Won't Stop, Can't Stop: A Tribute to Ms. Yvonne

“Hello, is this Ms. Yvonne?”

“Yes it is, and I know exactly who this is, this is Sonia Wang, isn’t it?!”

“...how..whu...you know my voice after all these years?”

“Of course! I can recognize that voice from miles away…” Cue lots of laughter and squeals of delight.

And so began a conversation between a teacher and a student, 20 years after the last time we saw each another. During this overdue catch up conversation, we spent half the time catching up on years of events, packaged into sped up summaries; the other half was spent reminiscing on moments we, well mainly she, remembered about me. 

The time I played piano randomly and impressed her and my class with my skills. The time I switched studios and became the new kid, a bit isolated; she noticed, stepped in, and made space for my classmates to get to know me. The memory of my diligent work ethic and commitment in the studio to learn and grow as a dancer. 

As she shared these recollections, my own memories were jogged. The time she assigned me to take on the center dancer choreography in one of the pieces, which included performing multiple pirouettes. I thought my peers, someone else, would be better at it, but Ms. Yvonne was insistent that it was meant for me. (And I danced up to the challenge, and it was quite a moment realizing what I could do with practice and confidence!) The times when I would stay late after class to practice, and she would play the music a few extra times as I danced around the studio by myself. The times my parents were late picking me up due to work, and she sat with me, waiting. The time I did not have a ride home, and she invited me to her home until my parents could pick me up. 

Ms. Yvonne was my dance teacher starting from the age of two. I studied ballet and tap with her and continued to study tap and jazz with her until the age of fifteen, when I stopped because I went to a boarding high school. As a chubby, Asian, shy girl, I was a minority in my school and neighborhood in many ways. These identifiers came at a cost; there's nothing like the combination of "fat pig" and "chinc" thrown at a child who silently harbored these words internally.

Dance started as a fun hobby; I guess I had some rhythm when I was a child and the notion of movement + rhythm was enjoyable to me. But dance very soon became a means of escape and eventually, more productively, a means to be in tune with my whole self in the most honest manner. This was because of Ms. Yvonne. She taught me to feel my emotions, to be honest with my feelings, and to then do something productive with them as I danced, through my movements. She modeled the importance of being free and embracing the moment. She guided me to see something beautiful and amazing in myself that I struggled to see, because of my weight, my ethnic identity, and frankly, because the world told me there was nothing much to see in me. When I danced, I was whole. And in that wholeness, I embraced and celebrated me with a liberated joy.   

I lost touch with Ms. Yvonne soon after I stopped dancing at the studio. There was no such thing as Facebook or social media back then, and email was only beginning to emerge. I could have, or perhaps should have, called on the landline to check in every so often. But I was fifteen years old and clearly did not know any better. 

A few months ago while at a workshop about trauma, participants were asked to complete the ACEs questionnaire to have a better understanding of childhood trauma. My ACE score was fairly high, which caused me to pause; the facilitator unpacked the different scores and possible outcomes for the adult version of the child given a particular ACE score range. If you have a high ACE score, there is high likelihood for addiction as well as other health or social problems. If you have a high ACE score but have not experienced a lot of these health or social problems, it is often because there were stable, consistent tools/resources, often in the form of non-familial adults, who provided supports that contributed towards your resilience.

As I listened to this, I reflected on my stable, consistent tools/resources from childhood. Ms. Yvonne was one of the very first people to come to mind. And since we were [now] in the age of social media, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to search for her on Facebook, just for kicks. Lo and behold…

“Are you still dancing?”
“I am, more as I sit in a chair...I tap with my feet, can’t stop that in me. Even if I’m 81! Not much to look at but...What about you?”

“Not formally, but I take some hip hop dance classes from time to time…”

“Hip hop?!? That’s exciting. If you had said ballet that would make sense, you were always so great in classical…”                 

“I do a little jazz from time to time...but more hip hop now…”

“Well just keep dancing…”

“I will, Ms. Yvonne. I won’t stop.”  

Dance became and still is a way for me to see, to experience, and to appreciate my whole self. I am able to do so because of my teacher who also saw me, fully, for who I am.

Thank you, Ms. Yvonne.

Ms. Yvonne & Me:

At age 3 (poodle costume) and age 15 (last show with Ms. Yvonne)