Almost every dancer confidently affirms that their favorite
part of dancing lives in the performance aspect. And the week leading up to a
big performance sends nervous shivers and excited tremors through the dancer’s
body. Every day this week, I have dreamt of my performance of Mama Mia this
weekend. Not only performing, but embarrassingly enough, the pre-performance
rituals. I strangely possess an obsession with eye lashes. Some of my friends make
fun at me and call them spider lashes while the others compliment me on my
weird obsession. Either way, I love them. And I kid you not, every day this
week, I have dreamt of placing fake eyelashes on the rim of my eye and feeling
the lashes stretch past my eyebrows and tickle my forehead. I understand how
weird this sounds, but I am not the only one who feels this way! My fellow
dancers and I all undergo this feeling of adoration toward fake eyelashes and
putting on pounds of make-up. But, why? I feel that this act of concealment parallels
to Gatsby’s disguising actions after he witnessed Daisy murder Myrtle in The
Great Gatsby. Instead of frantically torching his car or running away to some
desolate island, he took a long, peaceful swim in his private swimming pool. Then
the question arises…does Gatsby actually not care about the violent murder? Or,
is he just masking his emotions, like the concealing powers of make-up, with
the thoughtless actions of a leisurely swim? We will never find out. But I know
that in my case, I purposefully cake on the make-up, glue the fake eyelashes,
and sprinkle the glitter, for my purpose remains to pretend to live as someone
else. And just like a five year old child, I enjoy dressing up and playing
pretend more than anything else in the world.
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