If you are a dancer, or you have a partner or friend or loved one who is, you already know: we dancers are incredibly critical of our work.

So to watch a video in which I’m dancing and think, before I’ve thought anything else, “That was good!” is a big deal.

Anyway, today I finished a week-long summer intensive session in which I (GASP!) actually talked to people I don’t know and, like, made some friends ❤ This was a really lovely group of dancers, and I would happily dance with any of them again any time.

We learned and performed (via livestream and for a small audience outside the big window of our studio) a brand-new piece choreographed by Ashley Thursby-Kern and Theresa Bautista, and when I watched it, I found myself thinking, “That was good!”

Not just their choreography, or the performance of my fellow dancers–but for once I was able to look at myself and think that.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, but ballet never is. And I think that we did rather a fine job learning and polishing it in the span of five days.

Anyway, for the moment, you can catch it here, with an introduction by Ashley, who is a thoroughly lovely human being:

https://fb.watch/5WCH2vkM6_/

I’m trying hard not to list the shortcomings I do see in my own performance here. It’s enough to know what I could have done better and will do better next time. It’s enough to look at myself dancing and say, for once, “That was good.”