11 years at the Ming Hai Wu School of Ballet transformed me from a timorous child, constantly plagued by physical illness, to a passionate young dancer who took home quite a number of trophies and medals. The 11-year progress was ascribed to an inextinguishable passion, one triggered by an online visual experience of Yuan Yuan Tan performing “Carmen." Mesmerized by the aesthetics, from the arch of the feet to the extension of the legs, I for a while self-trained with an elusive dream of becoming a full-fledged professional ballerina. Constantly up and about, twirling and leaping in empty parking lots, I let nobody thwart me from pursuing a dream so-deemed elusive.

In a dance class at my academic school, my teacher requested everyone to choreograph movement that conveyed any thought-out message. I realized that from the day I set my mind on becoming a professional ballerina to the moment of this request, I was so preoccupied with obtaining aesthetics that I had forgotten to give movements meanings of their own. There, I stood without a hint of what I was to do.

Thoughts started running through my head.

I was taught that the possession of special talents was what deemed one appealing and that success was defined by trophies, titles and placings in honorary roles in companies and ballets. Having an insanely arched foot, crazy leg extensions, and perfect fouettes, for a long while, I thought, was the “sole recipe” for becoming a professional ballerina, on top of, of course, being able to swiftly pick up choreography. Perhaps it is the commercial world we live in today that renders such dreams as wanting to become a professional ballerina elusive. It’s a rather horrid thing. We’re using our bodies to appeal in order to sell ourselves into a company. There, we have a plethora of dreams diminished by people telling young aspiring dancers about how difficult it is to be hired as a lead role over everyone else. Young individuals with amazing dreams go into depression and as far as starving to death for having physical limits. The path to achieving the dream might just be impractical and incurs the greatest risks, emotionally, physically and financially.

Thought after thought, I came down with my own new dance ideology.

What’s truly important is not winning first place at an internationally recognized dance competition or being the lead role in a ballet, but the ability to see dance beyond skill and technique. Somewhere in you, there is the love and the passion for achieving your dreams, buried beneath the burdens of social expectations. If you can fetch it out and amplify it, that would spark masses of spirits, ones that can fill your body, mind and soul. Those are the spirits that produce the energy to fuel movement capable of conveying any thought-out message. That’s a rather beautiful sort of success, isn’t it?

The thought ended, and I was choreographing with bliss.