Dancing at the 2016 Super Bowl, Abryana Aguilar (11), is now pursuing her passion for dance on the Heritage Dance Team for 3 years now. Aguilar has been balancing work and school to keep doing what she loves as her 8-year journey continues.

   Inspired by her mom, Aguliar had started as a Hip-Hop dancer but slowly integrated with all different styles of dance. The help of her first coach, from one of the three studios she has been at, motivated her to pursue dance.

   The beneficial impacts of dance can be listed by Aguliar quite easily; however, dance is much harder than performers demonstrate on stage.

   “Dance can make me feel like the happiest person when I have good practice days and when I am having fun with my team, but it can also completely drain my body mentally and physically.”

   From this, she has accepted the good and the bad, and her love for this art has never changed. What keeps her pursuing dance is that she has pushed herself to be the best she can.   This has now formed a connection between her growth as a dancer.

  “It has made me be a person with a lot of perseverance, and a person with thick skin. Mainly because I am constantly being told what I am doing wrong and how I can fix it.”

  Even after dancing for so long, Aguliar still gets nervous before a performance, some more than others, but it still occurs in some way in each performance she has done.

   That hasn’t stopped her though, from performing at all types of dance competitions and school events, dancing is something that she feels will always be in her life.

   “ To map out my whole future now it is hard to create a career out of [dance], but I would like it to have a role in my life somehow.”

   Abryana Aguliar, only 16 years old, has danced through the ups and downs of life, and for her, life has only just begun. Although she does not see herself as a dancer for her career, she would like to go into a job involving the government of some sort. Dance may not be her life goal, but that doesn’t change her admiration for the art.