joy, once again

I have been dancing for many years. I guess I should be proud, not ashamed, to say how many. So here it is: for 24 years.
I began dancing at 8. My mom claims that I bugged her for a long time, asking her to bring me to dance school. I actually don't remember that, nor I did the first time she recollected this, long ago. I do remember my first time in a studio. In a green, kind of ugly sweat suit, shoe-less. The teacher told me to imitate what another child was doing. I think she was doing tendus. It was a test, to see if they could put me in the “first grade”, "primo corso". I skipped all the propedeutics, all the “rhythm and play” phase, I was too old for that. So they put me in the first grade, in February, catching up with the others. Already quiet myopic, without wearing glasses I struggled to understand what was going out. The teacher asked me to “turn” my leg, and I turned... in. What did I know?!
I have a lot of memories about struggling, those first years. Catching up in an increasingly obfuscated world (I began to wear glasses in the dance class a couple of years later, when I realized I just couldn't do without). And yet, I must have liked it, since I kept going. Year after year, I went to class three times per week, enduring the endless, repetitive exercises, getting excited for performances. A glorious moment, my “quinto corso” performance, in which I got to do a cool pirouette step, and in which I felt I finally found my voice, and the ability to smile! Less artistically relevant, the year before I had my first performance without brakes and... with contact lenses! No more guessing who was where on stage: I could see them!
The best memory of all, of those years in my ballet school “Kiki Urbani”, is undoubtedly that of my graduation. Dancing Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, act IV, was challenging and fun. I cried the last night of the show, and I cried longer the days afterward, when I realized I was officially a graduate. Great final grade, lots of claps, but I was out, no more dancing for me! End of life!
Of course, I was so wrong. I never stopped dancing since then, or at least for no longer than a few months. I kept performing, wherever and whenever I could. I found new teachers, new dance mates, new friends, new techniques to get excited, and worried!, about.
I discovered Cunningham, and how my arms were not at all making spontaneous, natural shapes. I realized how tense I was, unable to keep a simple yoga pose without the desire to scream. But I improved, I found out how to breathe and relax and contract. And, partially as a consequence, my ballet technique improved as well.
And then, Yale. Being in A Different Drum has made me so unexpectedly happy. When I was in college, I used to think that every September was harder than the previous one. Getting back in the studio, in the light, musky atmosphere of Rome's warm afternoons, holding the barre and thinking: “boy, I'm getting old”. But at Yale, even though I am much older, and the weather—oh the weather's so much worse!—at Yale it's somehow easier, thanks to the enthusiasm and good spirits of everyone around me. And I got this chance of choreographing for the first time in my life. But to this chapter, another post will be dedicated...
This one is about the joy of dancing. A joy that I was losing the last times I performed in Italy, stressed out by external things that should have not mattered. Preoccupied by aging, getting a real job, finding my own path.
And now I found it. I found my professional path, and at the same time, I found a new chance for dancing joyfully and fully.

Tonight (or should I say last night, given that it's well past midnight) I danced as I rarely danced. I didn't judge myself. I stepped on stage proudly and excitedly, and after that I jumped and flew on it, and I turned, and looked for the sky and the stars. I was surrounded by people who are literally half my age and I didn't mind. We were dancing together and I was not worrying. I was enjoying being there, dancing on a live orchestra's music. Mozart. Divertimento K. 136. I was a wave, a bird, a cloud. I felt again what I felt when I was Aurora, bowing at the end of my variation. I danced with my heart and smiled with my eyes, as Miss Caroline asked me to do.

I will not forget. I will dance again like this, in two weeks, for A Different Drum Spring show. It's going to be awesome, and I will be “in the moment”. I promise.