Henry Abbott

The other day in dance class, I stopped dancing and laid on the floor. My peers continued to swirl around me, and my professor stood watchful in the corner. But I stayed there on the floor, unmoving, allowing the curve of my spine to flatten and melt against the ground.

It had been a hard week. My body ached and my mind was running in circles. Lost hours of sleep, red-rimmed eyes and a lingering nausea made gravity weigh a little heavier on me, and every movement felt laborious. To point my toes and kick my legs high in the air would be a forced performance that I couldn’t muster. So I laid on the floor.

My muscles went slack, and my flesh sunk and pooled onto the ground below me. With each deep breath, I felt every fiber of my body come to rest. I relinquished the effort and strain exerted to keep moving. For the first time that week, I found stillness.

My act of restful rebellion was not as strange as it may seem, though. It was encouraged.

That day in Advanced Modern Dance, we were practicing a form of improvisation and dance therapy known as “authentic movement.” Originally developed by Mary Starks Whitehouse and expanded with her students Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow, the practice involves dancing with eyes closed and moving how you want to move, rather than in ways you perceive to be “right” or “good.” By shedding traditional conventions, rules and notions of beauty or talent, the dancer is encouraged to look inward and adhere to one’s true desires and needs in that moment.

So I laid on the floor. I stomped my feet and shook my limbs like I was a six-year-old throwing a tantrum. I rolled around and attended to every tight muscle and ache. I walked and jumped and ran and paused and flung myself every which way. Not once did I open my eyes to see how my peers were moving and compare myself. I didn’t think about what my next move would be or how it would look. Every move I made, I made because I wanted to.

And nothing bad happened. No one laughed or whispered. No one stared or pointed. Everyone around me was lost in their own embrace of authenticity. At the end of the practice, we stood in silence and smiled. A deeper connection with one another and with ourselves radiated around the room.

I have been dancing for 13 years; I love to dance, and I love to perform. Spending time perfecting and exploring movement, observing and learning from others and dancing in community is what makes me whole. This is not to say that there is no value in learning traditional choreography and pushing oneself to be better. There are times when it is useful to “fake it ’til you make it” and go the extra mile, to plaster on a smile and kick your leg a little higher. But it is equally important to not lose touch with yourself in this endeavor.

Similarly, when I practice yoga, I often hear teachers say, “Don’t go for the hardest pose because you feel it’s more impressive or that you have something to prove. Go for the movement you feel best supports you and your body at this moment.”

If embracing authenticity in these practices felt so new and liberating, then where else in my life was I suppressing it?

Soon, the quest for authenticity seeped into all my decisions. Do I want to wear these clothes, or am I putting on a persona I don’t feel today? Do I want to go to that party, or do I just worry what I may miss if I don’t? Am I holding my tongue out of fear, or are some things better left unsaid? When I began to look inward more before moving forward, I was struck by how often I was misaligning my actions with my instincts.

When I liberated myself from convention and self-imposed rigidity, the world around me softened, too. When I said how I felt, others responded with honesty. When I stopped restricting what I ate or wore, no one acted differently towards me. When I stopped performing, I realized no one was watching too closely anyways.

While this practice may not seem radical for some, it was eye-opening for me. In an environment of perfectionism and carefully crafted facades, it is easy to act for others before yourself. The noise of busy life can drown out the quiet whispers of instincts and deeper needs. My own neglect of these desires has often led me to feel lost and disconnected, longing for external antidotes to these feelings rather than resolving them within myself.

So lay down with me and close your eyes—if that is what your body craves. Feel your spine relax and embody the stillness. Tune out the external world and realign with the internal.

Learning to embrace and express the authentic self is the truest form of self-acceptance.

Sara Coughlin is a member of the Class of 2026.