How should I present myself?

"How do we present ourselves? What parts do we 'leave our' and why?"

Personally, I think this is a very interesting question as on a day-to-day basis we interact with the people around us whether is it face-to-face or on social media. This made me reflect on how much of 'me' I'm showing and how real it is. There are definitely parts where we leave out, and sides where we would show to only a selective group of people. And, this is only human nature. As previously mentioned when I was rewriting my CV, the platform and audience affects how one should present themselves. However, it is when one lies too much or have too many sides that complicates things.

I am not sure at which point I started this but for the past few years at least, I have been trying to not do or even attempt at the things that I do not want to be associated with. This is to allow me to live as real as possible and not having to show multiple sides of myself to different groups of people. I still relax and have fun, but while doing so I try not to cross the line I have set for myself. As a student, I have been warned to think twice before posting anything online because we never know what is being done on the screen of others.

During a talk with an Alumni of my school, we were encouraged to have a professional account and another account that is more personal. In my opinion, being 'professional' and being 'fake' are two different things because one can be 'professional' and 'genuine' at the same time. I have heard from my friend that prior to joining a company he had to send his social media handles to the company, and I guess this is where professionalism comes into place. As stated on the website of American Institute of CPAs (n.d.), while you are representing yourself online, "you're [also] representing your employer". To conclude this, I think it is about being clear on what type of person I would like to be and set my character as well as actions accordingly while keeping my own individuality and personality.

As a dancer and a performer, I believe showing 'You' as a person is as important as presenting the character you are asked to perform. In this industry, technique is definitely one of the aspects the audience look at, however, a soulless dancer would never impressive the audience. I believe dance is not just about the moves and aesthetic one creates, it is also about communication and expressing one's self in sometimes a totally different character as compared to how we are on a day-to-day basis. Recently, as I look at the many principals and soloist around the world although they are clearly of different nationalities and sometimes even based in a totally different country, one similarity across the board is the details of their movements and the care they put not only into the execution of the moves but also how they use movements to communicate and tell the story; sharing the main idea of how to speak with actions.

"How much of 'You' is in your Practice?"

With the performer and dancer side of me, I always try to understand the character I am performing. Sometimes the nature of the character comes naturally to me, while at times I would need to put in a bit more effort to bring it out as it is one that I am not used to. I think it is important to be as natural as possible and almost "wear" the character. Something I realised as an audience is that after watching the same dancer multiple times, I would get used to their style of performing, and would crave for something different. Questions like 'What else can they do? What other characters can they play?' come to my mind, and it blows my mind when I see a dancer who can pull off characters of different extremes. Of course, there would be characters that they are better at as everyone is different. This triggers me to think and reflect about the 'Me' I am showing in my Practice. Are there other sides of me that I have yet to discover? I think I am still new to the game and to this industry, and I have got loads to learn about the 'Me' as a performer and about how I stay true to being myself while discovering the many possibilities I can portray and perform.

Apart from the 'Me' on stage, there is also the 'Me' off stage and this goes back to the question of 'How do I present myself?'. I believe that when interacting with other dancers off stage is the perfect moment where we can show the real side of ourselves and not have people just knowing the us as dancers but also us as a normal human being. We might be glamorous on stage and sometimes even on social media, however, when off stage we got to stay true to ourselves and not let what we achieve on stage affect us too much.


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American Institute of CPAs (n.d.) Staying professional on social media. Available at https://www.aicpa.org/interestareas/youngcpanetwork/resources/career/staying-professional-on-social-media.html (Accessed: 12 February 2020).