Dancing in the Dark

I’ve told the “Chromatic story” a lot, by now, especially the short, “elevator pitch,” version of it. Some days, it starts to lose its meaning for me, begins to feel like something well rehearsed and cheesy that I say to pull on the heartstrings: “I never danced before college, and then I joined a non-audition dance group and it changed my life, really!”

That story is still entirely true and real, and more meaningful when I tell it in full, and it is indeed the driving force of everything we do at Chromatic.

But I don’t really tell another part the story, the one that’s personal to me: the story of how I also found the courage to finally identify as queer through dance, despite knowing I wasn’t quite “normal” since I was 16 years old.

I gloss over this part of the story often out of fear, the very fear we encourage our dancers to break out of in the studio, the very fear that inhibits people from dancing in their realest selves– I fear judgment, what people might think, how appropriate of a story it is to tell as a “brand.”

And yet — Chromatic Dance was born at NYC Pride. Go back to the very first two posts on our Facebook page. We came into the world at Pridefest, June 2015. Pride and the LBGTQ community are our very roots. We chose the name Chromatic with colors, rainbows in mind.

In the wake of the tragedy in Orlando this Pride month, in the wake of deep grief and pain at the knowledge that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history massacred Latinx queer people in my home state who were simply trying to find the joy and freedom and love in dancing beyond the studio, “in the club,” as we so often joke in our classes — perhaps it is time we dance out. Proud.

I say often, to my friends, in a flippant, joking tone that “gay dance parties are the best dance parties,” but it feels like less of a joke now. Gay dance parties have been the spaces I have always felt the freest, where I have found the most joy. My very first NYC Pride, and the bar hopping and dancing I did that night until 4 am in Greenwich Village with one of my queer best friends in all the gay bars with their billowing rainbow flags stands as one of my most cherished memories.

Dance matters. It is about finding joy and freedom and love within your own body. It is scary. It is a visceral experience. And it is magical when we finally feel safe enough to put forth and express our selves through our own very vulnerable bodies, when we feel safe enough to put them on display, because we have found a space where we are loved unconditionally, and a community that celebrates us and our bodies for who we are, what we are. When we can lose our fear in our love of music and movement, and in the process, uncover our realest selves within our own bodies.

We started Chromatic to recreate the safe space we found in dance. We do our work to create a world where everyone can find spaces to dance — truly, without fear, and in our most beautiful, realest, colorful, queer, rainbow, chromatic selves, beyond the studio, toward adventure.

Today marks one year since we came to life at Pridefest, 2015, and I’d like to share, on this anniversary, my own very personal and very proud queer dance story.

Dancing in the Dark

Listen: https://open.spotify.com/user/clairez93/playlist/5v7RB4qAFIBiJD6w9lSoEz

That kind of love’s just ain’t for us, we crave a different kind of buzz…

Monday afternoon that fall means Broadway Rehearsal Lofts. Sunlight pouring in from the giant windows overlooking New Haven’s version of Broadway, a street that’s crooked, not straight, just like its New York counterpart.

The soft sunlight makes the studio feel open, airy, like you can really fly in all that space.

We are learning a chair dance this semester. We put socks on the feet of our chairs so that they do not scratch up the floor. We open our legs, we close them, we smirk, we kick, we make beautiful lines, we snap, we don’t care to look at the audience, we are Queen Bees, we’ll rule we’ll rule we’ll rule, we demand our tribute. We live that fantasy.

One afternoon, our choreographers ask us to watch them do the choreography. We sit on the floor and watch.

The moment: she leaps off the back of the chair. And she floats. On that soft, airy light.

I feel my heart leap too, and float.

I don’t know what it means. I tell myself it means that I love beauty.

That is partly true.

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet, but I would never do you wrong…

A boy plays Taylor Swift for me as we cuddle in his bedroom. He tells me he is a big fan, really. I know he is lying. I appreciate the gesture. He tells me that he wants me to meet his friends. He talks about history, his favorite genre. We watch Mean Girls, since he knows I love the movie and am always quoting it with my friends.

He is smart, he is thoughtful, he is sweet. He is participating in our dance group this semester.

I try to like him back. We make out in his bed that night. He is respectful; he walks me home. He takes me out to a nice restaurant later that week and pays the bill. We text during Thanksgiving break.

I want to like him back.

Backstage at the end of semester fall show, I see him. I say hello and give him a hug, but find myself quickly dashing out into the wings to sit beside her instead.

She puts her head on my shoulder as we watch the show from between the curtains.

And there, in my chest again. That leap, that float.

I know what it means.

She choreographs a special interlude for this show: a romantic queer duet. It is a lovely piece in all black costumes with minimal lighting and a single flower. It is elegant, and it is beautiful, and it leaves me in tears, every single time.

They say have courage, and I’m trying to, I’m right out here for you, just let me in…

I spend winter break clinging to my phone. Adrenaline bursts every time the GroupMe or Facebook Messenger buzzes. Is it her? I text frantically and ignore my family at home.

The four of us in the group gush about Frozen, which has just come out in theaters. We love Frozen. Idinia Menzel! Let It Go!!! Oh my god, did you realize Elsa could be read as a queer Disney character?

She’s making plans with a girl to see Frozen…???

We squeal in all caps for her, we are excited and so so thrilled, we scream about weddings and marriage and glitter. She has butterflies, she gushes, the only sad thing is that it is winter break so that she can’t see her, but all the better!, we say, so that she’ll come running back into her arms after missing her!

And they’re going to see Frozen! I ship this! I ship this so hard! Full speed ahead!

In February, I go to the LGBTQ co-op party at 168 York, the only gay bar in New Haven, and meet the special girl for the first time. She is cute, she is cool, she is awesome. I am happy for her. I spend a night dancing away with my friends and retreat to our residential college basement, our favorite hangout, at the end of the night.

At 1 am, she comes down to the basement, where we have all begged her to come, oh so many times, where she never comes despite such pleas. She comes with her eyes red and puffy and wet. The ship is sinking.

She wants to go out to another party, she wants to be around a lot of people, we want to stay here. She decides to go, says she will be back. We wait a while, but she doesn’t come back, and we are tired, so we decide to go to bed.

I wake up in the morning to messages in the GroupMe from 4 am, her asking if anyone is still there.

I beat myself up at the missed opportunity. I wish I had just stayed up, stayed in the basement, waited for her to come back, fantasize about a conversation that might have changed everything.

I’m quiet, you know, you make a first impression…

She plays one of my favorite songs on the piano and starts to sing and my best friend is strumming along on the guitar and harmonizing, and I suddenly feel like I have been stabbed with a very very cold, sharp knife clean in the center of my heart, and I cry, I ugly cry.

I pull my jacket over my face to hide, suffocating by own hot breath, capsized in my own emotions. I can only choke out what has somehow become my catchphrase now — “Feels!” — as a form of explanation.

I hate myself, I hate myself so much for not being able to play piano or play guitar or sing or dance and how is it even fair that someone can dance and sing and play the piano like this? Why didn’t I ever learn as a child?

I peek out from under my jacket, my cheeks are wet. There is no point wiping them. I laugh, there is nothing else to do.

Hey, it’s okay, their eyes say. Come, sing, it is okay. They say nothing, only begin to play Hey, Soul Sister. I open my mouth. I let a feeble lyric out, cautiously. Yes, it’s okay, their eyes continue to say, warmly. Really. It is okay.

I close my eyes and begin to sing the way I did in the car in high school, the last time I fell in love.

And I like you…

We are alone in the Broadway Rehearsal Lofts. It is spring break. There is nothing we have to do now, nowhere we have to run. I ask her to teach me things.

I practice chané turns across the floor under her gaze, afraid to look at myself in the mirror. A few across the floors of these, and she asks me what else I want to learn.

I want to learn leaps. I want to fly.

So she teaches me to calypso jump.

“Pretend like you’re leaping over a fence,” she says, and she demonstrates.

I try to copy, but my body feels clumsy, awkward, heavy.

“Yeah, close, try again!”

There are her eyes again. It’s okay. Warm and kind. I take a breath, and I leap.

“Yeah! Amazing! That’s so pretty! Can you see what you’re doing? Wait, I’m going to take a video!”

She grabs her phone, she trains it on me. I smile nervously, close my eyes, and jump.

“Watch this!” she says, holding the phone out, playing the video back. “Look how pretty that is!”

I look away.

“Yay!” I say, feeling silly the moment I say it, wishing I had something better to say.

Here come the dreams of you and me, here come the dreams…

It is my birthday and it is the after party of our spring dance show, and she has finally arrived (she is late to everything). It is 2 am and the party is winding down, but she is calling for birthday shots and she plays Rihanna’s Birthday Cake in my honor.

I accept the toast. I take the shot with her, the room is whirling, and the feeling is rising– rising rising rising in my chest, confidence coming from something more than alcohol.

We dance.

Our bodies move closer, our heads bend toward each other, we touch foreheads, we lock eyes, and somewhere in the cloudy haze of my brain, one thought becomes clear: I’m just… gonna go for it. I am doing it before I even realize I am doing it.

And she doesn’t pull away.

The room, the music, the noise, all the other people at this party — all of it — it spins, spins, spins, then melts and disappears, and all I know is softness and electricity and spark and touch, and this! This! This! I close my eyes. Chronological memory stops, becomes a soft warm fuzz, the way my brain feels. It is a blur of gentle pressure and lips and tongue and elation. So soft.

“By the way, did I ever tell you I was queer?” I say, thinking myself very clever and funny.

Why did I let myself believe that miracles could happen?

My castle in the sky comes crashing down in a spring torrential downpour the next day and no response to my texts until late that night: “We should probably talk.”

Later that week, one quick sentence in her dorm room, one sharp word — they: “Well, they kind of made it official the next day…” with those same kind, kind eyes, so worried, so ginger and concerned, and a repetitive stutter that falls from my own mouth, one I can’t control: “It’s fine!” Fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine. It’ll be fine. Fine is a weapon that I clutch in my fist and use to hack futilely at the unfurling numbness inside me.

“I’m glad for you!”

I throw open the door to a dark Broadway Rehearsal Lofts that night, jam the speaker cord into my phone and turn the music up, loud loud loud to drown out everything, and collapse onto the floor staring at the twinkling lights below on Broadway, blurred through my tears.

You can’t start a fire, worrying about your little world falling apart…

She says sorry to me, later. She understands.

I know she does.

It is in her eyes.

We learn to be friends. We live together over the summer, we cook, we traipse down the streets of NYC absurdly drunk at 4 am during Pride weekend, we throw dance parties with fireworks and sparklers and sangria, we sing Taylor Swift in the car on a nine hour road trip, we talk all night while watching the sun rise from a balcony overlooking the ocean, and we dance dance dance dance dance.

And love is love is love is love is love: there is still love, even if it’s not the kind of love I wanted, this is still love, I learn, there is love here, and this is what it feels like.

I learn how to love. I learn how to fly. Hey, it’s okay, really it’s okay. I keep dancing without the fear, with the joy, the electricity, the love, the feeling pounding in my chest still. This.