"I Love It, That's All I Can Say"-- An Interview With a LACHSA Dance Student

Maya Pacheco is a fifteen year old dancer at the Los Angeles County High school for the Arts, a nationally recognized school.

Interviewed by Aniyah Shirehjini

AS: Do you know specifically what we will be talking about today?

MP: The arts.

AS: Yes, and what specific focus in the arts do you do?

MP: I dance.

AS: What kind of dance do you enjoy the most?

MP: My favorite style of dance would be contemporary ballet.

AS: And how long have you been dancing for?

MP: I danced for like two years when I was in preschool. Then I restarted dance in the fifth grade.

AS: What made you want to go back to dancing.

MP: I found myself just dancing around the house and I had remembered a few things from ballet when I was like three and I found myself wanting to do it and mimicking the dancers that I watched in movies or on TV.

AS: And what made you want to go to a dance school specifically.

MP: I really enjoy the arts and if I wanted to be good at it, I might as well go to the number one Arts High School in the nation you know?

AS: With your life experience and what you've been through, is there anything that stands out that helps you dance? Like that you can put into your dancing.

MP: I did a sport which was soccer. And last year when the teacher evaluation happened my ballet teachers said to me you're very disciplined and you can do things repetitively and a lot of dancers can't do that because dancers like to improv a lot of the time, they want to see their own unique style in the dance. Because there are people who like it choppy, people who like it long and flowing, there are people who are good at forming lines with their bodies, and others are far more flexible. But I was able to understand the reason for repetition. Even though I didn't always like it that skill was from soccer. Finding my own personal style is what's helping me because it's just like discovering what it's like to dance and finding different music, seeing how you can use sounds or songs or beats or whatever is possible. It's just fun.

AS: And do you also like to create your own dances and choreograph for yourself or for other people.

MP: I enjoy choreographing for myself it's usually when I'm stressed out. I'm like I can't do homework anymore I'm just going to dance because when nothing is working in my mind, maybe my body will work.

AS: Of all the dances you've done maybe what dance stood out most to you and why.

MP: The first thing that came to mind was in fifth grade I got my first solo. A teacher had a very small advanced ballet class and so we pretty much each got a solo or some type of duet or a spotlight. That was my first solo. I was the Arabian Knight from the Nutcracker. And it so much fun and I was in like fifth or sixth grade I can't really remember but I just remember the excitement of "this is my first time being alone on stage". It showed all of my like best moments of dancing my skill, my practice and there was like nobody but me and that made it really good.

AS: Do you have any advice for people trying to do the same thing as you are, trying to dance.

MP: If you love it, you love it. No matter what, you're going to be where you must be and so dance is hard physically and mentally because physically you put your body in weird shapes and you should not be able to do half the stuff that we do. And then if you're not mentally in each class you can risk more injury. And so my advice would be to understand why you're there. It cannot be for anyone else. You must be there to perform and to live. And when words fail you know that movement and dancing won't.

AS: And what drives you specifically to keep going and to keep dancing through all the challenges with your injuries and mental challenges?

MP: I love it. And there's nothing else to say.