“Beautiful people have better lives” once said my father and recently I read “8 Scientifically proven reasons Life is better if your beautiful” by Dina Spector in Business Insider.  We can certainly debate, if you subscribe to this ideology but for those that do, how does your perception of beauty affect you on the dance floor?  In social dances where traditionally the gentlemen ask the women to dance, are their decisions on who to ask based on physical beauty or something else? If you believe that it’s based on physical beauty then how do you overcome the feeling that you may not be attractive enough to be asked to dance hence why even try?

In my 25 years of teaching dance, I have found the answer to becoming more beautiful or more importantly changing the perception of how beautiful you are.  The answer is how well you execute your dance and how well your partner perceives your level of dance is.  Again, we can discuss the techniques necessary on achieving a proficiency in dance but more important is that one you achieve it, you become more beautiful to yourself and others.  I have seen students that don’t think of themselves as attractive yet once they’re on the dance floor they become the most beautiful version of themselves.  On the other side I have seen students who are physically attractive only to not be paid attention to at dance events because they’re perceived as ugly on the dance floor.  This is a behavior that has been seconded by Joanna Bose’s book “Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in America’s heartland“.  I know, I know, we don’t do ballroom but dance is dance and beauty is in the eye of the beholder or is it dancer?

Today I reach out to students and those that don’t feel beautiful, or don’t think their world perceives them as attractive and I invite you to try dance.  Or if you already a dancer, have you gone through this experience yourself?  Finally, let the world of dance change your persona, let dance make you beautiful.