Columbia Application Material: "Thought Undressed"

Spinning spinning spinning. Is the mind the end of itself? To see beyond a dancer’s spinning body into the circular depths of their spinning mind is to see into a great unknown even to themselves. Dance enables expression and experience without the confines of words, creating intellectual energy that words cannot describe. While there is much discovery in this, it inversely leaves one relentlessly restless with intellectual entrapment that continues to grow, becoming more and more claustrophobic. As James Allen says in regards to a man’s situation similar to my own, “so altered has his mind become that his workshop can no longer hold him.” As I surpass the workshop of the unspoken world that I have dedicated the past 16 years of my life, I begin to find my voice. Instead of having thoughts unexpressed and ideas unaddressed, I discover what it is like to have my thoughts undressed.

I take off my wool coat—my spinning thoughts becoming uncovered—and touch the fabric of my mind’s eye. I take off my soft sweater, the layer of abstraction, and touch cognition: a t-shirt—wrinkled, boxy, logical, and short-sleeved. I take off my t-shirt and there is a an undergarment: something raw. It is not a concept, but an idea; it is not a notion, but a picture; it is not a brainstorm, but a plan. I do not take off my undergarment because I want to keep this application G rated. After this, I take off my shoes and feel the ground with feet as bare as the exposed, uncovered state of my mind. I root my ideas into the ground like a tree so they don’t circle back into the spinning skies of my mind upstairs. Once stripping the sensation of spinning thought down to formulated thinking, I finally take off my hat. My thoughts rush out, simultaneously clear and creative as I write, create, speak, and innovate. Never again will I put on my hat. Instead, I will replace it with a cap, specifically a blue cap in the year 2021 that will symbolize the compilation of endless thoughts I undress over the next few years. I will then step foot into my fully constructed workshop, leaving my shoes off, so I can feel the wood dust left on the floor of the years of construction that I spent at Columbia.

More on Columbia University's ballet presence on campus: https://www.columbiaballetcollaborative.com/

More on details and hardships of a dancer's lifestyle:

https://youtu.be/8EIpWTseEM0

More on dancer's mental health:

https://www.dancemagazine.com/why-are-we-still-so-bad-at-addressing-dancers-mental-health-2466177083.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3