Why We Need More Than Just Dancers In Our Community

For the young dancer in our street dance community, it can be confusing to figure out where you belong. With the way we run our scene, there's an underlying subtext that you only matter if you compete in contests and participate in cyphers. Yes, this is where much of our street dance culture was born, evolves, and now thrives. But it's a crowded space that narrowly defines the roles we think we can play. Like any competitive culture, there are only a few advanced dancers who win contests and compete regularly at a high level. The rest vie for a chance to make it past prelims or quietly train in the corner, hoping to get their skills to a point where they can freestyle in front of a crowd. Or are they trying to build up their self-confidence?

What's troubling is that young dancers may start to question their self-worth if they don't make it past prelims in a contest or participate in cyphers. You may ask, "if I don't hit certain milestones in my dance career, does that mean this was a waste of time?" That's an unfortunate question to ask. Young dancers should never feel like they have to fit certain roles in order to matter. But that's what happens. Without any wise guidance from mentors, the underlying subtext in our culture can sometimes warp our minds if we're not discerning about it.

Deep down inside, you have to ask yourself if you're dancing to win other people's approval. Do you get a little boost when you dance and others applaud? Are you craving that affirmation which really doesn't last in the long run? We're all searching for our significance. Some of us look for it in achieving something with our dancing. Others find it in school, jobs, relationships, career choices, material wealth, or some other social-cultural status. These questions have driven human behavior since the beginning of time. We dig ourselves into a hole when we think that the only roles we can play in our dance community is as a dancer.

A community is made of different people with various gifts, talents, flaws, and strengths. And in order for our community to function, we need more than dancers. That is, if we define "dancer" as someone who just dances to the music. We need leaders. We need communicators, administrators, visionaries, storytellers, problem-solvers, trendsetters, trendspotters, teachers, translators, team builders, and folks who are good at something that contributes to the greater good. The list goes on and on. If we were all just dancers with no other attributes, we would be in big trouble. Who wants to be in a community of people focusing on their similarities rather than celebrating and growing because of their differences? You know what's troubling our community. There's a lack of organization. There's a lack of awareness of our culture among the mainstream public. And there's few people who are taking responsibility to champion causes in our world. We need more than just dancers to solve these problems.

So if you're a young dancer facing an identity crisis, know that you're not alone. It's encouraging to realize that you can have gifts that will benefit the dance community and it may be more than just your dance ability. Think about it this way: if you have an ability to manage organizations and large teams, you might be a wonderful candidate to produce dance jams. These jams would be opportunities for dancers to find community. Even the high level dancers need jams to showcase their talent to a public audience. They can't create their art without you. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Maybe it's time we started not limiting ourselves to being just dancers. We can ask ourselves what can we bring to the table that no one else can. That's one way to start thinking outside the box.