Trying to Just Dance, But All This Other Stuff Keeps Coming Up

I’ve been thinking about what made my stripping different from the dancing I’m doing now—besides the getting naked part.

I’m obviously dancing for me now rather than for pleasing a male customer, but I am sharing my dancing, which does give me an audience, albeit once-removed.

When I was a stripper, I was overtly dancing to be sexy, but because I’m an actress first and foremost, I was never (well, except when I was tired, depressed or angry) not “performing.” I didn’t just get on stage and booty shake.

I like to think I was more like a burlesque dancer, who had intention behind her performances other than just “being” sexy. I performed improvisational routines or performances. My dancing was like a narrative unfolding, not just clothes shedding.

I’ve been having a recurring thought about what it would be like to perform to what I refer to as “strip songs”—the songs I relied heavily on in the clubs. I know that sometimes I’ll be in a grocery store or Target and hear one of those songs come on and I am filled with the urge to dance, to “strip.”

And some of those songs aren’t altogether typical stripper songs either. I had mixed tapes (yes, cassettes!) that I used at some clubs. I danced to Depeche Mode, which is not the first band to pop into most people’s heads when one says Stripper Songs!

What I’m finding interesting as I dance now is that my body naturally moves in ways sometimes that might be thought of as “sexy,” even when I’m not trying to (and actually trying to NOT be sexy) and I’ve been judging myself.

I’m just trying to have fun and fight my depression. Then I hear the question, umm…since when isn’t sexy fun?

I’m not surprised by my own judgments, my own fears, my own insecurities.

I wonder what would happen if I allowed myself to feel sexy. If I allowed myself to dress to look “pretty” and wore heels. If I found Enjoy the Silence on Youtube and played it and witnessed what my body would do.

I’m not ready for that place today. I just want to remind myself to allow this day to be the best it can be.