Black Dancer

Names have been changed. 

When I was a little girl, my mother spent hours slicking back my long, curly hair into braids (with or without bobos), a bun, or puffs. 

My mother is Black and my father is Puerto Rican, and we live in a mostly white town on Long Island. In kindergarten, I joined my local dance studio’s competition team, where I was the only Black girl. The owner explained that all dancers must have their hair straightened due to the fast-paced nature of competitions: Sometimes we would only have five minutes to go from a bun to a braided ponytail. I wondered if this rule was directed at me.

The next Saturday, my mother and I walked to the salon where she sometimes had her curly hair straightened. I was greeted by the roar of blow dryers and the fast-paced Spanish of the hairdressers and customers.

I sat in the tall chair, and a woman named Nia studied my hair. “Wash, blowdry, straighten,” my mother ordered. 

After my hair was vigorously washed, I made my way to the salon chair. Nia clamped the two prongs of a heated flat iron on some hair next to my scalp. Then she dragged it slowly down the length of my hair. She made two to three passes over each strand, a cloud of smoke following. The tips of my ears tingled and turned red when the flat iron grazed them. I learned later that the iron went up to 390 degrees.

After two hours, Nia twirled the chair to show me her work in the mirror. “¡Ay que linda!” she exclaimed. I saw a girl with flat hair that perfectly framed her face, no more thick curls. I looked more like my white friends at school and the dance studio. 

“Look at you!” my mother exclaimed. “So smooth and pretty. Now we don’t have to do your hair every night.” Buoyed by her and Nia’s praise, I felt more free, my hair blowing in the wind as I walked home. I also felt like a part of me had been burned away, but I suppressed that thought. 

At first, I only got my hair straightened every two months during dance competition season. Then I started going every other week. My mom increasingly chose straight hair for me on big occasions. She said it looked “neater.” My white teachers and school friends also said my hair looked “neater and nicer.” I figured it must be true if everyone said so. It’s just what you have to do, I told myself as the flat iron singed my scalp every other week.

My surroundings started to make straightened hair feel like my only choice. While I often wished I was bold enough to always wear my curls, the dance mandate and the ease of styling my straightened hair won out. My curls felt like a part of my identity that I kept to myself. Though I knew I was a POC, I never felt like one, because I never had models of representation to show me that natural hair was acceptable beyond my home.

In the dance studio, my straight hair wasn’t enough. I also had to wear tan tights that matched the other girls’ faces, but not mine. Like the straight hair, I accepted that pale tights were just part of being a dancer. 

Black Rockettes and Misty Copeland

One of my first glimpses of diversity came on early trips outside the bubble of Long Island. Every Christmas Eve starting when I was 6, my parents took my sister and me to the Radio City Music Spectacular in NYC. I couldn’t stop looking at the Black Rockettes whose tights and shoes matched their own skin tone. All the Rockettes had their hair pulled back, but I could see that it was natural Black hair around their faces, not pin-straight strands. 

Watching the Black Rockettes shimmer from the third balcony of Radio City Music Hall, I envisioned myself bold and unapologetic enough to stand out. However, this confidence never traveled back to Long Island with me. 

But at Christmas of my freshman year, a church member gave me a life-altering gift.

“Your mom shows me videos of your dances,” Kayla, a tall, kind woman said one day after church. She handed me a gift bag and said, “I see you doing great things. I picked this out for you.”

I unwrapped a box to find Misty Copeland’s memoir, Life in Motion. I had heard of Misty’s story before, but seeing her on the cover of the book seemed so monumental. Her elongated arms stretching into a cambre were a catalyst to be brave. 

I spent 20 minutes a night reading the book, then journaled about its correlation to my own life: school, friends, dance. Reading about Misty’s fight to wear her natural hair and ballet accessories that matched her skin challenged me to step out of my box of conformity. If Misty could, maybe I can? 

 I’m eager to see what freedoms I can find experimenting with my hair, with new forms of dance, and whatever else I try.

I began skipping some dance classes. Part of me wondered if I was just falling out of love with my sport, but another part knew that wasn’t the case. After reading about Misty’s move to another studio because she felt unappreciated at her prior one, I admitted to myself that I no longer felt like I belonged within my studio.

I didn’t leave my studio, but I ordered a pair of brown ballet shoes and darker tights and started wearing them to ballet class for the rest of freshman year. To my surprise, neither my mom nor anyone at the dance studio said anything about the brown tights. But I felt a difference: I could now dance comfortably in my own skin. That confidence showed up in my pirouettes and leaps. My attendance returned to being consistent.

Misty’s book inspired me to sign up for my high school’s dance team, which had a more diverse group of girls: some Hispanic, Black, and Asian dancers—and no hair or tights requirements. 

My sophomore year, the school dance team performed at the first pep rally of the fall season. I wore my hair with small cornrows in the front and my curls cascading down the sides and back. For the four minutes I performed on stage, I felt a new type of elation. I was making the child who had watched the Black Rockettes from the balcony proud.

Yet during competition season at my studio, I still abided by the straightening mandate to look uniform with my other dancers on stage. While I wished I could keep my natural hair always, I knew I had my school’s dance team for a source of expression.

My Hair, My Life

In the summer between junior and senior year, I attended a journalism program at NYU. Here, I met my first Black friends who talked about how their hair was part of their culture. 

“I’ve been getting locs for so long. I was thinking about switching it up for my senior year,” Ayla said one day in our dorm. I told them about living on Long Island and straightening my hair to fit in with white dancers.

Ayla said, “At the end of the day, it’s your hair. YOUR hair. Why do you let others try to change that part of you?”

I hesitated, then admitted, “Everyone around me has always been a carbon copy of one another. It’s what I grew up around and really all that I’ve known.”

“But that’s the thing, they don’t know your culture,” Zahra chimed in. “You’ve got to stand up for you and unapologetically show your Blackness if that’s what you want.”

I wasn’t sure yet if that’s what I wanted, but being at the NYU campus was freeing. I wore braids for the whole two-week program and loved it.

I also experimented with styles deemed “extra” on Long Island. Walking down West 4th Street in high cowboy boots, a jean skirt, and a bright yellow top, braids swinging, I felt like I knew myself and how I wanted to look. 

I took that confidence—and the braids—back to Long Island. Ironically, the white girls I’d worried about fitting in with started complimenting my hair and asking me how I did it. “How long do the braids take to put in? Which is your favorite? How often do you get them done?” 

The following year, while I navigated the college application process, sticking with culturally Black styles grounded me and bolstered the personality of my essays. With my heightened confidence in my writing and my identity, I breezed through the essays as though I was writing in a diary. 

And I was accepted to Yale! I scrolled through the dance opportunities there: Afro-beat dance, ballet, contemporary, and hip-hop. My nervousness turned to excitement.

A few weeks ago, I went to Bulldog Days, Yale’s three-day orientation, which had lots of performances. I was soothed by Yale Dance Company’s dramatic contemporary performance; hyped up by RythmicBlue, the school’s only hip-hop group; and mesmerized by DZANA, the Afro-beats group. I saw that Yale could be a source of community and expression.

After the performances, I met with each of the dance groups; they were warm and welcoming. I signed up for fall auditions on the spot. As I finish high school and prepare for college, I still straighten my hair sometimes. I do it at home, by myself, with less heat and more heat protector. It’s an option, not a requirement, and a way to express myself, not to appease others. I’m eager to see what freedoms I can find experimenting with my hair, with new forms of dance, and whatever else I try. Whether I wear braids, curls, or even straightened styles, I hold the decision. My life is mine.