It was nothing like the small studio in Guangzhou where he had taken his very first ballet class. Back then, he’d walked into a sunlit room that smelled faintly of rosin and chalk, clutching his mother’s hand too tightly. The other students—all girls in pink leotards—had turned to stare. He remembered the sting of their surprised glances, the awkward hush that settled before the teacher welcomed him in with a kind smile. He was eight and the only boy in the class, his navy blue uniform standing out like an ink blot on paper.

Now, here, the room was a kaleidoscope of skin tones and dialects, of lean, focused bodies stretching toward excellence. Male dancers were everywhere—some tall and sinewy, others compact and explosive in their movement, all radiating the same quiet tension he felt. There was comfort in that, a sense of belonging he hadn’t even known to long for back then. For the first time, Andrew wasn’t the only boy at the barre. He wasn’t unusual—he was just one among many, and that felt quietly powerful.

Andrew took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders back, and stepped into the crowd.
In China, boys in ballet had always been few and far between. In every class, he was either the only one or one of two. “The rare ones,” his teacher used to say, half-joking, half-proud. The percentage of male students never rose above ten, even at the national level.

Here, though, he blended in. Nearly a third of the dancers in his program were male—a stark contrast to his early years. The difference changed everything. It wasn’t just the numbers; it was the atmosphere. The quiet permission to exist without explanation.

“Back home,” Andrew said once to a fellow dancer, “people would ask if I was training to be a gymnast when I said I danced. Or they’d just… laugh.”

Jason, a tall boy from Chicago, snorted. “Here, you say you dance, and someone probably asks what company your dad’s in.”

Andrew laughed, but it stung a little, remembering the sting of mockery on the school bus when he brought his ballet shoes by mistake instead of sneakers. The comments always came the same way—mock surprise, then ridicule.

Now, his focus was sharper, his resolve deeper. But the body, he learned, was not invincible.

The studio lights glared overhead, a sterile brightness that made the dance floor gleam like polished stone. Andrew adjusted the band around his wrist absentmindedly, sweat clinging to his shirt despite the cool air. It was their third hour in the rehearsal room, and fatigue clung to every movement like an unwanted second skin.

He and his partner, Elena, had been working through the same lift for what felt like an eternity—a grand overhead press that demanded strength, timing, and absolute trust. Each time, he felt the pull deep in his shoulder, but he said nothing. Pain, he thought, was just part of the job. Everyone felt it. Everyone ignored it.

Elena gave him a quick nod, her blonde hair plastered to her neck. “You got me, right?”

“Always,” he said, forcing a grin.

She leapt. He caught her, but the timing slipped. She tilted off-centre, and he compensated, twisting his torso sharply to keep her upright.

Something snapped—sharp and electric—deep in his lower back.

He froze mid-lift, eyes wide, breath caught. Elena slid safely to the floor, her face alarmed.

“Andrew?”

He staggered back, hand clutching the small of his back, eyes darting, humiliated more by the attention than the pain itself. He’d felt sore before—tight calves, bruised toes, aching arms—but this was different. This was a betrayal. His body, so far obedient and trainable, had reached a limit.

The rehearsal came to a halt. The pianist’s fingers lifted from the keys. Silence rang louder than the music had.

Andrew sat down carefully, masking a wince. His instructor knelt beside him, concern etched into his brow.

“Where’s the pain, exactly?”

“Lower back,” Andrew muttered. “It’s probably just a strain. I can keep going.”

Elena hovered, her hand just barely touching Andrew’s shoulder like she wasn’t sure whether she should comfort or give space.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said softly. “That looked bad.”

He didn’t dance for the rest of that day.

That night, lying flat on a heating pad, Andrew stared at the ceiling of his apartment, muscles stiff and his pride bruised. It wasn’t the injury that shocked him the most—it was the realization that even in dance, something so graceful and ethereal, the body could still break.

It was his first real lesson in the vulnerability of ballet. Not in the technique, but in the human behind it.

Physical therapy became a ritual. His therapist, a former dancer named Dani, was blunt and pragmatic. “You dancers are the worst,” she joked once as she worked a knot from his hip. “You’ll limp into class half-dead and say you’re fine.”

“I thought that was just commitment,” Andrew replied through gritted teeth.

“Sure,” Dani said dryly. “Right up until your spine starts suing you.”

He read that up to 80% of ballet dancers would suffer injuries—overuse, sprains, tears. He had joined that statistic now. It was oddly comforting, knowing he wasn’t alone in this, either.

And still, even as his back healed, flexibility training remained his daily frustration. Women were statistically more flexible due to joint structure and hormonal differences. Andrew felt it every day in his stubborn hamstrings and tight hips. He stretched religiously, but results came slower.

“I feel like a rusty hinge next to you,” he groaned during one stretch session.

“Then oil up, boy,” Elena quipped, tossing him a water bottle. “You’re getting there.”

Clothing had once been a struggle too. The first time he wore a dance belt, he was twelve and mortified. The first time he posted a photo in tights online, he was fifteen and hated what followed—comments from classmates, cruel jokes in DMs, people calling him “girly” or “confused.” In-person reactions were no better—side glances, and whispers in changing rooms.

In New York, he still noticed stares now and then, but here, he had defenders.

His instructor, Mr. Reynolds, once gathered the male dancers for a quick talk.

“I’ve worn tights for thirty years. People laughed. Then they paid to see me dance,” he said. “Let them laugh. You’ll be flying.”

And Andrew believed it. Slowly, over time, he started to wear his tights not with self-consciousness, but pride.

“I think tights are just a sign you’re doing something powerful,” Elena told him once. “No one ever calls football pants feminine.”

Back in China, his competitiveness had driven him. He had trained for hours under stern instructors, pushing toward perfection with the promise of medals. He remembered the gold he won at a national youth competition in Beijing. The memory shimmered in his mind—the applause, the deep bow, the proud smile his mother wore in the audience.

Here, the competition wasn’t about awards. It was subtler, sharper. It was about getting cast. Getting noticed. Getting better.

And Andrew had a fire in him.

He remembered a piece of advice an old coach had given him before a performance: “You’re not just dancing steps. You’re telling a story only your body knows how to say.”

Now, standing once again in the theatre, surrounded by dancers as hungry and driven as he was, Andrew felt that story building again in his spine, his ribs, his fingertips.

Sometimes, in the early morning before class, he would stand alone in the studio, watching his reflection soften in the pale light. He’d see not just a dancer, but a body reshaped by pain and persistence. A boy who had once been the only one in a sunlit studio in Guangzhou, now one of many—but no less himself.

He stepped up to the barre, placed his hand gently on the wood, and began the first plié of the day. The mirror caught his reflection—a boy in black tights and a simple white shirt, poised between effort and grace, tension and release.

Andrew smiled slightly to himself. He wasn’t the only one anymore. But he was still himself. And that was enough.