Dancing Through Life: My Story of Transition

An interesting paradox occurred recently on the day I moved out of my first New York City apartment.  The weather was like a beautiful piece of music; wild, heavily-orchestrated, and very satisfying.  So too was the climate of my heart.  Sunshine and sporadic thunderstorms in the morning (which seemed to mimic my emotions), a giant monsoon on my way out (like the trumpets of the grand finale), and a rainbow beginning to straddle the sky, as the sight of life as I knew it for the past four years was disappearing into the horizon.  At the end of the day I felt emotionally spent, and blissfully calm.  The storm had come, and it had passed.  It was a sign that my heart was ready for my next adventure.

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Sofia Bianchi as a professional ballet dancer. 

I had freshly graduated from the School of American Ballet in New York City, the premiere training ground for ballet dancers in the United States.  The past four years had been transformative and surreal.  I've had the chance to share the Lincoln Center stage with ballet superstars such as Tiler Peck and Sara Mearns, I've been trained by dance legends (among them Kay Mazzo, Suki Schorer, Suzy Pilarre, and Darci Kistler), and I shall forever hold a place in the George Balanchine-legacy continuum.

With all of these beautiful experiences behind me, I recently decided to pursue my academics full time.  Through this treacherous and tentative transitional period in my life, I've come to learn just how valuable my training has been to me.  I'm quickly learning that the strengths which I have acquired through my dance training are applicable to all aspects of life.  In the very act of mustering the courage to pursue this new adventure, I have grown and matured, and have come to know myself better than ever.  In recent months, there were a multitude of signs signalling to me it was time to make this jump.  Yet I have no regrets on having made this young-dancer’s journey, because it lead me to a platform for take-off which I never would have reached, were it not for this extraordinary adventure.

Before embarking on my journey through intense training in ballet, the only friends or connections I had lived and reigned in Middletown, New Jersey, the town where I grew up.  My most eventful days were spent drawing pictures at my desk, reading and writing in my bedroom, or playing outside with my small circle of friends, whom I never seemed to share much in common with.  There was nothing interesting about me, and the most interesting things I could find were between the pages of the books I would read or existed within the landscape of my daydreams.  As a child I had developed a lot of insecurities, in spite of this.  Middle-school was my breaking point: I existed more in my own head than I did in the physical world. On the last day of eighth grade, I said goodbye to all my (small number of) friends before my last class, so I could run straight out the door at the sound of that final bell, and never look back.  There was literally a rainbow that day (it was an omen).

Yet upon discovering ballet, I initiated a transition from day-dreaming and self-doubt to discovering my potential as a professional, which is what has ultimately helped me to destroy these insecurities.  At 16 I began commuting into the city each day to train at SAB in New York.  The pursuit of ballet is what allowed me to begin discovering my place in the world.  I have since proven to myself that I am capable of belonging to any world that I wish to belong to.  I now understand that hard work is rewarded in remarkable ways—ways that you often do not expect.  And because I have learned these lessons, my heart is full.  My soul feels ripe enough to embark on a new adventure.

My training among ballet professionals has taught me the importance of making and maintaining relationships. People always tell you that your connections are everything, and I have had the opportunity to learn this by living it.  Between New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Miami, I have been dazzled by dancers, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists from all over the country, and all over the world.  Through these relationships, I have learned what makes people different, and what makes us all the same.  I have also learned that I love learning about new people, places, and cultures; and that I must factor that into the plans I make for my future in order to feel artistically and spiritually satisfied.  I have developed many unique relationships, I can continue to draw upon them in the future to grow my network and receive advice.  The truest, most powerful relationships that I have acquired shall remain close ties forever, while the inauthentic ones will become loose ends in time.

New York City, while providing me a place to grow in the later years of my dance training, served as the foreground of my young adulthood.  From the get-go, New York hit me with a serious case of ‘culture shock.’  At nineteen I moved into my first apartment where I was free to explore the city at my leisure.  I proudly consider myself a New Yorker, and I value these unique experiences. New York has been instrumental in conquering my childhood naivete.

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I'm quickly learning that the strengths which I acquired through my dance training are applicable to all aspects of life.

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I would have never known my physical capabilities if it weren’t for my dance training.  I have a fundamental understanding of the human anatomy, and how my own body responds to certain types of physical activity.  I know what kind of a diet my body responds well to, and I know how to accommodate for it.  For many years I trained my body to love and enjoy a nutritious, self-sustainable lifestyle.  

I also believe that the discipline that's realized, through the relentless practice of ballet, is permanent.  To become a ballerina requires a tremendous amount of discipline.  I believe that, whether innate or acquired, this discipline never leaves you: it becomes part of who you are.  Or perhaps it is who you are, and the practice of ballet allows you to reveal it, like the statue which emerges from the marble.

Most of all, ballet has taught me who I am.  It has taught me that I do have discipline, that I am hardworking, and that I am not very different, essentially, from my friends from all over the world.  It has also taught me that my dancing has never defined me, but rather, I have always been the one to define my dancing.  My 'itch' to succeed has guided me to and through the world of ballet.  And now, as it leads me into a different direction, I trust it blindly, for it has never steered me wrong.

 

Sofia Bianchi is currently a student Fordham University and a fresh alum of the School of American Ballet, the premiere training grounds for young dancers in America.  She is the creative coordinator of the ballet curriculum at the Middletown Arts Center in Middletown, New Jersey, where she teaches ballet to young students.  Sofia is currently exploring different facets of her creativity and hopes to become successful as a publisher, editor, or novelist.

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