It was July of 2011. I was standing in front of 2,000+ people at Grant Park, Chicago. As I looked around, I could barely see the crowd that had now overflowed into the grassy area beyond the dance floor.
I put on a brave smile, nodded to my team of dancers, and began our show. For the next hour, we took the participants through a completely joyful immersion into Bollywood dance. We got their hearts racing and their faces smiling. The next morning, someone sent me this picture. We had made it in the Chicago Sun-Times!
If you had asked me 6 months prior to that date if I would get such an opportunity, I would have probably said no. I had moved to Chicago the year before and knew exactly, wait for it… ZERO people in all of Chicagoland. I had no friends, network, or connections.
While I was trained in classical dance, that’s not what I taught or performed. So not only was I unsure of my status in the larger artist community in Chicago, I wasn’t even sure of it within my own. I remember stopping dead in my tracks the first time I was called an *Artist* and then again a *Cultural Educator”. I was a computer scientist, a dancer, a fitness instructor but an artist and a cultural educator? Wasn’t that meant for other folks doing elevated and refined artsy stuff?
I was watching a TV show the other day where a dance studio owner said these two sentences: “You Belong” and “Take up Space” (This is Us fan, anyone?). And I remember that some incredible people around me had conveyed the same message to me all those years ago. They helped me feel that this Brown, barely-30, Woman from a small city in India Belonged and it was OK for me to Take Up Space.
On this International Women’s Day, I hope you feel the same. No matter the color of your skin, pedigree, or your status as a minority, YOU BELONG. So go ahead and TAKE UP THAT SPACE!
