Written by Sophie Bress
Originally published on Ampersand on February 17, 2020
At the end of CONTRA-TIEMPO’s joyUS justUS, the entirety of the stage and audience is dotted with stars. Beams come from above, freckling our faces and bodies with circles of bright, white light. Seated cross-legged on stage, I look down and see that one of these circles has landed right on the center of my chest, echoing the warmth I already feel there.
I’ve just finished my final performance as part of the community cast in joyUS justUS. Though I’ve been a dancer since age three, I have not performed in over a year. This moment marks the accomplishment of a goal that I had halfway given up hope of ever achieving: to perform with a professional dance company.
Growing up, I dreamed of being a ballerina. Then, in college, my interests shifted towards modern dance. I won’t sell myself short and say that I’m not a good dancer, because I am, but when I got to college I realized that the pool of good dancers was bigger than I imagined. I wasn’t getting the roles I wanted, when I even got a role at all. Once, a visiting choreographer put me and one other girl in the back of his piece, making us jump around like we were “having a party.” He didn’t want us doing his choreography. We swallowed our pride, retreated to the back of the studio, and did what we were told until rehearsal was over. Afterward, we found refuge in hidden locker room tears and in each other. It turns out that I was not alone in my struggle.
I was beaten down repeatedly— sometimes by other people — but I’m discovering now that most often I was the one doing the beating. My natural propensity to daydream was not an asset when it came to learning complicated choreography and I often found myself falling behind, having to constantly remind myself to focus so I could keep up. But even when I could focus, I still had to watch the other students to remember what I was doing.
I told myself over and over that I didn’t have what it took. I couldn’t learn choreography, so how could I possibly expect to join a dance company? No one else ever told me that I wouldn’t make it as a dancer, but that’s the story I told myself. And when you hear something enough, you start believing it.
I remember the exact day when I hit my breaking point. The cast list for the fall dance concert had been posted and I wasn’t on it. The very next week, in what I now see as both an act of defiance and desperation, I picked up a journalism minor. I knew nothing about journalism, only that I loved to write.
Though I graduated college as a dance major, my internal narrative switched when I added that journalism minor. Because I was no longer trying to become a professional dancer, I could finally forgive myself for not being the best.
My college dance career wasn’t completely made up of moments of inner turmoil such as these. I was welcomed into a loving community of my fellow dancers and given a place to belong from the very beginning. I met many of my dearest friends through the dance program and learned so much about myself. In many ways, the dance program led me to journalism and invited me to remember all the things I loved about writing. I still have a binder full of performance reviews I wrote for my dance professors.
Journalism was never a consolation prize. I’m now realizing that the two interests are inexorably linked. I’ve been writing nearly as long as I’ve been dancing. I’ve always kept journals, affixing tickets from dance performances to the pages and writing my thoughts from the show alongside them. Writing became the way I expressed my love of dance when performing no longer could be.
“There’s a special sort of energy when you’re part of a performance. It feels like absolute, unquestioned belonging.”
I’ve been writing about CONTRA-TIEMPO and joyUS justUS for over a year. The piece — and the company’s work as both artists and activists — was the topic of my undergraduate thesis. I spent the last semester of my college career in rehearsals with the company, in the corner with my camera and tripod, documenting.
The CONTRA-TIEMPO family welcomed me. As a journalist, it’s normal to feel like an outsider, and at first I struggled with the fact that I was developing friendships with my sources. But I learned so much more as part of the group. By the time I wrapped up my thesis, I was used to being greeted with hugs from the company members each time I entered the studio.
Since then, I’ve continued to find my way back to CONTRA-TIEMPO. In November, I travelled to Greensboro, North Carolina, to document their performance as part of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre commemoration. And in December the company invited me to dance in joyUS justUS, the piece I knew so much about intellectually but nothing about kinesthetically.
Performing joyUS justUS, I felt my two separate futures — the dancing future and the writing future — colliding. I discovered that the dancing deepened my writing, but also that the writing greatly informed the dancing. In the beginning, I felt hesitant about navigating my role as both a writer and a performer without sacrificing my journalistic integrity. This was when CONTRA-TIEMPO’s founding artistic director, Ana Maria Alvarez, mentioned that I would be taking on the role of a “participant observer” during my performance with the company. This is a term known to me through the work of Katherine Dunham, a pioneer in the fields of dance, anthropology, choreography, and social justice. Her work within community in countries like Haiti and Jamaica greatly informed her dancemaking and the development of her signature technique. Like Dunham, I found I learned the most from moving. And while my understanding of joyUS justUS grew, so did my understanding of myself.
joyUS justUS was developed through storytelling. The piece tells a multitude of stories: Alvarez’s, the company members’, and the community’s. Through my dancing in the piece, I became part of these stories, instead of just a listener. What is created onstage during joyUS justUS is a bold reimagining of what our future can be. It shows us that joy is a superpower and a force of resistance. It’s a future that considers everyone’s stories, and it’s a future of which we are all a part.
Through experiencing the multitude of stories of others, I was able to accept the multitude of stories that exist within myself. Under the stage lights during that last performance, I realized that I’m not just one thing. I was finally able to prove myself wrong and ignore the critical voice inside that poked and prodded me away from my love of dance. Finding my way back to the stage showed me that dance will always make a place for me so long as I make a place for myself.
For me, performing has always been an experience akin to a beautiful dream. It’s a space that is not completely of this world. After the hard work of learning the choreography is over, my body knows what to do on stage. Then, my mind is free to float, my lips free to smile, my heart free to open to the audience and to my fellow dancers. There’s a special sort of energy when you’re part of a performance. It feels like absolute, unquestioned belonging. During my performance with CONTRA-TIEMPO, I was able to immerse myself in this beautiful dream one more time. And while my mind was floating free, my thoughts would often wander to how the writer in me would find the words to describe it.
