A voice at last
I have been thinking a lot about writing. Sometimes when I'm on the tube ideas bubble up and push past each other in a stream of inspiration. But I've never quite known where to put them.
As a dancer people often say that you are lucky to be performing in front of people, to be basking in all the celebrity-like adulation that comes with a show. To me in particular they say they can feel my dancing, relate to my expressions, that the passion, the grace and the yearning for freedom are all evident. Yet when one of my students asked me backstage at my recent Belly Dance beats event if I was nervous I said "only about speaking".
We get comfortable communicating in a certain genre - I can almost lean back and dance, riding high on my emotions, on the intensity that runs through my fingers, sculpting the density of the space around me - but I find speaking on behalf of myself tough.
In an early rebellion against arrogancy as a teenager I made a pact with myself always to be genuine - and perhaps, without realising - withdraw a little of myself from the grasp of others. Then there is the modesty that a lot of English people are struck with, the unwritten rule that it is uncouth to boast about yourself.
I am also terrorised by those time-thieving drones who talk too much and take advantage of our patience. At a previous show i had thought it wiser to allow someone else to introduce me. This resulted in a monologue thanking everyone, including the bar staff, the drummers who had dropped by to play and the DJ and oh finally, as an afterthought, me.
Watching back the footage of the more recent Belly Dance Beats night I realise that I had assumed people already knew about me, who I was, where my course was, who the dancers were. I held back my voice and my thoughts in order not to be too annoying, and with this I held back my heart.
You are holding in your heart, says my massage therapist, you give it all with you hips, the rhythm, the playfulness, but your heart, you are protecting it.
In a recent posture/belly dance workshop I co-facilitated my co-instructor mentioned that there's no point in holding and hunching up your shoulders - if people want to hurt you they are going to do it anyway.
There's one rule I've always abided by, "feel the fear and do it anyway." Maybe that's why my heart is hiding.
As a dancer people often say that you are lucky to be performing in front of people, to be basking in all the celebrity-like adulation that comes with a show. To me in particular they say they can feel my dancing, relate to my expressions, that the passion, the grace and the yearning for freedom are all evident. Yet when one of my students asked me backstage at my recent Belly Dance beats event if I was nervous I said "only about speaking".
We get comfortable communicating in a certain genre - I can almost lean back and dance, riding high on my emotions, on the intensity that runs through my fingers, sculpting the density of the space around me - but I find speaking on behalf of myself tough.
In an early rebellion against arrogancy as a teenager I made a pact with myself always to be genuine - and perhaps, without realising - withdraw a little of myself from the grasp of others. Then there is the modesty that a lot of English people are struck with, the unwritten rule that it is uncouth to boast about yourself.
I am also terrorised by those time-thieving drones who talk too much and take advantage of our patience. At a previous show i had thought it wiser to allow someone else to introduce me. This resulted in a monologue thanking everyone, including the bar staff, the drummers who had dropped by to play and the DJ and oh finally, as an afterthought, me.
Watching back the footage of the more recent Belly Dance Beats night I realise that I had assumed people already knew about me, who I was, where my course was, who the dancers were. I held back my voice and my thoughts in order not to be too annoying, and with this I held back my heart.
You are holding in your heart, says my massage therapist, you give it all with you hips, the rhythm, the playfulness, but your heart, you are protecting it.
In a recent posture/belly dance workshop I co-facilitated my co-instructor mentioned that there's no point in holding and hunching up your shoulders - if people want to hurt you they are going to do it anyway.
There's one rule I've always abided by, "feel the fear and do it anyway." Maybe that's why my heart is hiding.
posted by Accidental Belly Dancer at 5:36 pm
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