"Once I started dancing, I was not the spoiled brat or the rebellious child that I was as a child"
About this Quote
Dancing, for Suzanne Farrell, isn’t a hobby or even a calling; it’s an escape hatch from a personality she’d already been assigned. The line pivots on a sly contradiction: “as a child” appears twice, first as a life stage, then as a behavior pattern she’s trying to outgrow. That repetition matters. It suggests she’s not just describing youth, but a version of herself that kept getting replayed by family dynamics, expectations, and the easy shorthand adults use to label kids who don’t conform.
Her phrasing is bluntly self-incriminating - “spoiled brat,” “rebellious child” - which reads less like confession than like reclaiming the narrative. She names the stereotypes before anyone else can. Then she counters them with a third identity: dancer. The subtext is that discipline can be a kind of reinvention, not in the cheesy “art saved me” way, but in a concrete, bodily way. Ballet is structure, hierarchy, pain, repetition. You don’t get to be merely “rebellious” in the studio; you have to translate raw temperament into technique.
Context sharpens the intent. Farrell emerged in a world where ballet demanded not just talent but compliance: the body must obey, the ego must negotiate with choreography, the artist must submit to rehearsal. Her sentence hints at why dance can function like social camouflage and self-clarification at once. Onstage, you’re allowed intensity without being “difficult.” You can be forceful, exacting, even defiant - as long as it reads as artistry.
Her phrasing is bluntly self-incriminating - “spoiled brat,” “rebellious child” - which reads less like confession than like reclaiming the narrative. She names the stereotypes before anyone else can. Then she counters them with a third identity: dancer. The subtext is that discipline can be a kind of reinvention, not in the cheesy “art saved me” way, but in a concrete, bodily way. Ballet is structure, hierarchy, pain, repetition. You don’t get to be merely “rebellious” in the studio; you have to translate raw temperament into technique.
Context sharpens the intent. Farrell emerged in a world where ballet demanded not just talent but compliance: the body must obey, the ego must negotiate with choreography, the artist must submit to rehearsal. Her sentence hints at why dance can function like social camouflage and self-clarification at once. Onstage, you’re allowed intensity without being “difficult.” You can be forceful, exacting, even defiant - as long as it reads as artistry.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reinvention |
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