Hopes and Dreams

by: Zenya

Hi! My name is Zenya and I am seventeen years old. My dream is to become a professional ballet dancer. My mom took me to my first ballet class when I was four years old. When I took my first class I knew that this was what I wanted to do the rest of my life. Many people laughed at me and ask how a four year old could know what career they want. But so far I have still kept striving toward this dream that I wanted since I was four.

This is my first year at Christa McAuliffe Academy School of Arts & Sciences. CMASAS has let me be able to focus more on my dance than any other regular school has ever allowed me. When I have performances coming up CMASAS is willing to let me focus most of my attention on the performances, which helps a great deal and lets me perform at my best. The CMASAS school lets me go for my dream while also letting me have an amazing education.

Dancing is my dream but with any dream there comes challenges. I do not have what’s called the perfect ballet body, which would be a long and thin body, arched feet, and a 180 turnout (180 turnout which means hips are rotated to a point where the heels are touching and the toes are pointing outwards). I do not naturally have this kind of body so I have to work ten times more than a girl that might be naturally born with it. Whenever I get really upset about this fact I just think that this is a hurdle I have to get over because in every person’s life there will be a hurdle and this one is mine. I also think of how my parents have supported me and sacrificed everything for me. I want to someday get into a company and be a principal dancer in a performance and show them that I have reached my dream and goal and it was all thanks to my wonderful parents.