THis is my personal statement for the common app, the question being [Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?

As I stood, amidst a hoard of dancers, my feet firmly planted to the speckled, tile floor backstage, I was utterly at home. There was a pleasant, fluttering of nerves deeply rooted in my stomach as I crossed the petite room, flooded by persons I trained hard with and knew well. I heard the creaking noise of so many bodies jostling around one another, struggling to keep quite. The show was to start; our eagerness and desire could hardly stay contained. The room backstage, with its carpeted ceilings, and darkly painted walls held air, thick with excitement, caused us all to shudder with Anticipation. The black velvet curtains quivered delicately as they were pulled open; dust lifting and filling the lights onstage. As the lights dimmed in the house, a soft smattering of applause generated from the audience, signaling the beginning of the concert………
This was the night of my first high school dance concert, held in The Robert Frost Auditorium. Not only was it the first of many thrilling performances, but it was also the beginning of a passionate attachment dedicated to the Robert Frost stage. The Frost is old; many of its red cushioned chairs hang sadly, derailed from their positions, the orchestra pit, home to dirt and various pieces of glitter and sequins, desperately in need of a deep cleanse. Black velvet curtains, holey and dusty, held together only by industrial sized safety pins framed the stage. While the floor painted and repainted dozens of times, was chipped and riddled with soft spots and the occasional loose nail due to occasional slip of heavy equipment by set designers. It was in no way an example of a perfect specimen of a theater, but I loved every nook and every cranny, embracing each and every imperfection.
As I mature as a dancer, I find I prefer to choreograph in the Frost, being on that stage provides me with a plethora of inspiration that entices my creativity and urges me to create on. It became a home. An home for everything I wanted to be as a dancer, and everything that I was. This was my niche to inspire and be inspired. Onstage I can feel the presence of previous dancers, actors and musicians who long ago and not so long ago occupied the very space I do now. Their energy, filling my senses feeding off of me and myself feeing off of it, instills the overwhelming desire to leave my own mark on that well used and well loved stage. This inspiration epitomizes the energy that makes me feel perfectly content.
……The final dance ends with a euphoric amount of pride and energy. Like the moment of silence before plunging into the vast ocean, there is the grand moment of tranquility with the fulfillment of the final movement, light washes over me and my fellow cast mates, everything is still, like the volume was momentarily muted. Then, like the flick of a switch, the sound is turned up, way up. Hand in hand with the whole cast I can see the holes in the velvety black curtains, the sadly hanging red cushioned chairs, the dust filling the light, my left foot tested the give of a certain soft spot under me. I loved it all; I could feel the energy pass through me, and the hands of my cast mates, and my energy take place among others. Hand in hand, lights flooding the stage, I was utterly at home.