Close your eyes. Picture a ballerina on stage: toes pointed delicately but sharp, hips turned out just right, and arms as graceful as a swan. Now open your eyes. What did that ballerina look like? I bet it wasn’t a 180-pound girl in a leotard and tights. Well then, you weren’t picturing me, Rachel, a dancer since age 3, member and choreographer of both Escape Velocity Dance Company and the Ursinus College Dance Company, as well as a Captain of the Ursinus College Dance Team and spirited cheerleader.
Growing up I was never the thinnest or most slender girl in the dance studio. As I got older and the pounds packed on, I was always told that I would never make it anywhere as a dancer if I didn’t drop the weight. Every single day I walked into the studio surrounded by girls who were half my size. Their legs didn’t jiggle when they leaped and their bellies and large breasts didn’t flop when they jumped. Did that stop me? No. Today, you can find me rocking a size 14 leotard. My size has never stopped me.
When I was little, my mother used to read me a book titled Elephants Don’t Do Ballet, by Graham Percy and Penny McKinlay. It was about a young elephant that just wanted to dance. She fell and fell but did not give up. She went on to prove everybody wrong, that even elephants can dance. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no elephant in size…in fact, the only thing elephant-sized about me is my heart and that heart is full of passion and love for dance. But I wanted to be that elephant. The one that never gave up, no matter how many people told her she wasn’t right for it [dance], good enough, or thin enough.
Over the years I’ve come to accept my body and what it is. If you love what you do, you should never stop because someone tells you that you aren’t the right size, age, skin color, or gender. As Ellen Degeneres once said, “To me, beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who you are.” I owe my success in my dancing to exactly this – accepting who I am and not letting anyone tell me otherwise.
