Addison Grace Mouser is a unique dancer that I have featured many times on Instagram. What makes her unique is that through her pictures I see a well skilled beautiful brown ballerina which overshadows the fact that she has a hearing loss. This did not stop her from standing out in her dance classes where she was classically trained. Brown Girls Do Ballet selected her to to be their Ambassador. I selected Addison Mouser for our Dance of the Week for the world to know her strength through adversity and how she dares not to be limited in her dreams.

Dance School: Legacy Dance Center, Frisco, Texas (suburb of Dallas)

Why you became a dancer? My mom says it was a little shocking when I became so focused on dance at 2 years old. I had severe ear infections almost non-stop from 10 months until almost 10 years old and doctors could not get medicine or tubes to stop the infection. Because of the infection, I didn’t walk until 17 1/2 months old and never crawled and that is why it shocked my mom that I would so quickly beg for dance shortly after I started walking. I had video’s by “Bella Dancerella” and mom says I would stay for hours in front of the tv doing the ballet videos over and over and so at 2 1/2 she took me to my first dance class.

What makes you a unique dancer? Where my hearing loss makes me different it also makes me unique with really strong visual skills. Most everything I do in a dance class is learned “visually”. Because of the noise of a dance room, I normally can’t hear or understand everything said. I only have partial hearing loss but a dance room makes it even harder to hear. This has actually helped in dance because once I see it, I can almost always replicate the move immediately. It also makes choreography pretty easy for me because I learn it so quickly.

Describe your education/training as a dancer with a hearing loss: Early on doctors said that dance would be too hard for me because I continued to show severe balance issues but those issues didn’t seem as strong in dance. Ballet has always been my favorite although it proves to be the most challenging for me because it does require a great deal of balance but I have never felt discouraged about it. I wanted to dance and I just kept practicing and doing my best! I have always had balance boards at my house to help strengthen my balance as well as going to occupational therapy for many years to overcome those challenges. I like to let others know about my hearing challenges and especially my dance teachers so they will be aware and also so they know that I am not purposely ignoring them if I don’t respond to something they said. My mom is my extra pair of ears at dance conventions and competitions so she can help me hear what I might miss in such a noisy environment. Otherwise, my training looks just like any other dancers training at my age filling my days with as much dance as possible. I take everything, not just ballet, but also contemporary, jazz, tap, hip hop, modern African, and lyrical.

Tell us about your most favorite dance performance: I love being on stage so I really feel every performance is my favorite. I guess the most inspirational would be my first time to dance at Youth American Grand Prix (YAGP) at 10 years old. I had dreamed the previous two years about dancing at YAGP after seeing Michaela De Prince in the “First Position” movie and was so amazed that my dream actually came true!! I was very blessed to have a ballet teacher, Ms. Geralyn Del Corso Garner who chose to believe in me and prepared me for my YAGP solo. I danced to a variation from “La Fille mal gardee” and had my first custom ballet tutu and I felt like a professional or as a professional as a ten year old can be!

What was the best advice you received about your dance skills and what did you learn from the criticisms (if applicable): My upper body has always stood out to teachers since the beginning and it came easy for me. My lower half did not flow with ease like my upper body and different teachers have often said “whenever we get the lower half flowing like the top half, magic will happen”. Teachers have also said it was unusual for a student to develop their upper half before their lower half but we guess that my balance issues were the cause of that. I have been blessed to have teachers who were good at giving me a visual of what I needed to look like. Ms. Geralyn Del Corso Garner always instructed me in my YAGP privates to balance my “coffee cup” when doing pass’e. She said to pretend there was a coffee cup on my knee and if I didn’t keep my knee up then my coffee cup would fall off and spill and that visual still remains with me in ballet class today.

What were your successes? If there were failures, what did you learn from them? I guess my success is that I don’t give up and I keep a positive attitude. Dance is so deep in my heart and I can’t imagine not dancing and therefore all of the struggles with my ears/hearing and other health struggles has not been able to discourage me or make me quit dancing. A year ago I was able to return to dancing full time after a two year health challenge where many days I was so weak that all I could do was lay in my bed. Once again like my ear infections, doctors were not able to find quick answers or help to make my body heal and it was very discouraging to often miss dance but I think now that I am healthy again that it has just deepened my love for dance and I appreciate being “able” to dance even more!!!

What keeps you motivated and inspired? Overcoming my challenges motivates me as well as the music and the feeling that comes from dancing. But a big inspiration came during my recent illness from “Brown Girls Do Ballet”. When I first met up with “Brown Girls Do Ballet” I was still pretty sick but was so encouraged to do a photo shoot with them and it made me feel incredible and gave me hope. A few months later they asked me to come and do another photo shoot that would be used for their promotional materials and I was elated. I couldn’t believe they would see me as good enough to do the photo shoot because my self esteem was pretty low from the illness. I am so thankful for “Brown Girls Do Ballet” and feel God sent them my way to help pick me up when I really needed it. I am so humbled to be an Ambassador for “Brown Girls Do Ballet” and I hope I represent them well and encourage others to follow their dreams. The other thing that keeps me inspired is dancing with kids younger and older and getting to dance with kids everywhere. Two weeks ago I got to dance with the most amazing group of kids in Dallas at the “Terrance M. Johnson” summer enrichment and that was as equally as important to me as dancing with my
dance center.

What advice you can give to girls starting out in dance? Always dance from your heart and don’t give up. Learning to do turns has been a struggle for me because of my balance but I keep trying and I am improving. You can look at my pictures and it may seem that I can do most things pretty well but the truth is I am still learning, I am not perfect, I still have struggles, and I still need to practice, train and improve. But most importantly dancing should make your heart happy regardless of your skill level. I have met some amazing dancers that learned a lot of their skills at home watching videos and they are some of the most beautiful dancers because they dance from their heart. Let go, feel, and dance freely!