The Moment I Was Believed
It’s hard to say with certainty that my friends didn’t believe me when I told them details of my abusive relationship, but it absolutely felt like that at the time. Whether they didn’t understand, or didn’t believe, or simply didn’t listen or remember or care, I felt shocked that these friends, many of whom I’d known for 6 or 7 years, didn’t rush to my side the moment I told them how wrong things were going.
Now, as an adult (especially one who works a lot with teenagers) I can see now it was a combination of a million things: They had their own lives to figure out and to preoccupy them. They didn’t want to believe what I was telling them (why would they? It was awful). They had to find a way to blame me for what happened so they could save themselves from the awful reality that this could, in fact, happen to anyone, so no, they weren’t safe from it either. They were also 15 year old girls, who didn’t understand the way violence against women is practically a foregone conclusion in our world, something to be expected, something to prepare for. And maybe, also, they thought I was making it all up. Who knows.
The point of this blog post is more about the one moment in which they suddenly did believe me, they just didn’t know it.
My parents put me in dance classes when I was 3 or 4. We’d seen a local studio perform at a street festival, and I told my mom I wanted to do ballet, then promptly begged her not to make me go every Saturday morning when it was time for class. Eventually I started taking hip hop at that studio, which was significantly more fun, and the begging not to go turned into begging for more classes, to move to a more prestigious studio, to take private lessons and join the competition team. Dancing was (and still is) my favorite thing to do.
In high school, my teacher Maria was incredible. She was trained in old school jazz, and taught us about the history and true pioneers of all sorts of dance forms. She encouraged us (required, often) to choreograph our own pieces. While I’d spent three years of middle school P.E. choreographing dances about flag football rather than actually playing it (and driving my P.E. teachers insane), I’d never truly choreographed, staged and then performed anything until I was in Maria’s program. She nurtured us as capable creators, and for that I’ll always be grateful.
When my abusive relationship imploded in the beginning of my junior year, Maria knew. She couldn’t not know, considering I asked her if I could use her computer to print out a picture of my ex boyfriend that I then gave to the school administration so they could keep a look out for him and call the police if he came on campus. She and my dad became close, as my dad was the parent most in charge of keeping me safe (from both my ex and myself). They worked together to get me to dance rehearsal, to make sure I was doing ok and to warn the other when I was clearly not. Then, when my friends all decided I was lying and turned against me, they worked together to try to solve that problem too. It didn’t really work — there was nothing that could be done once that avalanche began — but knowing that they believed me and had my back did a lot for my efforts to heal.
All my friends were in the dance program, too, and after a number of extremely dramatic instances in which they pleaded with Maria to “fire” me as President of our dance club, she gave them an ultimatum: ‘Leah is staying. You either stay, and don’t say another word about it, or you don’t come to rehearsal anymore, no questions asked.’ They all came back.
At that time we were preparing for our Spring Concert. I had choreographed a number of group pieces which were almost done, but all club administrators were supposed to choreograph and perform solos as well, and I hadn't figured that one out yet. I remember Maria’s advice so clearly. She looked me dead in the eyes, treated me like an equal and not a student, and said “Leah, put it all in your dance. Tell them your story.” And so I did.
As soon as I set out to do that, the choreography came quickly and naturally. Set to Bon Iver’s “Holocene”, I choreographed the solo in one rehearsal. I could look at that choreography and tell you exactly what each movement meant. Each 8-count was like a sentence, clear as day. I was telling my story (which, if you don’t know it, you should read here). I have never choreographed something so literal before, or since, this piece, which I called “Unnamed” — not because I didn’t have a name, but because so many girls and women who experience what I did go unnamed. I still remember the choreography, 11 years later.
At this time, my ex had been arrested and charged with nearly 8 felony counts, but had yet to be arraigned (shortly after our Spring Recital, I testified against him for two hours, and he pled guilty to stalking and was sentenced to 2 years in prison). I was feeling pulled both towards my wrecked inner child, who wanted me to shrink into a small, puddly, mess of a human, and towards the adult life I’d been catapulted into, which demanded I stand up straight, get angry, and take charge. Neither felt right. I just wanted to be a teenager.
This push/pull wasn’t reflected in my choreography the way I wanted it to be, so I asked my dad to film me dancing, and then projected that film behind me during the performance. Some of the film was used to accentuate movements (like eyes opening) or to provide other visuals (like getting lost in a forest, or a baseball bat swinging and shattering glass) that very literally told my story (I’d repeatedly wandered until I was entirely lost, and my ex had used a baseball bat to break the windows on my house a number of times). Again, the whole performance was extremely literal. I was doing what Maria told me to do, I was telling my story.
I’d never in my life felt pre-performance nerves before opening night of that Spring Concert. I couldn’t stomach the cast dinner one of the moms had brought, barely talked to anyone as we sat on the floor of the rehearsal space doing our makeup, and nearly vomited in the mop bucket in the wings moments before I went on. My piece closed the first act of the show, and none of my friend-turned-bullies had seen it until opening night.
I got on stage and performed my story. I told not only my friends but the whole student body, and my extended family, and the neighborhood what had happened to me. It felt just as vulnerable as if I’d stood on stage and recited the facts of what had happened. “Now everyone will know,” I thought, “for better or worse.”
After the show, I expected similar backlash that I’d been receiving from my friends. I waited for someone to tell me I was overreacting, or lying, or making things seem worse than they were. But not only was that not the reaction, but I was actually met with care, sincerity, and gratitude. People told me my piece “moved them”, that they “really felt something”, that I made something “beautiful”. I couldn’t believe it. Beautiful? That story?
And then the craziest part of all was that my friends, who actively did not believe the story I had told them before and had just told on stage, told me they loved my performance. One of my friends said it was her favorite piece I’d ever choreographed. I was speechless.
This experience changed my life, and I’m not being overdramatic when I say that. I learned two incredible lessons that night:
I can use my body, the very thing that was abused, to create something beautiful. Something people enjoy seeing.
I can tell my story and people will not only believe me, but they will applaud me.
Before this experience, I wanted to be a dancer. But after, I knew I needed to be a choreographer. I needed to keep telling this story, to keep creating beauty out of the wretchedness I’d been dealt. I needed to keep catapulting myself toward that indescribable place where I say no words yet I tell a story, the place beyond language and logic that feels like magic. I knew then that dance was going to be my superpower, the thing that cut through people’s hesitation around talking about healthy and abusive relationships and got them to really listen, to empathize, and to understand. Art has a way of getting past the bullshit almost immediately, and getting to the core of things is the only way we are going to make lasting change.
This is all to explain why dance is a central tenet in The Sunflower Project’s strategy. Recapturing and retelling my story in my own body, and then sharing that story through dance is the most cathartic, empowering, and brave thing I can think to do, and so that’s what I will keep doing for as long as I can.
This is the story that started it all, and it’s the story that has inspired our new program: the Demand To Be Heard Artist/Survivor Residency Program. I tear up at the idea that I might be able to create a container for other survivors to have the same transformative experience I did — an experience of transformational empowerment by putting your most vulnerable self on stage and being celebrated for the story you tell.
I urge all survivors to consider applying for the residency (applications are open until March 28th, 2025). Even if you consider yourself a “hobbyist” in your art, you will be welcomed. And I encourage artists who are survivors, but have maybe never felt ready for or interested in making art about your survivorship to apply as well. I promise you, there is more joy to be had as you continue on surviving.