The next installment of our monthly student-written post, by New School student, Lauren Nixon.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall-Difference in Dance 

Disclaimer, attention, big blaring light: I am by no means a slender, sinewy sylph. Really. There’s absolutely nothing dainty about me. I have sturdy thighs, fierce calves and hips that would put a grown woman to shame. Basically, I could hold my own in a back alleyway (without the help of nunchucks or brass knuckles, thank you). I don’t flutter or waver like a spring lilac. My five-foot-one, athletic, brown body tears through space like a hot bullet—like a sizzling firecracker. And quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There is a big, fluffy pink elephant in the room that is the dance community. When I attend a performance, it becomes somewhat of a “Where’s Waldo” game, a struggle to spot that different body in a pool of “sameness.” There is a shortage, there is something missing, and it sure isn’t slender, middle-class White bodies.

So, why exactly don’t I see myself reflected onstage in the dance community? Why do so many other women and men fail to see themselves reflected, moving, living, breathing onstage alongside their counterparts in the arts community? Why is there so much fear in uncharted territory? Why is there a big, bright strip of caution tape marking off “the body taboo?”

There are a myriad of exceptional bodies and identities that are transparent in the dance community, overlooked and in some situations ostracized. Where is the petite, Latina, upper-class woman? Where is the tall, biracial, transgendered man? Where is the lower-middle class White woman with dreadlocks and love handles? Where is the college-educated, Black lesbian woman? The forty-something Asian woman? There are a number of other identities and bodies that are absent in the dance world, but present, living and breathing outside of the arts world. Shouldn’t these bodies live and breathe and come to life everywhere?

If we, as dancers, choreographers, creators and innovators can so bravely grapple with movement quality, can question and challenge sequencing, structure, timing and spacing with bold, iron fists, why can’t we do the same for the dancing body? If we can so courageously break away from “standard” movement categories, why can’t we courageously and proudly break away from the “standard” dance body?

Mirror, mirror on the wall, are you truly the fairest of them all? I think not, partner. Why don’t we banish this “hush hush” policy that’s floating around? Why don’t we acknowledge the pesky pink elephant, take action, and give the curvy girls the chance that they deserve. Can I get an amen?

-Lauren Nixon

April 14 2008

Lauren Nicole Nixon is a junior studying dance and gender/sexuality studies at The New School. She has performed at such venues as The Kennedy Center, Chicago Human Rhythm Project, New York City Tap Festival and Wolftrap Theater; and has worked for venues such as Imagination Stage and Round House Theatre. She is currently working as a research intern at The Brooklyn Museum of Art’s Sackler Center for Feminist Art. She aspires to weave her interests in gender/sexuality studies and the arts to pursue a career as an arts critic, arts historian and choreographer.