Dancing with the Devil
I spent four-and-a-half years living in Provo, Utah. I felt the culture shock almost immediately after stepping outside my family’s fourteen-seater van—the same van that took me to and from countless dance rehearsals and competitions growing up. I wasn’t planning on pursuing dance any further. The nine-hour drive from Southern California to Utah was a difficult one. A majority of that time was spent sobbing and looking through pictures of the life I was leaving behind; the life I became so accustomed to.
I started at BYU in the fall of 2019 with a “clean slate.” I grew up loosely following Church doctrine but assumed that by attending the Lord’s university, my relationship with Heavenly Father would be strengthened—but in reality, everything weakened pretty quickly. I failed to attend church regularly and didn’t pay attention in religion classes. I believed I was going to Hell for drinking alcohol, dressing immodestly, and disagreeing with other church teachings. Around this same time, my younger brother came out to me and the rest of our family. I told him it was the happiest day of my life. I was (and still am) so proud of him for feeling safe enough to share this part of him with us, but felt torn about attending a college known for its controversy around queerness.
I also struggled to feel a sense of belonging at BYU. I became more aware of the color of my skin when strangers in the Wilkinson Center asked me questions like “What are you?” and “Where are your grandparents from?” Conversations like these continued throughout the rest of my undergrad experience. Meanwhile, my heart became hardened amongst the chaos of comparison and navigating a different version of myself, and I began to lose the already tiny testimony I had brought with me to college. My body was tired, my mind overworked, and my spirit nonexistent.
It wasn’t until I stopped trying to fit the mold presented to me that I finally felt more like myself. While performing with BYU's Contemporary Dance Theatre (CDT), I fell back in love with dance while meeting and falling in love with my friends —the people who I hold so dearly in my corner. The Richards Building quickly became my sanctuary, a place where I could leave behind the rest of the world and do what I love to do with the people that I love the most. The relationships and experiences that were built inside this building became my favorite part of living in Provo and still carry my fondest memories to this day.
At the end of my third and final season on the company, CDT took a trip to New York City to perform a showcase of pieces we had been rehearsing during the year. A few close friends and I had already planned on moving to the city, so being there felt magical—a first glimpse into the lives we were going to create. Now, living in New York and creating memories with both old friends and new, I am deeply grateful that this dream has become my reality.
The BYU Department of Dance’s motto is “Integrating body, mind, and spirit.” Those words are engraved in a corner of my brain. Every year of my life, dance has taken up space differently but it's something that has always been there. Like the church, I may fall away from dance at times, but I am grateful for my body, mind, and spirit, which work together to support my love for the art that started when I was three years old—one that is still burning nineteen years later.
Graduating in April of 2023 was such a bittersweet experience—a similar feeling to leaving behind my high school self back in 2019. When I look back at my time at BYU, I realize that the original “clean slate” I started with has been dirtied, but in a good way. I never truly washed away the past versions of me. I’ve learned to embrace every version of myself and the importance of accepting and loving the different versions of others too.
I’ve finally found peace with where I am spiritually. I’ve always been the kind of person who craves understanding, seeking to know anything and everything. But that's the essence of faith—it's not about having all the answers. What I do know is that life itself is a profound blessing, and there's so much good in this world to experience. My time in Utah taught me resilience, strengthened my spirit, and shaped me into someone who can embrace both the unknown and the beauty of the present moment. How fortunate we are to have bodies that move, minds that question, and spirits that grow.