“What are you going to be when you grow up?” It is a question that I have heard many times before. And it has made me think about all the possible answers I could have to this question. The future can be a very scary thing to think about. You can never exactly predict what is going to happen, when it is going to happen, and how it is going to happen. But the one thing you can predict about your future is how you plan to live it. I have often thought about my future, and now that I am in high school, it is a very important thing to come to terms with. When I grow up, I want to be a professional dancer. I want to live in New York City, audition for jobs pertaining to dancers, and spread my love of dance to the next generation. I know what I want for my future, and I hope that I can fulfill my dreams one day.

My future is something I handle with care. Every decision I make determines what my future looks like. For me, as a dancer, I grab every opportunity I can to better myself.  That means a lot of time and sacrifice to reach my goals. But I am willing to make those sacrifices. This year I will be auditioning for the Joffery Jazz Summer Intensive in New York City. I will also be auditioning for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular for 2017. With these large activities, along with many other programs and performances, I will have a very impressive college resume. For college, I would like to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where I will study all genres of dance, as well as musical theater. After college, I would like to audition for roles in performances, and also teach master classes to the next generation of dancers. I want to be able to share my love of dance with the world, and I think that teaching is a perfect way to do that. Dance has been around forever, and I never want its impact and presence in the world to diminish.

The main reason I want to become a professional dancer is because of the immense influence dance has had on my life. When I dance, I feel all my troubles and stress melt away, and it is just me and the movement. Whenever I hear a song, I choreograph a dance to my head in it. Some people write, play an instrument, or paint to have a creative outlet. For me, my creative outlet is dance. All of my emotions come to a head when I am dancing. I let my emotions out and let them run free. I could have my anger from a fight I had with my sister one morning bottled up inside me all day, but when I dance, I let go of that anger and concentrate on the movement. Dance lets me express myself in ways nothing else will. There is a quote, said by Agnes de Mille, “The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie”. This quote really explains how dance lets people open up and truly express themselves. People can lie with their words, but they can’t lie with their movements. I relate to this quote because of the way I use my movements to show my real emotions. I don’t contain what I’m feeling when I dance. I let myself go. That’s why I want to become a professional dancer. I want to do what makes me happy, and what lets me express what I’m truly feeling. I would be overjoyed to live the life of a professional dancer.

For anyone, dance is one of the hardest sports. It takes an immense amount of stamina, focus, and technique to be a great and disciplined dancer. The discipline and focus that it takes to be a dancer would also better me as a person in the future. I would not only have good behavioral skills and judgement in rough situations, but I would also be able to be very disciplined and saty focused easily. The characteristics that I would gain as a person from dance would help me to shape my future into what I want it to be. To live my life as a dancer would be the greatest gift I could ever ask for. If I were to become a professional dancer, I think I would win the award for happiest person on the planet. Dance is what brings out the joy in me, and to be able to feel that joy everyday would be a true dream come true. I would treasure the opportunities I have as a dancer, and I would never let them go. Dance is what keeps me from going insane, I don’t think I could ever live without it.

My future is very important to me, something that I want to go just right. The decisions that I make for my life now will forever affect and represent me. That’s why I want to choose dance to represent me as a person. I want dance to be my career, to fill up the empty spaces I have in my life. I want my future to be something that I look forward to, not something I dread. That is why I plan to fill it with the best possible thing I could think of, my love for dance.  One quote that was said by a man named Brian Puspos sums up why I want dance to be my life. “Dance is a best friend of mine, it goes through everything with me”. Life would not be the same without dance, and that is why I want my future to be full of it.