Perfection in a Studio

Molly Lorenz

Dr. Venuti

College Prep Writing

October 16^th, 2009

Perfection in a Studio

            There is an unorthodox studio in Newburyport where I learned to grow up.  I started entering that room weekly fifteen years ago, and I only just recently stopped.  My first teacher there was Miss Carolyn, and she was the first person I ever wanted to grow up to be like, though admittedly, I also wanted to be like Big Bird at one point, but that’s a story for another day.  Miss Carolyn was petite, but her large attitude made her seem much bigger (at least to a two-year-old), though she moved with the elegance of a long feather caught in a gentle wind.  She was neither harsh, nor hard to please, she expected that you wanted to be there, and that was nearly it, but it was everything to us. 

            Inside of this studio that smells like a mixture of sweat, vanilla, and rubber, the walls are white, not black as they should be, except for wall 1, which is a wall of mirrors, showing more than is really there. Although it seems impossible, it’s true. In brutal and unforgiving harshness, it shows every mistake I’ve made. In the reflection I see every solo, every fall with a sickening crunch, and every minute imperfection. It shows a stage, with an audience and lights, and curtains, but also can show me in complete solitude, dancing with a room that’s not really there. This place changes every day.  Studio 2 can be blindingly bright, or comfortingly dark. It can be deafeningly silent or a calm cacophony of clashing sounds.  The room is often filled with the aroma from the coffee and bakery down the hallway that seems to raise your spirits inside of that room.

            Despite not wanting to have my income depend on an art form, like choreography, or being a dancer, I have stuck with dance for fifteen years now, and it’s possible that this room was a contributing factor to that decision.  Inside of this room, I have learned how to do so many things, from choreographing for all ages, to the gift of perseverance.  There was one summer, where every day I worked on completing non-stop jetes, because I had a great amount of difficulty in that area, until I could master them en tournant; this perseverance led to me eventually being offered more and more complex pieces of choreography to perform because of my dedication.  My dedication was more to prove to myself and this room that I was not wasting my time, that I was meant to be here.  As childish as it sounds, I wanted to prove to the room that every negative thing said inside of that room was wrong.

From that early age, I learned that there is no point in putting that much effort and passion into something if there is not true reward at the end, but that you had to be willing to see the reward.  For a dancer, there is no praise other than strangers wanting to watch you dance, which is what a dance teacher tries to teach a dancer by constantly tearing them down.  One would think that after the hundredth or so insult, the dancer would give up, or when that first compliment comes, the dancer would cherish it, but that is not so.  I have been torn apart as a dancer over the smallest flick of the wrist so much that I understand that when a compliment comes, it is just one step closer to reaching for perfection, though I understand that I will never be perfect.  It makes sense to me that if every thing is scrutinized, from the way a costume falls, to the height of a fouette that every dancer would be near perfect, but a choreographer once said to me, “The minute you think you’re perfect, you stop trying to be perfect, and then you lose any hope you ever had to be perfect.” The only thing I have yet to find that I can sometimes comfortably say is perfect is that simple studio.