Someone once told me they used to go through a whole ballet barre combination in their head to help them bring back a sense of calm and balance to their mind. The repetitive combinations of articulating your fingers, bending your knees and pointing your toes brought on a meditative state for them. It made me realise, during my many years of ballet training, I had started my day off by emptying my mind just by taking myself to the barre and warming up my body – it wasn’t only preparing me for class but it was preparing my psyche for the day ahead too.
There’s nothing quite like becoming consumed by music and being in tune with every fibre of yourself. To express freely and tell stories through movement was where I felt most joy.
When I came to the decision to leave ballet behind, I was so heartbroken, I refused to involve that part of my life into my next chapter. Even once I had transferred my storytelling from movement to words, I chose to write about other aspects of my life ignoring the ballerina shaped hole that was left behind.
As stories of diversity came into the mainstream, I started to look in on myself and my Japanese-Australian background to make sense of who I am and my identity as a mixed-race person. I became fascinated by how our upbringing and cultural heritage affected our sense of self and daily lives. How, we often find ourselves leaning towards our ethnic identity for a sense of comfort.
It made me realise that I shouldn’t consider myself ‘half’ Japanese or ‘half’ Australian as it implies I am not whole of something. And that train of thought brought me back to a huge part of my life I had put a blanket over. My experiences of being a student of dance has contributed greatly to the person I have become and it will continue to influence the person I will be. I realised it would be a real shame to ignore all the good ballet has brought in to my life, because we are all a sum of our stories.
Emma is a Japanese-Australian writer based in Melbourne/Naarm and the Communications Assistant at ACMI. A former ballerina, she has trained at a pre-professional level in Moscow, Belgium and the USA. Her passion for the arts has led to her curiosity in the role it plays in society. She has learnt to look at her multicultural upbringing from different perspectives and is incredibly fascinated by cultural rituals and how it affects one’s sense of identity.
Words ~ Emma Sullivan
Emmalouisesullivan.com