Amanda Montoni
About the Hat
Once Upon a Time…
nothing could stop me. Even at 2 years old, dancing was my favorite way to let loose, have fun, and when I got older, forget about the thoughts that consumed my overactive mind. And I was good at it. Like really good. My teacher saw my passion for it and moved me up a level in my classes when I was around 9 years old.
Dance was everything to me. But I was not everything to it. As we all know, dance is part of the performance world. And no matter how good you are, no matter how much training you have, no matter how many awards you win, this world could decide to chew you up and spit you out if it judged you unworthy.
What made me unworthy? My weight.
I’m not the skinniest woman out there. But what you can’t see is that I wasn’t always the fat girl in dance class. Neither did I become fat because of my eating habits. My parents made sure to limit fast food even though my brother and I craved it. Hey, we grew up in the 90s when fast food boomed and took over America.
But under my mother’s rule and my father’s homemade meals, I had a relatively healthy diet as a single digit human. I exercised regularly. My dance studio was practically my second home. I was there 2, 3, even 4 times a week by the time I hit double digits. When I turned 10, I was extremely excited to finally reach the number that signified maturity. I always felt older than I was.
But with maturity, comes growing up. Coming of Age. And what that means for a kid is the dreaded P-word. Puberty. Almost exactly 2 years later, I became a woman. Happy birthday to me. I became highly aware of my changing body, my hormones were flying everywhere, and I seemed to be gaining a significant amount of weight every second of my day. It didn’t matter what I ate, what I didn’t eat, how much I exercised, or how little. The pounds kept on pounding. So did my heart.
Now, before I tell you a devastating memory, I’m going to highlight some relevant information. I didn’t go to a competition-driven dance studio. There were no insane pressures for me to be absolutely perfect or to be the best. This place focused on the art of dance culture and strived to give their students a dance education in an encouraging and inclusive environment.
Just around 10 or 11 years old, my dance teacher asked to talk to my mother and I after class.
I know she was coming from a place of genuine concern and care. My dance teacher cared down to her bones. It was never ever her intention to make me feel the way I’m about to describe to you. It’s one of those hard reality checks kids learn as they grow up: the negatives of the world infiltrate even the most encouraging and pure-of-heart places.
She told me to cut back on the soda. Stop eating junk food. Take care of me. Well for a young girl, all I heard was “You are too fat to be a dancer.” But what really devastated me was that my weight caused another to make assumptions about how I lived my life. I didn’t drink soda. I didn’t eat a lot of junk food.
So not only was I being criticized for something that is:
hereditary and runs in my family and
almost an impossible environment to break from given fast food culture, and
my mother is making every effort to keep that junk-loving intoxication from me, but
my mother was criticized for how she was raising her daughter. Everything about me and my family was being judged based on how I looked. At that moment, the dance world chewed me up and spit me out.
I knew dancers “had” to be skinny. I knew they had to be tall. I was neither, but I was healthy and I was good. I was the smallest, fattest, and youngest in my class. But this reality-bites moment felt like everything I was rewarded for; my work ethic, my technique, my talent, was invalid and might as well have never existed just because I packed on a few pounds. The standards that are thrust upon us are impossible to achieve, especially when we’re children.
After years of gaining more weight and trying to lose it all, I decided to embrace my extra chub. Something clicked in that mirror-surrounding studio room. Call it an epiphany of self love and acceptance. This is what my heart said: my looks do not determine my worth. I’m good because I have the heart, the work ethic, and the starry-eyed will in my eyes to make my dreams happen.
Did they come true? Well, I became an award winning choreographer. I became a stage director. I became an author. I never let my desire to be better wane. I kept going to class. I did the work. I was resilient and succeeded in a world that chewed me up and tried to spit me out.
I never wanted any young dancer to feel the way I did. When I became the fat dance teacher at my school, I strived to create an environment that let my students be free and comfortable with themselves. To create a place they loved going to to learn new things and have fun doing it - free of the pressures to be perfect.
How did I do it? By being a living breathing story. Stories have the power to challenge constructive thought, open up the eyes, and move the heart.
When I wrote Bella the Buck-Toothed Ballerina, I wrote it for all of the dance dreamers out there. To tell them that you are worthy of your dreams. Your heart, your work ethic, and your passion is what will make your dreams come true, not the way you look. You’re beautiful the way you are. True beauty is revealed from within.
What’s your dream?