A sparkling example
by JC
I’m a 35-year-old pro dancer / choreographer / instructor artistic / creative / company director (wow in one long breath right haha). I’ve been a fan of Janet since the age of 5. In being asked how Janet Jackson has inspired me, that is so all encompassing and the answer is probably within itself an ENTIRE book. But in this instance, I will work to be concise.
When people ask me why I’ve been a Janet Fan for the better part of my whole life I simply tell them Janet saved my life. I believe the vast majority of Janet fans will agree and identify that her music is a source of comfort, and what I had always thought of her music as; ‘a friend who will never let me down, makes me feel safe, values and encourages me to be myself.’
I’ve followed her career because it felt for me personally like I always had a safe space to go to that provoked my imagination, cultivated my hopes, nurtured my aspirations and reinforced my professional / personal goals. If that is not the true source of inspiration, the ability to move others in such a way that despite circumstance, a person can flourish from within the unexpected, then I don’t know what is.
As a child who grew up under a military travelling household, one plagued with terrible domestic violence, alcoholism and bi-polar depression, I was unconsciously forced to grow up far too soon. Knowing and understanding the violence between my mother and father between ages five through eight as I sit here even writing this is beyond me. I knew what was happening, I saw how it affected each of them and I saw how it separated our family dynamic. I felt safest and loved with my mother and brothers and I was terrified of my father. When anything violent happened, the things that I saw, I instantly wanted to be anywhere else but there. So alone became the one place where none of those terrible things happened. Janet’s music became a safe refuge from those horrible moments, as were her videos and stage shows.