Melissa at 100 Billion Stars writes wonderful, inspiring blog posts. Her last one was about giving ourselves permission to play.
This is something near and dear to my heart. There are so many ways to be creative and let your playful side out. You can dance, sing, twirl and move all by yourself in your living room. You can surround yourself with fabric and start cutting and sewing without any rules or idea of where you might end up. You can play tag with your dog or bounce a piece of yarn with your cat. You can write a letter or a poem or a crazy song. Whatever you do, just let your imagination be in charge for once. Just for once! let go of rules and expectations and create something simply for the sake of playing.
I find myself missing the creativity and playfulness of teaching dance. I feel like my brain and my body are a bit mushy from the lack of it, and I am starting to think about teaching again in some fashion. And so I am taking Melissa’s advice and I am going to play with dance this coming weekend. I have asked my little friend Jade if she would like to learn to dance with veils. (well, actually I asked Jade’s mother and she said yes, lol!) Jade is 7 years old.
Here is a picture of me at age 7:
I am going to pick Jade and her 4-year-old sister up on Saturday and we are going to have a play date. I don’t have any child-sized veils for them…I might need to cut one of mine in half. I will have to dig them out and have a look-see. We are going to have so much fun! Silly, goofy fun and Jade will learn some dance at the same time.
I will leave you with a video of my old dance troupe Saba Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble (who I miss playing with very much) performing a piece that I choreographed for them for Rockin’ the Casbah a couple of years ago. This is women’s Gulf dance and it is all about play. I had so much fun choreographing this piece and I hope you have fun watching it! In fact, if it inspires you to get up and dance along with us, go for it!
How are you going to play today?