Corpus Callosum: Embracing Artistry and Logic as a Dancer
Isabel Reck
has been dancing for 5 years; the majority of her training being at Cornerstone Studio. She has trained in ballet, contemporary, lyrical, jazz, hip-hop, tap, break dancing, and aerial silks, although contemporary has always been her go-to. Her favorite thing about being a Dancewear Center Ambassador is being able to explore a side of being a dancer she never thought she would be a part of.
By Isabel Reck
In AP Psychology, we learned about this small section of tissue in the brain called the corpus callosum; the only neurons that integrate our two hemispheres. This place of convergence and connection is where I live.
Growing up, I remember seeing an image of the brain said to represent how people who are dominant in each hemisphere think. The left was always black and white, filled with graphs and charts, cogs and circuits, and numbers upon numbers; all comforting me in their predictability. The right, on the other hand, always seemed to be splattered with vibrant colors, curving and twisting, forming the gyri and sulci of the brain. Branching out into musical notes, brushstrokes, landscapes, and thought bubbles, dizzying but energizing in all their stimulation. Many of us, confronted by this image, feel the pressure to categorize ourselves into one of the two sides.
In elementary school, I saw myself in the colors of the right hemisphere. Music flowed through my veins and it couldn’t help but come out. My off-key belting was heard so often that my parents were driven to sign me up for voice lessons, so my constant need to vocalize would, at least, be nice to listen to. Constantly playing what my friends and I would call imagination games, we pretended to be anything or anyone. My abuela, a painter, nurtured my artist’s mind, reinforcing that my right hemisphere defined my capabilities. When adults would ask me “What do you want to be when you grow up?” grinning, I would reply, “a pop star!”
In middle school, academics started to get hard. Suddenly, my ability to thrive in math and science made me stand out against my peers. I won awards in math competitions. In love with microscopes and learning about genetics, I was part of a select few to get invited to the National Junior Honor Society. I stood out, not because of my flair, but because of my brains. Instead of coming home to tell my family all about music class, I would gush over my latest discovery in science class. The answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” shifted to “a biochemist,” or “a neurologist,” both professions appearing to be grounded in science and reason.
I remember these two seemingly different phases of my life with great love. I was able to fit myself perfectly in society’s expectations to be one of two distinct types of thinkers, and that was easy. In high school, I grew into an advanced thinker, and I felt confined by these two separate hemispheres. In anatomy and biology, I wanted to learn every detail on how bodies function. Because of this, the next time my dance teacher explained the proper placement of my leg in a “devéloppé”, I understood that it was so my femur head wouldn’t get blocked by the iliac crest of my pelvic girdle. Having this knowledge, allowed me to learn and understand concepts in dance more effectively. It opened my eyes to how dance is also deeply mathematical.
“When a dancer becomes an artist, they learn to not only use the vocabulary that has been ingrained in their mind for years, but also use the emotions, experience, and grace they have developed from life. ”
Ballet class expanded from watching someone perform a proper plie and trying to mirror it, to understanding the muscles involved, the physics, the balance and strength. It built depth to seemingly simple movements, transforming them from mere exercises to art. When a dancer becomes an artist, they learn to not only use the vocabulary that has been ingrained in their mind for years, but also use the emotions, experience, and grace they have developed from life. The process of building technique in any dance form requires a methodical logic, but without the creativity and intuition of an artist, dance becomes just a form of exercise.
I now realize the limits of the earlier image. There is art in science and logic in creativity, so I no longer need to choose one or the other hemisphere. Now when I’m asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I explain that I want to explore a space guided by intuition and reason. I want to delve into the vast network of neurons that emit signals for both logic and creativity. I choose the corpus callosum.