Wednesday, May 25, 2011


Part of my series of ink drawings depicting my favourite "active" activities, is this drawing here called Escape. Ballet has always been an art form I've found to be incredibly beautiful. My father and I used to often watch ballet together on TV and I'd be in absolute amazement of the grace, coordination, passion and physical strength demonstrated on stage. Like many little girls, I had dreams of being a ballerina, but I never took one dance class. Well, in my early 20s I took ballroom and Latin dances for a short while, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Years have passed, and I yearned to get back to dancing, in some form. Dance is a full sensory expression. It's a feeling, it's an art, it's movement to music, and it speaks volumes to both dancer and viewer. Regaining my health and strength back, I knew 2011 was the time to begin. In fact, I investigated options for myself while I was bandaged up after my leg surgery, and made contact with my dance teacher, Joanna at that time. She encouraged me to sign up for her classes, assuring me that in fact I am NOT too old to start ballet for the first time. No, I will not become a prima ballerina and I will not dance en pointe, but I can learn many of the steps, develop my style and grace, learn choreography, but most importantly, DANCE!

Since January, I've been taking contemporary ballet classes with Joanna at Unhinge Dance. It's been an incredible experience so far. My first class I felt really frustrated, not being able to do very many of the steps. It was a very sharp uphill climb on that learning curve, but only because Joanna finds the appropriate balance between challenge and comfort to allow us to both learn and feel confident that we have the skills to accomplish what seems challenging. I've now learned a lot, and find that with each class, I feel more and more like a dancer. I catch myself doing chaines across my floor at home at times, and get excited at the prospect of my next class.

So why is this drawing called "Escape"? It's a recent drawing I started within this past week. It's been a highly challenging week for me. I let Joanna in on what I've been going through and she sent me the most thoughtful email which resonated big-time with me. She described dance as an escape - a place you can go to when times are tough and get your mind off those things you need to get your mind off of. And dance is a place where you can return to each step with certainty, "a plie is still a plie", and if anything, those steps have more meaning and emotion attached with their execution. An inexperienced dancer like myself but that has some added life experience (i.e. the opposite of a young teenaged girl who's danced her whole life), can add depth and experience into each step I take in dance.

And so, this drawing is actually based off a photo from the Unhinge Dance website (with permission from Joanna). It's of Joanna herself, my inspiring teacher, although with abstract line and texture, she doesn't quite look like herself here. The idea is that in dance we can escape, so the dancer here is seemingly jumping or escaping right out of the picture. The texture, the lines, all are intentional to show the range of emotion, experience, and meaning placed in each dance step.

1 comment:

Unhinge Dance said...

Zahida - this is such an honour. Congratulations on turning your experience into something beautiful. The essence of art!