I’ve always had this small dream of being a theatre person. 

I’ve never had a strong desire to act, but I’ve certainly experienced the joy of it. In middle school, I remember taking a drama class in which we put on a play. I forget the name, but the premise was that we were a class trying to put on “The Wizard of Oz,” only for a bunch of shenanigans to happen and cause us to mess up. I ended up finding the perfect character for myself — Lucy the stage manager. My peak moment was walking up the stage dressed in black, holding a pink balloon with a sad face drawn on it when the Wizard of Oz was supposed to appear. 

Unfortunately, my drama teacher forgot to press the record button, so all I have of the performance is my own memory of it. My very short amateur theatre career was put on pause until I came to Stanford. 

I had never watched a play or musical in-person, but in the spring of freshman year, I was attracted to a poster about “Huppet: The New Musical.” The silly, yet heartwarming, story of finding one’s identity resonated with me, so I signed up to be a costume designer. I didn’t end up doing much work, but I was certainly the most dedicated audience member. For each of the four nights the musical ran, I was there, captivated by the performance. From time to time, I sing the songs from the musical and feel myself returning to the seat where I watched it. The experience was different from reading a book or watching a movie. Something about the actors moving in real time before my eyes made me feel their emotions with a more abrupt and powerful force. 

From then on, I embarked on the journey of watching many more performances. Whether at shows by the Stanford Musical Improvisors, productions like “Fun Home” and “Moonchild,” campus-wide dance showcases like Breaking Ground and performances by the Stanford Symphony Orchestra, I became addicted to the feeling of fully immersing myself in the art unfolding right before me.

The songs brought me into the world of the characters, letting me leave reality to enter the life of another. Watching the dancers and musicians creating art with their bodies and instruments, I was constantly inspired by how ideas can manifest into complex, magical stories through collaboration and creativity on stage. 

Last quarter, after watching my first Stanford Musical Improvisors performance, I signed up for an ITALIC class called “ITALIC 99: Making Up Songs on the Spot.” I stepped into the first class feeling nervous but excited to sing. Our wonderful teacher played the piano and told us to sing to ourselves, then to each other. We sounded beautiful and chaotic. I felt myself becoming a child again, humming to myself as I danced. It was freeing. My soul drifted into place. 

I’ve done a fair share of art-related activities myself, the biggest being reading and writing stories. Literature will forever hold a special place in my heart, but I’ve also explored other random classes involving drawing, taiko, social dance, Chinese calligraphy and jazz piano improvisation. I try to take at least one fun class every quarter, and I’ve enjoyed every single one. 

I cannot survive without any art in my life. Luckily, theater, a medium that I had gotten so few opportunities to engage with, has at last returned to me. I now find great joy going to any staged performance. 

Theatre and social dance with Swingtime are two forms of art where I can engage in collective art-making, something I had never been able to experience before. Having someone feel the way you do as you perform is a unique sensation that simply is not the same as performing a solo piano piece or writing a story.

Even then, however, I always feel like something is missing. Throughout all my time performing and watching performances, my single greatest desire is to see myself perform in-person. It is an impossible wish. I cannot perform and watch myself at the same time, not if I want to participate in both fully, so with each performance I am forced to pick my role and lose the experience of the other. 

Perhaps that is the price to pay for art that is made on stage in real time. Unlike a painting or piece of writing that I can revisit after making it, a theatre or dance performance is not quite the same on video. The moment it ends, it is finished and only exists in our memories. I can see versions of myself in mirrors, in reflections, in pictures taken by myself and others, but I can never see myself from my own eyes. I’m always trying to piece together a complete version of myself through fragments of evidence, from photos, from videos, from my own experiences, from myself in the audience’s eyes, so that one day I can imagine the closest version of what I truly look like, living on stage.