Todd Fox returns with the next installment of “One Dancer’s Journey” — if you haven’t had the chance to read the other posts by Mr. Fox, you can find them here.

by Todd Fox

 

5. What have you had to struggle against in dance?

I didn’t experience an overwhelming amount of ridicule in public school as a boy studying ballet but I did hear my share of jokes and was teased often. At first the teasing didn’t really bother me because I was obsessed with learning ballet and I didn’t really care what people thought—but you can only ignore things for so long.

It all came to a head pretty quick one day in 9th grade when a student was teasing me and called me a name so I punched him square in the face causing a bad nose bleed. I was promptly suspended from school and my parents completely freaked, it was definitely NOT the proper or mature way to handle the situation but I was 15 at the time, it happened, and I was never teased again.

Teasing and name calling aside, I think the number one thing I have had to struggle against as a professional ballet dancer here in the United States is the perception of my life’s work as some sort of contribution to a non-essential charity, as if it has no value in the “real world”. [Read more…]