I was recently thrown out of a dance studio because the way that I was dancing was “too sensual.” The most hurtful part about this is that the studio (in it’s marketing) says that it’s designed to encourage woman to embrace their bodies. So that’s why I was there, to learn how to reconnect with and embrace who I am.
There’s a story about Oshun and how she was born with a white dress on her body. As she grew older her dress grew with her too. The rest of the community hated Oshun’s dress, so they threw yellow paint on it, they tried to cut off the dress from her body. Oshun was so embarrassed to be in the dress but she didn’t have a way of taking it off her, it was part of her body. Sometimes (and this is where the story gets really dark) the yellow on the dress wasn’t paint…it was other people’s waste because they defecated on Oshun and on her dress. The dress would stink because they spoiled it on her while she was wearing it so many times. Oshun tried to wash the dress and clean her body but she did it in vain as they repeated it over and over and over again.
So Oshun hung her head. She learned to lead a solitary life. And it’s in the pain of her solitary life that she learned to weave her yellow tinged dress into gold.
I use the stories of the goddesses to share my own pain and when a story is not there I create it to wear. Just like Oshun’s dress.
The stench of her dress (for me) represents the vibration of feminine energy and how other people react to highly feminine woman (not highly feminine in terms of dress but highly feminine in terms of the energetic anatomy of their bodies).
The dress itself and how it wouldn’t come off Oshun’s bodies because it was a part of it represents sensuality.
I always use the reference to the Barbie movie, where in the beginning of the movie you are shown Barbieland and in Barbieland the different Barbie’s represent different parts of the real main Barbie. One Barbie represents Barbie’s intelligence, another Barbie’s potential, and another Barbie represents Barbie’s leadership, etc. etc.
Well there is a Barbie out there that represents Barbie’s sensuality.
Me.
Except I don’t feel like a Barbie. I feel like mutant.
I don’t know how to be less sensual when I dance.
I don’t even know exactly what it is that people are reacting too or are calling “too sensual.”
I’ve even videotaped myself and personally I don’t see it.
I just know that when I dance some women expand their bodies more – but most women shrink and feel bad about themselves and get harsher to me – and as an empath I can really see it.
Other women are usually horrible to me in dance class and pick me apart or want nothing to do with me at all. And the thing is, even though I love to dance because it brings a feeling of freedom. It’s actually really hard for me.
With this particular dance studio, I had joined it after having a horrible experience in therapy which left me completely disconnected from my body. Over the years I’ve taught myself how to write again and how to design again and after my therapy session I went through a major backslide and so I turned to dance.
There’s not many dance studios in my area and without a car and with my health conditions it makes it harder to find a dance studio where I can get too and still have the energy to dance when I get there. But luckily (or at least I thought luckily at the time) there was a studio down the street.
There were some signs that something was a bit off but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know if all the happiness that was there was a facade or if it was true. Plus I stepped into a whole dynamic of being a Black woman in a mostly all white dance class that I didn’t know would exist. Yes, I knew people would look at me. But I had no idea of the extra silent pressure or watchful eyes I was under to “Make sure I was integrating with everyone correctly.”
I should have been given the same peace, consideration, and space as the white women who danced were given, because yes I may be black but first I am a woman. And second, skincolor dosn’t have a thing to do with it. It’s all about the vibration in that we dance.
One dance instructor even grinded on me like I was her property and as someone who was using the class to heal and reconnect with her sensual energy which so often she uses at work this time it was for me – it wasn’t for someone to take for free, especially when people normally pay me for it.
I would have managers push me to the side. Brush me out of the class and pretend that I wasn’t there. Or they would pretend that I was there to highlight what I was doing wrong.
It wasn’t all bad.
Some of my happiest moments were in dance. I could finally move my body without limitations. I even had one dance class where for the first time in years (because although the disacociation had happened at an extreme level after therapy for years I’ve been disaccociated from my body). I had a moment that, I was actually in my body and not dissacoiated at all and I had to rush out from the studio because I was crying so hard.
I was also called the N word by a bunch of little kids as I was walking home from class one day.
Dancing is hard for me but it looks so beautiful when people do it. One day, while taking my favorite dance teacher’s class (this is someone who saw that I needed help and she would quietly whisper to me to keep going and encourage me to continue to come to class), well one day I wanted to “Show up” for my dance teacher, just like a little kid would be excited to show their mom an art project – I wanted to be able to proudly show my dance teacher that I could dance like her (well kinda, she’s much better than me).
So I “reached into my dancing bag” metaphorically so to speak and I pulled out some extra sensuality in my body and put it into my dance move. And she didn’t demonize me for it (which I know now if I had innocently done this in another person’s class they would have), instead she high fived me for putting in some spice and being creative.
Well let’s just say that word got out, and as I healed others got scared. And so the manager and the owners of the dance studio put it into their minds to “Tone me down.” And they wanted to do it through my favorite instructor. So they laid out a humiliation ritual for me. One that I’m still healing from.
Now when I dance I’m not the same, now I barely move and I’m so scared to get into my body. That’s what they wanted.
I had noticed that some of the students were starting to follow me instead of the teachers but that still doesn’t make it right (and frankly the students were trying to follow me from day 1 when I didn’t even know any of the dance moves), they just saw a Black person in a dance class and got excited. But I shouldn’t be made to pay for the fact that I’m Black. I was already paying them $179/month.
I didn’t have another place to dance, I tried other studios but with my health condition they were too far to get too and this is the only place that offers morning dance classes (in the morning, with my health condition is when I have the most energy). It was also a dream to be able after having such a nightmare of life being able to be at a point where I could cam, then walk down the street to take a dance class and them come back and work some more.
It gave me a fun goal to work too. And now this goal has disappeared.
I feel broken.
And hurt.
I’ve tried to go to other dance studios and it’s largely the same story. The black instructors put me down so that way their other dancers won’t feel like their catering to me. Women are jealous and pick me down. And silently my dancing spirit – which was already so fragile from being taken out of my body is dying quietly.
Except she’s not dying quietly, I’m crying as I’m writing this and have been crying on and off for the last month.
I just wanted to dance.
Why do I have to be so different?
Why won’t my dress-like Oshun’s, why can’t it just come off so I can finally be the other women and have a safe place to move with the music just like they do.