Cece, a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, is currently working as a lawyer in New York City:
“It wasn’t until high school that I started dancing. My high school had a good dance team, and I wanted to be a part of it. For one year, I just got really serious about making the team and took a bunch of dance classes. I would go to studios and take classes pretty much everyday. It was a lot of commitment and devotion in that one year. It was tough. I didn’t realize that dancing was hard and required a lot of training, but my lack of knowledge made it easier for me to dive in. Miraculously, I made the team—and immediately tore my ACL. I had worked so hard to make the team, but I couldn’t do what I wanted to do.
When I got to college, it had been a while since my surgery and recovery. I wanted to try to dance in college. I was practicing by myself in the gym before school started, and I tore my ACL—the same one— again. It was really sad. I was all alone. I didn’t really know anyone at the time because I had just started at the school. I just had to call someone I randomly met that day and asked him to come get me because I was stuck at the gym with a torn ACL. My parents and a lot of my friends thought I was crazy for even considering dancing again after I had gotten hurt so many times. After my second surgery, I danced with a dance company there and did a project called Yale Dance Theatre.
When I got to law school, it was amazing to see the number of singers, dancers, and actors that were there. During my time at the school, I actually choreographed a show called the Parody. It was such a great moment where you could show people that even though we are serious and focused about careers outside of the arts, there’s still a place for all these creative endeavors in life.”
“If you could tell anything to young Cece, who just started to dance, what would you tell her?”
“I’d probably tell her to fight really hard for what she loves. There will be a lot of challenges in pursuing what you love—both physically and mentally. You’ll have pushback from your family and your friends even. But if you really, really, really want it, you need to fight for it."