The Dancer I Used to Be: How Rehearsal at Dusk Became My Love Letter to an Old Passion

I was seven when I first stepped into a leotard.

It started innocently enough: a baton-twirling class in my elementary school gym offered by The Academy of Artistic Performance. One twirl of that silver stick to “He’s So Shy” by the Pointer Sisters and I was hooked. Next came tap shoes that clicked like rain on a tin roof, then jazz, ballet, and finally pointe — because if you’re going to dream, dream on your toes!

I still laugh remembering my very first recital costume: a sailor outfit with crop tops that showed our little belly buttons. Mortifying at the time. Priceless in hindsight.

The absolute highlight of my dance years came in the summer of 1982. My studio was chosen to perform in the parade at the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. I can still feel the searing heat shimmering off the pavement, the chattering crowds, the sequins on our red-white

1982 World's Fair

striped costumes catching the sun as we marched with pom-poms and batons past the Sunsphere. I was ten, invincible, and dancing for thousands of strangers who clapped just for us.

(Little did I know my future husband, also ten, was in that crowd watching us — watching me — march by. That’s a story for another time.)

Then we moved to another state.

The new area didn’t have a true dance academy that felt like home. Classes dwindled. By sixteen I hung up my shoes for good. I never regretted it — life moved on: college, career, marriage, kids — but every once in a while a piece of music comes on and my feet remember a turn I hadn’t thought about in thirty years, wistfully swaying in my kitchen, echoing back to all-day Saturdays at the academy.

Fast-forward thirty-five years. I’m fifty-something, painting in my recliner. A few short years later, five young dancers appear on a 36×24" canvas under a twilight sky.

I call the painting Rehearsal at Dusk because that’s exactly what it feels like: the quiet, magical hour after the choreographers leave and the stage belongs only to the girls who aren’t ready to go home yet. One more pirouette. One more leap. One more chance to feel weightless.

I’ll never dance on a stage again, but every brushstroke in that painting was a spin, every blend of golden light was a spotlight, every dancer’s outstretched arm was the little girl in me saying, “I still remember how to fly.”

Rehearsal at Dusk is new and now available — the original canvas and hand-signed prints.

If you ever loved to dance — or still do — this one’s for you… or the dancer in your life.

With a twirl and a paintbrush,

Stephanie

P.S. The original is still drying (oil takes forever!), and prints are on a holiday 14-day preorder.

Original for Sale

Prints for Sale