prospective students, “I’m sorry, but you started too late,” without even taking the time to work with them and see how far they can go.

To imply that anyone who is the exception to the late starter rule got there on superior talent alone ignores the hardcore deliberate practice and support structure that went into their journey. It also ignores the fact that most late starters, regardless of their facility, are rarely given the same chance as their early-starting counterparts.

4. “Don’t worry, it won’t be hard.”

I went into dance to be challenged and progress through the levels like everyone else. Yet it seemed like every class with an average age of older than eight got to dance intricate choreography, complete with a full repertoire of leaps and pirouettes… except for the adult class.

Often instructors would say things like, “Don’t worry, it won’t be hard,” or “Don’t worry, you won’t even have to do that much!” when discussing roles in upcoming performances as if this should be taken as welcome relief.

I understand the need and the value of building strong basics. The importance of that cannot be overstated. But it always seemed that in teen/adult classes the emphasis was more on fun and fitness than on actually accomplishing something skill-wise. And the students in these classes always seemed to be hoping they wouldn’t be made to do anything hard or complicated.

I always felt I couldn’t speak up, lest I sound arrogant. Plus, I feared I’d be told I started too late to progress like the way I wanted.

5. (While watching the advanced students) “Don’t you wish you could do that?” / “Oh, to be young again!”

p

6. “The audience doesn’t want to watch the old fogies!”

I still remember the Nutcracker production during my first year of ballet training. I ended up in the adult class after the class I’d originally signed up for was cancelled due to low enrollment. The adult class was supposedly equivalent to ballet level V (which at my studio was roughly an early intermediate ranking) in terms of skill, and we’d even gotten to take some company classes on occasion. All we got to do the production, however, was play parents in the family scene. These were background character roles with almost no dancing at all. Meanwhile, ballet V got the entire snow scene dance.

7. “You have dancers’ legs.” / “Doesn’t this girl have a dancers’ body?!”

This may seem like a welcome compliment. And no doubt, the person saying it always meant it to be flattering. It always made me angry, however. I knew in my heart of hearts that I did not have a true “dancer’s” body type.

In addition to having a long torso and short limbs (the valuable thing is to have just the opposite), I have more fast-twitch muscle, like that of gymnasts and sprinters. This is the type of muscle mass that weighs more. I therefore knew girls visibly larger than I was who weighed less and have always been deeply insecure about this.

Traditionally dancers are long and thin and weigh in as underweight. I have had instructors say that long, skinny muscles are preferred. This is both because of the aesthetic and so that any male partner you may have won’t be burdened when he has to lift you.

But when I told the people complimenting me this, they would boast an immediate rebuttal that whoever told me these things “didn’t know what she was talking about.”

This only angered me more. These well-meaning people had zero experience in or with the dance world yet were insisting they knew more than a professional in the field would.

Don’t get me wrong, if you think I have a nice figure, I appreciate the compliment even if I don’t always feel that way. The term “dancer’s body,” however, is a painfully misplaced descriptor for body types and musculature akin to that of a more traditional athlete.

8. Accusations of being “silly” when I bring up the blatant ageism of the dance culture at large.

These comments mainly came from my parents, who were totally on the opposite end of 

9. (When thinking about my future) “Why don’t you go to performances and write columns about them?” / “How about find a backstage position with the local professional company?”

During my teenage years, I took creative writing in school. I wrote a lot of poetry, character sketches and short story attempts. I never saw writing as a career option, however; it wasn’t physical enough (hell, it wasn’t physical at all).