In the second semester of my freshman year at SMTD I was enrolled in an introductory music education class. This course specifically relied on introspection-driven discussions, reflecting on our own experiences regarding how we would tackle our future careers as music educators. I remember watching others in the class become fueled with pent-up frustration, anger, and passion as we engaged in these difficult conversations. On numerous occasions, I consoled crying classmates in the hallway who felt their experiences were not worthy and sought validation that they deserved to be here.
Our identity and our access always play a role in everything we do as performing artists and directly influence our well-being.
Often, there’s a misconception that when we come to music school, suddenly everyone is on the same playing field. But we know this is not the case; everyone’s prior eighteen years of life are varied, but equally as valid. What’s important is that we acknowledge that our past experiences don’t suddenly walk out the door when we take our first steps into music school. Our identity and our access always play a role in everything we do as performing artists and directly influence our well-being.
While there was no mal intention with the exercises presented in my music education class, it shed light on how difficult it can be to talk about our varying experiences with performing arts access. It is crucial to our growth as educators and performers that we are having these discussions. However, we must learn how to navigate them in a way that centers the human behind the experience. These conversations allow us to understand how varying levels of access can impact our wellness (such as having self-confidence vs. experiencing imposter phenomenon), and how we can use this information to better support those around us. The first step is listening to our students and validating their stories.
This past month I got to speak with four SMTD undergraduate students about these experiences and how their access to performing arts education has shaped their wellness during their time here at SMTD. Reflecting on these narratives is the pathway to creating more equitable, accessible, and supportive environments in the arts.
#1
I first got to speak with Alondra, a sophomore viola performance major from Naples, Florida. She grew up in a single-parent, low-income household with a parent who immigrated from Mexico, making her a first-generation college student. She was involved in orchestra at her public middle and high school for seven years and started receiving private lessons in eighth grade after winning a scholarship competition with the music organization in her town – the Music Foundation of Greater Naples. This scholarship would fund three years of private music lessons. The organization saw how well she was doing after three years and found an anonymous donor to keep funding her private lessons through the end of high school. She also completed education programs at the Naples Philharmonic, always qualifying for scholarships or having her tuition waived.
Alondra explained to me that studio class — where all the students of a private teacher perform for each other and give feedback — was a large struggle for her. She knew that many of her classmates had attended academies or arts schools where studio class was common practice, and had a lot more experience performing in front of a group than her. In her first “real” performance in studio class, she explained to me that she “broke down in front of the entire class” because of the immense pressure she put on herself to prove her abilities. She also explained how she struggles to give feedback to her classmates because she doesn’t feel qualified enough to offer feedback that would be valuable.
The effects of being low-income still have a large impact on Alondra’s education and well-being today. She obtained her current viola by getting a loan from an instrument loan foundation but is constantly thinking about how many more loans she’ll have to apply for in the future to ensure she will have a suitable viola to play. As she now can’t turn to the music foundation that assisted her in high school, she is currently learning how to manage extra fees such as: buying strings, instrument repair costs, and paying for pianists. She also explained that she can only apply to the tuition-free summer music festivals as they are all she can afford, limiting her access to the resources available to her.
Due to her experience, Alondra decided that she wanted to be a resource to help high school students just like the Music Foundation of Greater Naples was able to be for her. She has founded The Intermezzo Fund which aims to raise $600 at their Kickoff Benefit Concert this April to help high school students alleviate “invisible” music costs such as application fees, accompanist fees, instrument repair, and new sheet music.
#2
Ricky is a freshman majoring in dance who grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco, later moving to the suburbs of Chicago when he was 12 years old. He explained that both communities were very diverse, housing people of many different identities and passions. In elementary and middle school he was mainly involved in musicals, later starting to focus on dance when he got to high school. He started enrolling in dance classes once a week at a nearby studio while also taking classes and being on the dance team at his public high school.
Since Ricky didn’t start focusing on dance until high school and did not spend much time learning in a studio, his SMTD experience has been new for him. He explained that many of the styles he learned on his high school dance team (like lyrical, hip-hop, and pom) have been transferable to the program here, which is mainly focused on ballet and modern dance. “The dynamics, movements, and the way you flow can transfer from one genre to the other,” he explained. Learning to take the styles he had access to growing up and applying them to a new type of education in college has been something Ricky has been working on during his time here.
#3
Lenin is a senior acting major who grew up on the west side of Chicago in Humboldt Park, later moving to South Florida when he was twelve. He explained that in Chicago he was exposed to a lot more visual art, as he lived in a poorer area that did not have the type of funding to support theatre.
When he moved to Orlando, he entered a public high school with a flourishing performing arts program. He had initially intended to go into the Navy after high school but decided to take an acting class for fun. After the class went on a field trip to see Newsies at the Orlando Repertory Theatre, he knew he had to be a part of it.
At Lenin’s high school, they exposed him to all sides of theatre: directing, design and production, performing, etc. While their school theatre was being remodeled, he had the opportunity to perform at professional theatres around the city, having workers from the industry help contribute to their shows. His high school also provided him with a private vocal teacher, who was the one to push him to go into theatre in the future.
Due to Lenin’s exposure in high school to all aspects of theatre, when he got to SMTD he understood “the mutual respect and understanding that you are a part of a whole.” He emphasizes that to tell a story it is not just the actors on stage but everyone working together to make the production happen.
Having the opportunity to perform in four shows a year in high school and in other semi-professional theatres allowed him the space to continuously work on his confidence and performance abilities in front of an audience. This helped him greatly when he came to SMTD and got to perform in new avenues such as multiple student films and as a part of an improv comedy group. He believes these experiences gave him the confidence to, “Do everything and be okay with failure,” his most important piece of advice he would give future SMTD students.
#4
The last interview I conducted was with a current freshman in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. They are originally from Long Island, New York, but moved to Orlando, Florida when they were seven years old. They started singing when they were two or three years old and began performing in shows at their public middle school in fifth and sixth grade. They never took any professional voice lessons but performed in their public high school choir and theatre.
During this time, they battled taking both high school and pre-college courses, doing theatre, working a part-time job, and managing many personal relationships, all at once. It came to a point where they did not have the support system they needed in any of those spaces and needed to pick and choose where they’d put their energy. They decided to leave their high school theatre department and found a community in a professional theatre in Sanford, Florida. In their last six months of high school, they enrolled in fully online pre-college courses while doing shows at night at this theatre.
This experience directly translated to their first couple of months at SMTD, where many of their classes would be with the other freshman in their major, a group of only twenty-three. They explained, “Having experiences in the past where my theatrical community was not supporting me anymore…I felt tainted. I was scared of the idea of community.” They explained that being put in a situation where they “had to make connections with a specific group of people” was very scary. Now that they’ve had time to settle in with their classmates and get to know them, they say they wouldn’t have it any other way. If they could tell their past self anything it would be, “It is so scary until you walk into your first class on the first day of school and meet your fellow peers…the connection that you will grow will make your experience make sense.”
The experience of working in the professional industry while in high school also provided them with a sense of professionalism when they came to SMTD that some of their classmates did not have. As this translated to their group rehearsal spaces they noticed how other freshmen were able to assimilate into this mindset as time progressed.
Time Commitment
A common theme between interviewees was learning how to tackle the long days that come with performing arts school. The fourth interviewee explained that since the end of their high school experience looked very difficult from the typical path, being thrown into full-length days at the start of college was a challenge. While they were excited to get to perform all day they didn’t realize how taxing it would be. As they say, “There’s a specific level of passion that you really need to have coming into this department…you don’t really realize that or understand that until you’re here doing the eight-hour days.”
Ricky also had a similar struggle, shifting from dancing four days a week for two and a half hours on his high school dance team to dancing six days out of the week in the majority of his classes at SMTD. He is now navigating how to support himself when his body and mind are feeling overworked, overused, and stressed as a result of this type of rigor. In his opinion, although this has been a shift and a struggle to work through, “it is worth it to get to experience what the industry is actually going to be like.”
In many performing arts majors, so much of the work done involves being present. Our last interviewee spoke on how this made it very hard when you miss a day of rehearsal to take a mental health day. While it is encouraged and there is space for it in the practice, there is also a “hidden commitment,” they say, that makes it hard to feel like this is truly possible.
Imposter Phenomenon
Another common theme between interviewees was imposter phenomenon: the feeling that you are not qualified to do something and seeming like an “imposter” in the environment. Lenin explained that he struggled with the fact that many of his classmates at SMTD had access to performing since they were kids while he only started in high school. He says, “There’s this idea that the more you do it the better you are,” which can make you feel like an imposter in this space.
Many of us wonder “What would I have been like if I had done more?” Alondra spoke on this, explaining how she was frustrated with the fact that she wasn’t able to start lessons until two years into her learning viola. She explained that having a private teacher accelerates your progress in learning the instrument, which could have contributed to her success greatly now at SMTD. Knowing that others had a lot more experience than her made her feel less confident in her abilities and even less motivated to get better.
Lenin is a true believer in the saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” explaining that what he lacks in his knowledge of playwrights or musicals he makes up for with his passion and drive to be better. When he is feeling this imposter phenomenon he reminds himself that, “It’s not necessarily the cards you’re dealt in this life, it’s how you play them,” grounding himself in the idea that he got into theatre because of how much he loved it and enjoyed doing it.
Alondra told me whenever she finds herself feeling this way she thinks about all of the people in her life who helped her get to this point. The large number of people who supported her and believed in her gives her the motivation to keep trying and work harder. She believes the amount of help she was able to receive is truly a miracle.
Alondra would tell a future student or her past self, “There’s really no use in comparing yourself to other musicians, everyone has had their own path and it’s all shaped differently…comparing yourself is not going to change anything at all, time doesn’t go back.” Ricky’s tip also strived to remind young emerging artists that, “No one can do you better than you do you,” explaining how every dancer has their own way of showcasing what they do best. Instead of thinking about how you can be more like a certain dancer, you must use this admiration as a means to inspire a deeper way to showcase yourself.
Identity
A topic that played a major role in each of these students’ access to performing arts education, and subsequently their wellness at SMTD, was their identity. Caitlin Taylor, the Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) at SMTD, explains how this identity-impacted access, “is a critical component of DEI.” She shed light on the fact that “When we talk about access that not only means who has resources but if the resources themselves can be used equitably.”
She described how, “Arts training is cost prohibitive for many, particularly for low-income folks and those from marginalized backgrounds who have been impacted by red-lining [mainly referring to a denial of real estate services to certain individuals in specific locations due to their race or ethnicity] and other historical injustices resulting in contemporary under-resourced schools and communities.” To fully understand how our past exposure to arts education impacts our wellness once at SMTD, we must acknowledge how this access may differ for students of these particular backgrounds.
For example, our fourth interviewee explained that their identity as a person of color limited the way they were seen by casting agents and therefore gave them less opportunities to get experience playing varied roles. They were always put into a lot of boxes, as they say, being seen as the “powerhouse, soulful” character type while they knew they were also capable of playing a quirky character or a princess, for example. They explained, “I want to be seen for what I do bring, not what I can bring.”
Lenin explained how growing up Afro-Latino and low-income, in a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, made it easy to be seen as “less than” and has worked since then to get to where he is today. Alondra also added on to this, explaining how her Mexican heritage, which she says she does not feel much connection to, has increased her feeling of imposter phenomenon: as she is left to wonder if her acceptance into music schools was on own merit or because she “increased diversity.”
Alondra told me a story of how one of her past mentors told her to “pull the race card” and apply to harder schools because it would be easier for her to get in as they were looking for diverse students. She wondered “Would he be saying this to me if I was the same person but I was white?” Our other interviewee talked about this subjectivity, growing up thinking that they had a certain type of identity and coming to college and being told different things by different people. They explained, “Opportunities may come where, depending on how you identify, it’s either acceptable or unacceptable to go with it [your identity],” especially ringing true for Alondra’s story with one of her mentors.
Another aspect of identity that affects these students is representation. Ricky explained that there is only a small population of LGBTQ+ Asian-identifying dancers and it’s important to show representation to depict the idea that, “anyone can dance no matter how you identify.” He explained that dancing has allowed him to speak on his own experiences, “express himself, and show his individual self and identity.” Our last interviewee also added to this topic explaining, “I only want to be seen as what I identify as to other people who identify as the same. I want to be someone others can relate to.”
With this, I asked Ricky about his identity as a male dancer and how he wishes to be perceived as compared to the majority of female dancers in his program. He stated, “Just because I’m a male does not mean I should be seen differently from the girls I’m dancing with,” explaining how there were times when he was given solos or been front and center for a dance number just because he was the only male. He emphasizes his desire for people to focus on the group as a whole instead of his identity as a male dancer.
In all four of these students’ cases, we see how identity plays such a large role in both the access students have to performing arts education and their wellness once they’ve entered performing arts school.
We can find such connections with others when we feel comfortable sharing our experiences instead of feeling like we need to hide from them.
As a fellow performer, I see my own experience in each of theirs. Like Alondra, I also wondered if I was accepted into performing arts school because I “increased diversity” on paper. Like Ricky, my prior training did not align with what was mainly taught at SMTD and I had to find a way to build upon my past knowledge to improve the new techniques I was learning. Like Lenin, I often find myself wondering where I would be in my musical journey had I done more in the past. Lastly, I can relate to our final student as I also find it difficult to feel like I can actually take a mental health day without worrying about the consequences. I find solace in knowing that others have felt the same.
We can find such connections with others when we feel comfortable sharing our experiences instead of feeling like we need to hide from them. We see in all four of these students that their access, identity, and past experiences play a role in so much of their performing arts school journey, especially their well-being.
In order for this connection to be made and for change to be seen in the field of wellness and access in the performing arts, we must learn how to have these conversations in a way that centers the human being, not the experience. The first step is listening and acknowledging that their stories are real and valid. By doing this we can start to build a society that uses these experiences as a way to build connections between people, rather than as tools of comparison.
Performing well 
what a realistic, well written article. 👏
we never know the dificil times those
LikeLiked by 1 person