Never Too Late: From Peace Corps Volunteer to Professional Dance Career

Interview by Veronica Viccora

Words by Molly Maier

4.17.24

Welcome to Never Too Late, a series that highlights different members of The Slipper Edit community who are following their dreams, breaking ballet stereotypes and doing what they love, no matter who they are. These are their stories, to inspire yours.

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How Molly Maier Overcame her Imposter Syndrome in Dance

Sometimes even the most talented dancers still have to overcome imposter syndrome

My mom first put me in dance class at age 4 because I had way too much energy to be contained in our little house, and I loved it. One of my first teachers later quoted back to me, “Miss Lisa, I just have so many jumps in me!” I started with just one ballet class a week for early elementary school, then two, then started taking modern as well around age 8. In 5th grade as the transition to middle school approached, I auditioned for the dance program at the arts magnet school in my city, and was accepted. In 6th grade, I was dancing about 13.5 hours a week, having one 90 min class every day in school and taking 4 classes a week outside of school at my studio as well. Then in 8th grade, I auditioned for the performing ensemble at my studio for the first time and was accepted to the surprise of both my parents and I, adding another 3-5 hours of dance a week to my schedule. By senior year of high school, I performed in nine productions a year and was in the studio 20+ hours every week.

My experiences in dance were very different between my studio and my arts school. The arts school offered a lot of amazing opportunities and, being a public school, did so at no cost. I’ve taken classes with basically all major companies in my city through guest artist partnerships, as well as master classes with every dance company that toured through professionally. Their curriculum heavily emphasized student choreography, scaffolding from collaborative group dances in middle school to setting my own solo and group pieces for designated concerts in junior and senior year.

However, the environment was quite competitive, and in the conglomeration of students from studios across the city, I fell pretty low on the pecking order. I was almost never noticed or selected for features by guest artists and choreographers, most often frequenting the back line of formations. At the time, it hurt, but I also felt like it gave a reality check - the dance world is full of a lot of talented, well-trained people, and opportunities are competitive. I considered it better to have been humbled on that scale than making a fool of myself on a bigger stage. Looking back on it now, I do still think that was a valuable lesson to learn, that this is a difficult and subjective profession to break into, and that there is always going to be someone else who is better than you.

However, I am also able to see how those seven years solidified the imposter syndrome that I still struggle with, believing I was never going to be the “good one” so perhaps it wasn’t even worth trying.

My studio, on the other hand, was in many ways a second home and second family. My teachers were some of the most key adults in my life especially through the adolescent struggle of wanting separation from your parents yet still desperately wanting and needing guidance and support. My modern teacher in particular, Tess, taught me so much more than just dance, but about how and when to bring the fullness of my human experience into the studio with me. I also found my closest community and friendships in the girls I danced with there especially upon joining the performing ensemble. In this context, my abilities also measured up very differently. I was one of the youngest to join the performing ensemble, and by junior and senior year was not only heavily featured in shows but also felt eyes on me in class. My studio was where I was able to be nourished by dance, and I think protected my love of dance just enough to keep it from fully being extinguished.

By the end of high school, I was burnt out. Physically, I hurt way too much for being 17 - my knees hurt, my hips hurt, my shin splits hurt, my ingrown toenails hurt... pretty much everything below my belly button was or had been in pain. My body had been screaming for a break for years, and as I also doubted it would ever “make it” anyways, I saw no use in putting myself through further suffering for “nothing,” resolutely deciding not to pursue dance after graduation as I headed towards college.

In college, dance crept back into my life sneakily, gradually. First I auditioned and was cast in a student showcase, then one of the choreographers reached out and asked me to audition for the dance team, then took some faculty classes, eventually was featured in faculty works at a college dance conference. The program at my college was small and relatively open-level (no one goes to that college to become a dancer). I think it was good for me to feel seen and valued, but I also didn’t consider it a terribly accurate measuring stick.

Even at graduation, I still considered that dance wasn't for me long-term - I wasn't good enough, and I wasn't healed enough either. 

After graduating (during COVID - what fun) I went on to pursue other passions, other work I cared about. After one short-term position ended, I ended up moving to a little town on the Oregon coast where I knew no one. There I found a little local studio, and I started to teach dance classes for them after work. In that space, I had a completely blank slate. No one knew me, no one had expectations of how good or bad I would be from where I had or hadn’t trained or what I had or hadn’t done. I got a lot of positive feedback not only on my teaching, but on my dance abilities as well. Though it was flattering, I still didn’t trust that measuring stick. However, there was something that changed for me there. Really, I think it was a perfect storm of many factors - getting to know myself better in non-dance realms, having had some serious time and space to heal emotionally and physically, and also having put time and energy into my relationship with my new, adult woman body (that’s a story for another time!). I love dance, it feeds me and gives me space to express myself like nothing else does, and while I’m no Marianela Núñez, I have honed this body over years of work both inside and outside of a studio to be an expressive tool.

In February of this year during a month of transition, I moved back to my hometown and took all the adult intermediate/advanced classes I could get my hands on (like 10 a week). I LOVED IT, and it pushed me to do the scary thing of finally saying out loud “I want this.” For me, the dream is to dance professionally. I have a list of companies both in my hometown and beyond ranked from safe scary to SCARY SCARY to think of auditioning for. 

The kicker, though, is that this revelation came in the month before I moved to Guatemala to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years. It’s so much easier to share a story about a challenge when it’s over, when it’s wrapped up neat and tidy with a lovely conclusion for the bow. I’m not there, I don’t have a conclusion. I’m stuck in a difficult limbo space of finally knowing and admitting I want to dance yet being committed to another project (about which I am also very passionate!) that keeps me from dance. Not only do I have the same imposter syndrome from high school hanging over my head, I have this additional pressure and worry about my aging body, and wasting prime years of my twenties not dancing. I’m doing what is accessible to me here - going to the gym, doing ballet barre in my room afterwards, stretching - but I face daily the fear that I’m doing too little, too late, that if I didn’t measure up to the peers I danced with seven years ago who have spent said seven years in top-notch conversatories, why the heck do I think I have a shot now let alone in two years when I get back to the US?

It’s incredibly vulnerable to admit your dreams because in saying you want something, you’re opening up the possibility that you’ll fail and fall short. I’ve only told a handful of people in my life that I want to dance professionally because each person who knows is another set of eyes that could watch me crash and burn. I find myself sometimes wanting to make my dreams smaller, safer, to say I only really want to teach, or that I’ll be satisfied just taking classes. And yet. I know, deep deep in my bones, that if I don’t shoot my shot, if I don’t let myself pursue this completely, earnestly, fully, I’ll regret it, living with a forever unanswerable “what if.”

When YouTube recommended Veronica's video, it felt like an answered prayer. Hearing her experience gave me another breath of permission, another sliver of courage, to say I want to dance professionally and I can actually pursue this, that I’m not “too late.” Imposter syndrome isn’t confined to any one band of people, nor does it need to have the last word on our lives or our dreams. I hope that in sharing my story, my very much still in progress story, someone else will feel a little less alone as they choose to be brave.

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There is freedom waiting for you,

On the breezes of the sky,

And you ask "What if I fall?"

Oh but my darling,

What if you fly?

-Erin Hanson