Musings on Dance in General

[In honor of what would be my father's 61st birthday, here's a philosophical post. Both of my parents taught me how to be an artist, but my father was the performer. He'll never be matched as Mother Ginger.] So why, you might ask, do I care so much about dancing? Dance is part of who I am; I have no memories of a time when I wasn't a dancer. When I was three years old I told my mom that I wanted to be like the "dancy girls" I saw on TV, so she signed me up for a Parks and Rec ballet class to see if it was a phase. It was no phase. I was serious enough that eventually I ended up in a pre-professional ballet training program when I was in high school, dancing six days a week. I decided not to pursue dance as a career, but there was no way I could give up dancing. I danced through college, even though my major was physics. I stopped dancing for a few years at the beginning of graduate school in the mistaken belief that I couldn't afford the classes. My knee taught me otherwise; after all those years my it had gotten worn down in such a way that muscle strength was compensating for the wear. My body had literally gotten addicted to dancing. I started performing with the local ballet company, and I experienced several moments onstage that I can only describe as epiphanies during which I realized just what it meant to me to be back performing. I know my advisor wasn't happy with me for frequently leaving the lab early for rehearsal (especially during production weeks), but I believe that if I hadn't been dancing, I wouldn't have finished my PhD at all. As my mom puts it, I don't dance because I want to, I dance because I have to. I am not complete without it.