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Another Way To Dance

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Another Way To Dance
By: Martha Southgate

For someone that has ever had the dream to do something great with her talents,the story of Vicki Harris and her struggle to become the best dancer in the summerprogram at New York City's School of American Ballet is a great resource for inspiration. Another Way To Dance by Martha Southgate shows the struggles and ambition of a fourteen year old girl trying to discover herself and her goals in a Manhattan dance school. As Vicki battles to get through all her classes, classes in which she is one of two African Americans, she is also faced with trying to discover her true self. Also , what she thought first took precedent, she must decide in her life what takes priority.

While things may seem great for Vicki, she is also struggling inside with many
things. She must deal with anything from divorce to celebrity crushes on top of her ten dance classes a week. Ever since she was little, Vicki has been taught to respect people's differences. When she starts at her new dance school, she realizes that not all people are taught the same way. She is one of two black people at the school, and looks to her are everything. For years Vicki has tried to fit into the typical "ballerina" stereotype, she has watched her weight, straightened her hair ,and tried to stay looking like a ideal ballerina. Vicki describes her needs to be the same as every ballerina to her mother one day as they discuss her hair,
" Ma, I know, I know. You've been talking about this stuff ever since I was little. But I don't see why what I do with my hair makes a difference. I have to straighten it, Ma. If I'm ever gonna make it, I've gotta look like everyone else."
(Pg. 15)

She wants to look exactly like everyone there, so as not to get any unwanted publicity. She also has to try and deal with her parents' divorce while keeping a certain level of composure. She doesn't like her parents for getting divorced, yet never tells them. She often gets angry, but turns to no one for help with her frustration.

As Vicki tries to deal with the changes being thrown at her, she is starting to grow in ways she had never thought before her classes in Manhattan started. Back in New Jersey where she comes from, she was always the best at ballet. She was the best in her class, and looked up to. When she gets to Manhattan, she finds that she must struggle to keep any position at all in the classes. She went from the top dancer in her class to one of the lowest. She finds herself having to try harder and harder to keep her life like it was, though inside, she is struggling to find if the old ways of life are the best for her anymore. She knows that she has changed since she came to stay with her aunt. She is just not sure if she really wants these changes. A few things happen while Vicki is trying to figure out what person she wants to become, some good, some bad. She makes new friends who teach her that most of all, you shouldn't change because you're afraid to stand out. This helps Vicki see that it might not be a bad thing to change who you are a bit.

This book is a great resource for people that have a dream, but just aren't sure how they can go about accomplishing that dream while taking on the rest of life's challenges. Vicki thought of dance as her life. She worked so hard at it, and sacrificed so much just so she could dance. But when she finally got one step closer to her goal of becoming a ballerina, she realized that dancing cannot simply be her life. She had to work on other aspects of her life in order to get focused and see what was really important.
For anyone that has always wanted something and worked really hard to get far in that area, but never really worked hard at the other aspects of their life because of that goal, this is an excellent book to read to clear in their mind what their goals are. If one focuses too much time and attention on one part of their life, neglecting the other parts, their mind can become bogged down and they end up worse off than expected . I feel that for people like this, this book shows that to really excel in an area, one can't forget other areas of their life, because they all work together to make up what it is they're great at.

Throughout the book, Vicki is fighting change. She struggles to get better at ballet, though she on all other levels tries to keep things in her comfort zone. At first, she fights these changes, seeing as they won't work into the plan she has built in her head. But what Vicki comes to realize is that if she would just let some things happen as they may, life wouldn't seem so stressful and complicated. She goes on to see that things may not always work out the way you had once planned, and most of the time, that's okay. It's not really that you don't accomplish what you set out for anymore. It's that you have truly done something worth all the trouble along the way.