March 2026 "When Talking Is Hard, I Dance" By Wyatt Armitage

     For the longest time, to me, dancing was just movement. It was the idea that there were steps to follow, counts to learn, and, honestly, just making shapes with my body. Through time, somewhere along the way, it became something more. It was no longer just showing up, following the counts, going home, doing it again the next day. It became something that made me realize what I was feeling on the inside could truly live outside for people, for me, and I could do this through my movement. Contemporary dancing stopped being about getting it right and became my honesty, my truth. It became a way I could express not only who I am as a person, but it also became my connection to music and the emotions I was feeling behind it when I danced. I just did not hear the song. I do not listen to the lyrics and follow the counts to it. I feel it, and in many ways, I become it.

    As a person, I am someone who very often bottles things up. Expectations that others have for me, personal disappointments, feelings I may not always know how to explain, all those things sit quietly until they have literally nowhere else to go, and I used to just go home and wallow in self-pity. Contemporary dance gives those feelings and thoughts in my head somewhere to live, somewhere to leave my body. It is the idea that it is an escape from the pressure to hold it together, to always be the perfect role model, to be someone others can say they are proud of. There is always a song that matches what I am feeling, whether it is sadness, regret, frustration, hope, or happiness. There is always a song. The pieces I connect with are emotional and heavy. They're the kind that make people pause and say, Wow, that felt so real. I have danced through failed relationships, moments when I felt like I wasn't good enough as a student, wasn't good enough as a friend, or even as a son. I've danced through things I couldn't say out loud.

    When I was younger, I trained in many styles. I danced everything from hip-hop to ballet, but contemporary always felt the most me, the most honest version of me. Contemporary dancing does not live inside these strict counts or perfect lines. It's a style of dance that asks you to feel your body move with the music instead of against it. When I dance this style, sometimes I tell my own story, and other times I step into the story of the person who's singing it, understanding what they are feeling and telling through dance. It's the idea of telling a story while also carrying the emotion and making it visible. Dancing this way can make you feel exposed. You are letting people see something that you normally would keep hidden. It is one of the safest spaces. When I dance, I do not always control my emotions, and that is the point. There have been times when I've started crying in the middle of routines, before there are moments when my body knows what to do, before my mind does, where the next movement feels less like a decision and more like something that truly needs to happen to provide clarity and expression at the same time.

      More than anything, contemporary dance helps me feel like I am. There are many things I enjoy, singing being another thing, yet out of everything, nothing compares to how I feel when I am dancing. It allows this level of honesty that sometimes words cannot even begin to reach or compare. I honestly can say that people see the real version of me when I dance, not a polished one, not someone who's trying to meet expectations, not someone who's trying to be someone for everyone, yet they're seeing me. And when I share that, it gives me this feeling like nothing else. It gives me hope that others who may be going through similar things feel like they can move on. It is just a sense that they are not alone, and that what they are feeling or surviving is possible even when they feel truly overwhelmed.

     If contemporary dance were a language, it would say all the things that people are afraid to say in front of others or out loud to me. It is a way I can tell a story of survival or a story of learning and growing, and let go of what cannot always be spoken. It's my version of therapy. When I can't talk, I dance, and if I ever lost the ability to dance, especially contemporary, not only would I be losing this activity I love so much, but I would be losing a part of me. I'd be losing a huge part of who I am.