Pirouettes & Throwbacks: Like many little girls, my childhood dream was to grow up and become a ballerina. I was pretty serious about this goal up until the age of...oh, maybe 13. I used to parade around the house in ballet slippers and touts-touts, was a ballerina for a Halloween for a few years, and took regular classes up until high school. I think what finally broke the dream for me, besides my waning interest in this relatively rigid classical form of dance, was the realization that this discipline seemed to demand me to be something I'm definitely not: a waif. Of course I had all the support of parents and family, but looking at ballet performances made it clear to me at the time that a certain body type is required. I soon grew out of my childhood fantasy, hung my point shoes as decorations, and took up modern and African dance classes where curves are celebrated.

Looking back, I realize that I just didn't really want to be a ballerina or else I wouldn't have given up so easily. It is hard but still possible to dance without the traditional 'ballerina body.' Even so, the impact of those traditional expectations is real. I have a new friend here, Morgan Ross, who is doing research on just that - the impact of the classical ballet body image on dancers of color, specifically in former French and British colonies. She is a Watson Fellow - for those of you who have not yet graduated from undergrad, this fellowship is amazing and you should all apply - and therefore has a year to travel to an unlimited amount of countries to research something she is passionate about. Since dance is a shared passion of ours, I decided to try to help and put her in touch with my former ballet teacher, a no-pain-no-gain stick-touting French woman named Madame Andree Lorenzetti.

Me and Madame Lorenzetti when I happened upon the dance studio in 2006. She looks exactly the same after 10 years and even now after 12 years...

This is how, earlier tonight, Morgan and I found ourselves in Madame Lorenzetti's adult ballet class, neither of us having taken ballet for some years now, dizzying ourselves with clumsy pirouettes and struggling through painful adagios. It's actually incredible how the dance language (a unique collection of French terms) has stuck with me after all these years. What is even more incredible is the fact that Madame Lorenzetti and a few people in the class totally remember me from when I was ten and still wearing my round, red-rimmed glasses....

I think I'm going to keep the classes up...they are definitely a workout and a challenge. Who knows? I might just be a ballerina after all - a much more well-rounded one, in every respect, than I could have imagined.