Paige Hollingsworth Personal Philosophy March 23, 2014

To move. To investigate. To discover you. The Webster dictionary defines dance as to move ones feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps. This might be an adequate definition, but there is so much more to dance then this. At least to me. Dance: to investigate, research, explore, travel, design, express, feel the atmosphere, learn, and experience life at its fullest. Dance has truly been a maturing journey for me. I reflect back on how I use to view dance. Dance was an outlet, a way to feel and dance through emotion, to escape my problems. It is a completely different language to me now. It is a way of life. It is who I am and how I view life. It is work. Not work like many Americans know, but and investigation. In a simple ballet class I can discover something completely new within the same combination. It is a chance to use one of the greatest miracles that God has created. Not only use, but also communicate with and through the body. Martha Gram eloquently stated the instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived-the human body. I have the opportunity everyday to live life in this way. I have discovered a depth to dance I never knew existed and I continue to. I think that is what keeps me fascinated is the fact that you can never be finished. There is always more to learn. I captivated be the feeling of learning. The sensation you get when you feel your brain actually getting bigger. When you learn something new, but it feels like youve

known it all along. I love when you get that nervous feeling before you do something that scares you. I love when I feel tears drop softly down my check when I feel something real. I love loosing my breath when I see something beautiful. The kind of beauty that is hard to describe but makes you see life through new eye. I love serving people and seeing the joy in there eyes when they are doing something they love. I love hard things, pain. That means I am growing. I am humble and vulnerable. I love the endless opportunities that my life provides. I am fearless. I am a dancer. I am a believer. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are Gods. -1 Corinthians 6:19-20 A physical body is essential for our exhalation, which comes only through the perfect combination of the physical and the spiritual, like our beloved resurrected Lord. Neither one without the other. We are not physical beings here to have a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings here to have a physical experience. Every experience we have is done in our body with the spirit. We had these spirits before this life and had personalities and talents as well. We are those same beings. Some are blessed with the abilities to inspire with perfect eloquence of speech. To some the gift of passion for sports. To another the abilities to retain knowledge and intellect. Others are blessed with a spirit of kindness, compassion and sympathy. Even if we may not believe it, each of us has a very unique talent that are Heavenly Father so graciously blessed us with. I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of usinsecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesnt measure our talents or

our looks; He doesnt measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other. Jeffrey R. Holand. I am not sure why I was blessed with this talent, what I like to call obsession, but I could not image life without it. Each of us has a way of expressing ourselves, if not we feel frustrated and trapped. I believe it is essential for or development here on earth. Now, I am so humbled and gracious for the language I have been blessed with. I have found that the way I express myself is in the most straightforward language I could summon (Jeffory R. Holland) .dance. Growing up, dancing became my outlet. The place I went when my world was crashing in on me. It was my way to escape. My emotions moved me. Sure there were days when I could not connect because I just was not loving it today and my dancing suffered because of it. Often my teachers believed I was inconsistent, which was 100% true because I was dancing from the way I felt each day, which is the most fragile, unstable place. My dancing was as clich as believing "love is a lot like dancing; you just surrender to the music. (unknown) I believed that love, in my case for ballet, was blind, when in all actuality it is the clearest state of being. It was not until I went to San Francisco Conservatory of Dance that my views on dance completely changed. This changed my world completely and began my rebirth to this form. "Ballet to be more of a study verse and outlet. Before I would dance to escape something, I think, and I have learned that there is more to this language."

I totally relate. I never truly took myself serious as a "ballet" dancer. It was what i

knew and was comfortable with. I never really "studied" it to the degree that is possible. Now I am making up for lost time. The education of ballet in Utah is its own culture. While I highly value my technical learning of ballet. I had never realized how much there is to know in the professional world of ballet --WAY beyond just the knowledge of technique. This is where I will turn it back to spiritual. As I've investigated what it means for me to be an artist I have realized that is what I'm drawn to spiritually. Not all the time of course. But when it comes to making art, real deep, crafted art, my spirit is what motivates me. Its my inner voice that no one will ever hear except for me, no one will ever define it except for me. my art is how I express it in the tangible world, and I can choose to express it in so many different ways. Ballet is the language I know the best. It's a vocabulary ingrained in me. I was drawn to it as a child and because of my situation and education I did not really know I could learn anything else. So its what I've got. While some days I absolutely resent that I did not have other training I still come back to the vocabulary and find new possibilities to express it. Quotes that keep me moving God is eagerly waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as he always has. But he can't if you don't pray, and he can't if you don't dream. In short, he can't if you don't believe. - Jeffrey R. Holland Men are that they might have joy a joy that includes a fullness of life an acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christof its requirements and commandments. Only in these will you find true happiness, the happiness which doesnt fade with the lights and the music and the crowds. -Todd Christofferson "While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life. I can

only be joyful and whole. This is why I dance." -Hans Bos "Dancers are athletes of God." -Albert Einstein "Dance is the song of the body" -Martha Graham