As a professional, you have to endure a tremendous amount of criticism and judgment leading up to a performance. You can barely take a step in rehearsal before the dance mistress will clap, stop you, and give you a critique. But during the actual performance, when the music swells, and the crowd hushes, it’s all up to you—how high you leap, when you breathe. There’s no more time to worry or try to make it better. It either works or it doesn’t. You land with grace or you stumble and fall. That absoluteness, that finality, is freedom. And the stage was the one place where I felt it.
