Tag Archives: delicious dance-a-thon

Dance 12: When They Tell You Not to Sing

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Well, here we are, the last day and the last video of the Delicious Body Dance-a-thon.

I just need to take a second and really let that sink in.

One month. Twelve videos.

AND I DID IT.

When I started out with this project, I was absolutely terrified. I was so afraid to let go and dance on film. Over and over and over again.

But I posted that first video, and then the second and then the third…and I slowly, haltingly realized that this  sharing didn’t make me feel small and scared and not-good-enough. It made me feel bigger, more powerful, and more willing to take risks with my dance.

I feel like you can see that progression from the first video to this last one. It makes me so happy.

In ballet school, I was taught that I would never be good enough. That I would never be perfect, and that perfect was all that mattered. I was taught a lot of other terrible, damaging things too. But this project helped me move through that baggage and let it go. Because there are no scales to measure self-worth, and no way to compare your soul’s unique expression. No matter what they’ve told you. No matter how hard it is to believe.

…I feel like this piece is the perfect one to end on.

Thank you so much for witnessing this journey. Thank you to commenters and lurkers alike. Your support and appreciation radiated through the past month, and I will never forget it. <3

 

When They Tell You Not to Sing 

(By Suzi Q. Smith)

Has anyone called you beautiful today?
Have you seen the exploding stars in your smile, or are they already
black holes when greeted by a mirror?
Are you tall enough to reach your reflection,
or do the crushing boot heels keep you too close to the ground to reach?
Did they tell you that your face is impossible?

Did they tell you not to sing?
Did they tell you that you belong as close to the ground as you can get?
Did you believe them?

Did they rock and lull you with distractions,
or did they stone you into silence so that you no longer
spoke of your greatness?
Has anyone told you that you are a sleeping giant?
That you could rumble the earth all the way open if you wake up and stand?

Are you trapped inside a nightmare laced with villagers and ropes?
Have they named you ‘monster’?
Do you see the torches coming?
Are you yet to discover the might in your fingers?
Are you still buried in the slumber?

Has anyone told you of your majestic glory?
Have you heard whispers of possibility in your breath?
Have you reveled in the power of your sweetest dreams?

Do your teeth have welts?
Have they called your prison ‘cocoon’?
Are you ready to break out?
Are they so afraid of you that you have become
afraid of yourself?

Have they called you clumsy?
Have your legs gone numb in the box they’ve crammed you into?
Can you still wiggle your toes?

Do they mock your wings?
Do they echo the name ‘freak’ in their flapping?
Are you clinging, desperate to a branch?
Are your feathers atrophied?
Have you hardened into stone?

Do they treat you like an artifact?
Has your size become an idle exhibit
now that you are no longer a threat?
Are you still a threat?
Are you history, or are you making it still?

Has anyone told you today that you are still breathing?
That you can melt stones into water with a touch?
That the sun and moon are sheepish at the sight of you?

That the struggle free is what strengthens your wings
to carry you forward?
I offer you every mirror.
Your reflection is in love with you,
waiting.

 

Dance 11: Unnamed #5

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This video is what happens when you really want to make a dance video, but your husband is sick in bed. Please pay no attention to the adorable toddler playing with an iPad in the background.

I love this song. I love this song. I love love love this song. And that posed a major problem: when I thought about filming it, I became very concerned that my actual movement wouldn’t accurately reflect the dance in my head. I listened to the music again and again, and I kept thinking, “Maybe I should wait and try this one when I’m in better shape. Take a few months to, you know, work out, so I’m good enough to do it.”

…it made me wonder if that one thought wasn’t largely responsible for my lack-of-dancing over the past too-many-years…the pain of “not good enough” and putting off creativity until I felt worthy of it…

Here’s the thing: a dance (or book or painting or poem or piece of music) in your head may be perfect and magical in its amazingness. It may feel good to take that thought out and polish it and marvel at its sheer awesomeness. It may feel scary as hell to even attempt to make it real. But the truth is that until that idea is brought out into the world, made real in all of its inevitable imperfection…it’s just thoughts. It has no life of its own.

I struggled with this piece. I struggled with the dancing and the editing and the child-minding. And it’s not an accurate reflection of what was in my brain when i envisioned it.

But you know what? It’s here. It’s out here in the world. You can experience it along with me.

And that makes it bigger and better than my perfect thoughts. It’s unique in its real-ness, both like and unlike my vision, with a life of its own. I am so proud of it.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBx7mzW-VW0)

What grand and glorious idea do you have stored away in your mind? How would it be if you made it real in all of its magnificent imperfection? How many lives would it touch?