There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. ~Edwin Denby

The lights were blinding, overwhelming my vision till it became spotty with the euphoric explosion of color. My whole body felt like a live wire, thrumming with the adrenaline rushing through. As if one minute movement from the flick of finger could send me off the edge into oblivion. My nostril, overpowered with my own sweat and the freshly polished wood of the stage. I was acutely aware of the barest hint of breeze carried from the ventilation above and hitting the sensitive skin of my neck and shoulders. My muscles trained and conditioned to endure for hours and hours, seemed to betray me as a certain lethargy and weakness overcame the hardened sinews of my legs. My posture felt too stiff, my shoulders too rigid. The muscles and veins in my neck clenched and unclenched with each gulp of air that I forced into my uncooperative lungs. My heart was drumming and stuttering in my chest, and I was sure they could all hear the awful thumping.

I couldn't hear a single thing. Not the polite applause of an audience filled with thousands of eager and critic spectators. Not the soft murmuring of my peers beyond the curtain backdrop or the squeaking of last minute instrument tuning down in the pit below the stage. The only sound that penetrated the deafening silence was the blood pumping through my head over my ears. My thoughts flew, trying to concentrate on those singular fluidic moves that would begin this monumental act, but were instead drawn as a magnet to the awful scenarios conjured in my terrified state of mind. The horrible fear that with one small failure or misstep, they would see through the immaculate makeup to the grime and filth that seemed to suddenly cling to me. That they would suddenly see my whole story as if reading it off my body, from my eyes.

I was completely and utterly terrified. And one thought kept running through my brain, as if on a continuous and infinite loop, I don't belong here.