Finding Leadership in the Community by Kassidy

Finding Leadership in the Community by Kassidy - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

Within my dance company, usually the oldest dancers are the leaders, and different levels of responsibility are passed down depending on age and reliability. As a younger dancer, I looked up to multiple older dancers in high school and college who served as my role models for many years. These young men and women taught me how to be a team player in a dance family. When I was in middle school, I was an apprentice to a dozen high school dancers who were my idols; however, when I was in 10th grade, I encountered many transitions because our dance studio split in two. I made the very difficult decision to be loyal to the original dance studio because it played an incredibly important role in my life, having assisted me in becoming the person I am today. I wanted to mentor the younger dancers, so they could see the value in the lessons I had already learned. Many people, including a handful of dancers my age, left to go to the new dance studio, and I was abandoned to lead on my own as the oldest dancer. My previous role models inspired me to guide a new group of younger girls within the dance company at the beginning of the new season. There was a large group of young dancers entering the dance company, ages eleven to thirteen, and they did not have experience with how our company was run and the high level of expectations they would encounter. I taught the girls how to be professional in a dance setting, how to cope with different choreographers, how to be a committed member, and how to become a “family”. This often involved helping the young dancers handle their injuries, resolve personality conflicts within the group, and understand how to manage their time between dance and school. I am constantly making sure the girls understand the expectations and values to this day, over two years later. This responsibility has had me doing the work of multiple leaders, but it has resulted in me leading for a worthwhile cause.
I was able to translate these newly obtained leadership skills into a new project. Last year, the artistic director of my dance studio came to me and another dancer with a potential project that would bring more awareness to youth suicide, specifically in teens. In the past several years our small mountain town has experienced a large amount of suicides in both teens and adults. Community members had been meeting regularly to attempt to prevent more from happening. The goal of this grant-funded project was to create a student-driven performance that included many art forms to focus on preventing youth suicide and depression. We decided to call it Giving Voice, so that everyone feels as though their voice can be heard. Giving Voice is a completely student-driven performance that highlights the impact of youth suicide and depression in teens using dance, acting, singing, art, and media. I lead the process of the creation, production, and performance, while also choreographing the dances. I recruited people, communicated with participating students, helped create the storyline, choreographed the dances, and worked with the adults in charge of the theaters as we got closer to the performance. It was a long process, but we generated an entire show from scratch that was created solely by middle and high school students. We also were fortunate to get the opportunity to perform on Good Day Sacramento to showcase the purpose of our performance. We are now creating a documentary about the process as well as a template for schools around the world to create their own version of Giving Voice. The impact it has had on our community has been breathtaking. People who have been impacted by suicide and depression let us know how much they appreciated what we were doing and that it helped their healing. High school students who watched the show gave positive feedback. In fact, it stimulated intellectual conversations around the school, and there was an increase in support amongst students. I have learned so much about leadership and persistence from taking on this project, and I am so grateful that I was able to leave such a positive mark on my small, mountain community.