Spencer Burdett

My mom loves to bring up a story of when she took me to a city dance performance at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center. After the show, she took me into the lobby and I “stamped my little feet” and demanded that I be on stage. So, at three years old, my mom put me in my first ballet class. I remember feeling so cool donning the black tights and tiny ballet slippers.

Eventually, I received a recommendation to join pre-company (the preliminary classes before auditioning for the main city company), I spent the next two years taking classes and fixating on the fact that my teacher’s name was Ms. Tequila before moving up to the main company. I danced through fifth grade before completely burning out and deciding that it was time to take a break.

During middle school, I took it upon myself to get involved in almost every sport under the sun. I played lacrosse, basketball, soccer, ran track and cross country, etc. I also was on track to getting my Eagle Scout. Then, Covid happened and everything came to a halt. After spending months in lockdown and barely seeing my friends, I got an email inviting me back to join company again. Out of sheer boredom, I accepted, and went to take classes.

My first couple of years back were hard and I even got into a serious verbal altercation with a few of the girls in my age group who had complained to my director saying that I should not have been allowed to come back. After that, I spent all my time working on my technique and got accepted into NYU’s summer program. I walked into the program feeling total imposter syndrome. However, this made me work harder than anyone else to try and prove that I belonged.

When I came back to Roswell, I really felt like I had a sense of who I was as a dancer and put my heart into choreographing pieces. I went on to choreograph for my own studio, charity galas, and even universities like NYU and Emory. Later, when it came time for college auditions, I wanted to prove to myself that my work had paid off, and shake off the lingering feeling that I did not belong in the dance world. I went back and auditioned for NYU knowing that I could not afford it, and ended up getting in.

Now, I have started my second semester as a dance major here at UGA, and I finally feel like I have found my community and the place where I belong.