Celebrate Everything!

I’ve been reading up on Behavioral Design (for Create Your Glorious Self). When crafting new behaviors, we want to automate their implementation. I’m a fan of BJ Fogg, Stanford researcher in behavioral design, and creator of the brilliant tinyhabits.com.

In the Tiny Habits model, there are three parts to new behaviors–the Anchor (something you already do that acts a springboard for the New Thing); the Behavior (the New Thing you want to start doing), and the Celebration! (in which you celebrate having done the New Thing).

Celebrate?
What’s that?

How many of us celebrate our successes?
How many of us celebrate anything?

Hmmm… I thought so.

We trudge through our daily lists, grimly demolishing task after task (or having another bonbon, because who can even look all those tasks in the eye? Not to mention the world crises). We’re running on willpower, maybe taking time to cross one task off the list before trudging up to the next.

Do we even remember what we did at the end of the day? I don’t. I wonder where the time went, and why I haven’t accomplished a damn thing, AGAIN. I do a lot, most days; I just don’t stop to appreciate that I’ve done them.

Fogg says that Celebration element of habit creation is the most vital. That Celebration will someday be understtod to be as powerful for wellbeing as mindfulness or gratitude practices!

Um… WOW. That’s pretty huge

The celebration releases a hit of dopamine, which is a factor in addiction–dopamine wants MORE. So that celebratory moment (12 seconds is the optimal time, I have been told), helps make the habit completion desirable to the body, because completion gives that sweet little rush. Hence, we are more likely to run the habit to get the treat.

Huh. What else would I like to do more of? Will a celebratory dopamine hit help me get that done, too?

Apparently, yes. And those things can also be turned into habits. Here’s the Tiny Habits algorithm:

After I <anchor>, I <new behavior>. Then, I celebrate!

Tiny Habits is based on the principle that the new habit needs to be stupid easy, so doing it takes minimal effort. Thirty seconds, max.

So the new habit is NOT, for example, After I eat breakfast, I practice for an hour and a half. That’s a high bar. The habit might be, After I eat breakfast, I turn on dance music. That’s pretty easy. Push a button on your phone. Boom.

And for things you’d rather not do, habits you’d like to overdraw with better habits, the more difficult and annoying you can make it to do them, the easier it is to let them go.

So my plan for the coming weeks is to celebrate. A LOT.

After I complete each phase of my day, each task on my list, I celebrate!

It will take practice. I will forget a lot of the time. But I will remember some of the time, too. And over time, I will remember more often. I know how this works. That’s how habits are built. One iteration at a time. So I can be kind to myself as I develop my new skill.

I invite you to join me in this.

And make it REAL!
No half hearted eye roll and a sardonic woo-hoo.

Give 10-15 whole seconds to this.
Chair dance! Or celebrate in the mirror. Make up a little song about it!
I did it!
I did it!
I folded up the handkerchiefs!
I did it!
I did it!
I did it, did it, WOO!!!!

Let’s let that feeling of BOOYAH!!! suffuse us, such that when we move on to the next thing, we still have a smile on our face and a song in our heart.

Let’s see what happens. We’ll check in next week.
Or post below and tell me how it’s going.

Oh! One thing I am celebrating is publication in Fanoos Magazine‘s June 2022 issue!
Check out my “How to Improvise on Finger Cymbals,” and other great articles!

Love,
Alia
PS BOLD started Tuesday. Here’s what folks said after the first class:

Bold felt good and solid!!
CH

Boldness on the inside made me feel stronger for doing more gentle moves on the outside too.
SM

Being present to the music and playing with attitudes brought out a lot spontaneous nuances and qualities in my dance that would be hard to do deliberately. I wasn’t trying to “dance”, the dance just happened as a by-product.
CL

BOLD registration is open through Tuesday, June 21. It is thrilling! The recording of the first class is up now. I would love for you to join us. Learn more and register here: BOLD

How to dip your pinkie toe…

We’re all spinning a lot of plates right now. It takes all our energy just to keep our lives, our loved ones’ lives, together. Like the Red Queen, we have to run as fast as we can just to stay in the same place. Pandemics of virus, violence, injustice, poverty, natural disaster. Many of us (most?) are on our last nerve. Stuck maintaining our status quo. The stakes may feel too high to mess with what’s working. The idea of taking a risk feels a little… risky.

This is why we have dance. Dance classes (ideally), create a safe social space for playful exploration. Zoom classes may not be as social, but they do increase the safety factor. We are in our own homes. We can shut the door. We can turn off our camera. We can even turn off the lights.

And we can play.
With the group–or privately, where no one else can see us.

BOLD is alll about play.

It is a space to play dress-up–with our identities.

Combining cutting-edge behavioral design with innovative movement cues, BOLD provides a weekly interlude with a sparkly-new chest of dress-up opportunities.

Maybe we can’t throw ourselves into a new life. But maybe one tiny little part of us–maybe just the tip of our pinkie toe–might like to dip into something a little more… Exciting. Fun. Even… BOLD.

In our own home, in the privacy of our own space, we can let our hair down. Try on a new style. For our soul. We can enjoy feeling luxurious, strong, fluid, sensuous… happy.

When we act As If, we feel it.

Behavior creates emotion.

It’s easy to try this at home. Smile at yourself in the mirror. As if you were someone you love ; ).

Give a flirty little wink. Interact with yourself with enjoyment. Keep it up for a minute or so. Then see how you feel. Map that feeling in your body so you can come back to it whenever you want. Come back often!

Dip your pinkie toe…

BOLD is the appetizer buffet for Create Your Glorious Self (CYGS). In CYGS, we get to design our Glorious self and bring it into being–for dance, work, or any other Venue in which we may wish to behave differently.

In BOLD, we explore trying on attitudes and archetypal qualities within the context of dance. We play with varied qualities and movement cues each week, so we get to sample a lot of options. And each new way of being increases not just our available toolbox, but also our capacity for change, and our level of personal power.

Oriental dance music is alll about these wisps of feeling, emotional timbres, sometimes only for a breath, as a quarter tone brings in some subtle shift. As we increase our capacity to express subtle states with our bodies, our dance becomes more grounded, intentional, and–mesmerizing.

BOLD starts Tuesday June 14. All sessions are recorded (instructor view only), and available for the duration of the course. Registration and more information is here: AliaThabit.com/Fun-Class

Come dip your pinkie toe in BOLD!
Let’s dance and have fun.

Love,
Alia

How to be BOLD (or any other way you want)

I’ve been doing some arts work in Headstarts, schools, and now daycares for my local arts org (yay, Catamount!). The model for this upcoming mini-residency is that I will come do my thing (I have a slate of pre-school activities), while the daycare teachers observe. The following visit, we will do the thing together, and the next one, the daycare teachers will do the the thing themselves while I observe.

This is a great model, except that I’ve been doing my thing for decades, and the teachers can’t do what I do after watching once (usually while herding cats—er, kids, the whole time). So I use my stuff as a template for theirs. They can’t do belly dance, but they can have movement that uses upbeat, rhythmic, then smooth and flowing music. I have a regular cool down they can do, and they can tell a story of their own.

That’s how templates work.

There is a palette or sequence of categories into which you can slot different yet similar options. Like the classic wedding template: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Anything in each category will do.

However, in my template, there is ONE thing I want to keep the same: My cool down. So I give that specific element to the teachers. Why this cool down? All the anti-trauma, nervous system regulation I’m building into it.

I’ve noticed over the course of this work that even pre-school kids are pretty freaked out these days. Freaked out kids often grow up into freaked out teens, adults and so forth. Nervous systems do ideally regulate themselves, but our modern lives of constant, chronic stress can screw up that feature. So it’s no wonder even 4-year-old kids are barely able to keep it together and others have simply given up.

I can’t fix their lives. But I can give them some respite. And, ideally, I can teach the daycare teachers how to build that respite into their daily routine, so kids can get that little daily taste of settling. Over time, maybe they will internalize this series of actions to use on their own. Each drop in the pool ripples outward.

Reducing stress, resolving trauma, these things bring the potential for joy back into our lives. Joy is one of the (many!) reasons I love belly dance.

Belly dance is anti-trauma

Everything about the cultural dance soothes and nurtures the nervous system. Every time we dance, it’s like a lovely shower for the soul. Sure, we have managed to shove a bunch of anxiety, rigidity, and perfectionism onto it, but…!

At its heart is joy.

All my work is to bring joy back into our hearts. It has become my central mission.

All of the fear, rage, and self-loathing we have accumulated gets in the way of our joy. Focusing on nit-picky details doesn’t help. Yelling at ourselves, blaming ourselves, rigidly controlling our bodies, doesn’t help.

If beating yourself up worked, you'd be rich, thin, and happy — The lovely Amity Alize!
“If beating yourself up worked, you’d be rich, thin, and happy”

Letting ourselves relax, move in self-loving ways, letting our bodies express what they have been holding on to in a gentle, titrated way, these things help us return to joy.

Hence the upcoming classes.

Coming in July:

Create Your Glorious Self!

Here’s a sneak peek at the page. More in the next few weeks ; )

Aka CYGS. I love the acronym, as baby swans are called cygnets. We may have felt like the ugly duckling for a while, but..!

In our hearts are glorious, confident creatures, bursting to unveil themselves, to stride out into the light of day, to come alive!

Doesn’t that feel grand? I’m so excited!

The course is built upon cutting-edge behavioral design strategies, along with intensive nervous system regulation, monthly check in meetings and practice sessions, PLUS daily accountability and progress reports–which we have made sooo quick and easy, they are–dare I say it? Kinda fun! The daily effort for this course is less than 20 minutes, maybe even less than 10.

It’s AMAZING!

AND while we await CYGS, here is…

BOLD!

Archetypes and Attitudes for Oriental Dance

BOLD dips its toes in the CYGS material, continuing our Fun Class focus on templates–in this case, templates of attitude and personality (along with movement options).

Want to be BOLD?
Act as if you are bold.

Wait, what does that even mean?!

Well, what does BOLD look like? How does someone who is bold act? How do they hold themselves, walk, talk? What expression is on their face?

If you were bold, how would you look? How would you hold yourself? What expression would you have on your face? Start there. Look in the mirror. Look at yourself–boldly! Look right into your own eyes, with a bold smile on your face and a glint in your eye. Let the feeling arise from the action. Take a minute or so to just feel that in your body, on your face. What changes?

Behavior creates emotion.

How would you walk? Shuffle along? Or would you STRIDE? Stride around boldly, hands on hips in the classic Wonder Woman Power Pose. Toss your head, boldly! Laugh boldly! Speak boldly! DANCE boldly!

Here’s some music for a bold dance! (or any way of being you would like to explore)

Bold not your jam? What is? Try that one on and see how you feel. We’ll explore LOTS of options in the class.

Here’s more about the BOLD Fun Class: https://aliathabit.com/shop/#live

And remember to CELEBRATE your test drives! Heck, celebrate everything ; )
Love,
Alia

How Creative Expression Lifts the Soul

In times of trouble, dismay, and despair, it becomes ever more important for us to regulate our nervous systems so we are not at the mercy of the news, which is grimmer and more tragic every day.

Creative expression helps.

My life is not all unrelenting joy–I’m guessing yours isn’t either. And the world situation is harrowing. Though it seems disloyal not to suffer alongside the grieving, keening world, and we don’t want to make champagne toasts over the wreckage, unrelenting high levels of stress are harmful to our bodies and minds.

We aren’t doing anyone (including ourselves) any favors by being overwhelmed by suffering. Remembering what is good is vitally important. Taking time to feel good, grounded, safe, is vitally important. Letting ourselves settle into the present moment. Noticing what is around us. Feeling gratitude for even the smallest goodness helps.

So please consider the following a little vacation, and the tools within some things that might help.

Crisis resources can be found here: https://traumahealing.org/scope/

Some of the videos I posted last week did not come through on the email. My apologies!

See the RakSultana dancers’ Alf Leila and Rachel Bond’s Emperor videos here.

Each of these dancers had to discover what they they felt from the music, what they wanted to say about that, and then how to say it with their bodies. This goes way beyond steps–way beyond pantomime. Modern science has demonstrated that Behavior Creates Emotion. So when we behave as if we feel a certain way, we create that feeling in ourselves.

Think about it.

We move and hold our bodies and faces in very specific ways when we are in our various emotional states. When we celebrate a victory, our movement and affect is entirely different from when we feel defeated. It seems like it’s the context (experiencing victory or defeat), that creates the state, but it also works it the other way around. When we act as if we are victorious, we create the feeling of victory within ourselves (and vice versa).

The first time I tried this out, I was walking out of the grocery store, feeling grumpy, sore, tired–you know, #@^&%$#! So I thought, well, what if you act as if you are cheerful? My pace picked up, my head came up, a bounce appeared in my step, and I was humming a tune by the time I got to my car.

Whoa!

I started playing with these ideas in the FUN Classes

And people responded!

That was fun!
I felt so relaxed!
It really is powerful to just work with qualities, taking my time, owning the space, and not having to actually “dance.”I feel more confident about performing
It reinforced the the value of trusting myself
Feeling my individual dancing spirit free to shine through!💗
Going more into your own pleasure and then bringing it out/sharing it with audience.

We will explore these models deeply in the next FUN Class, BOLD: Archetypes and Attitudes for Oriental Dance, and in our upcoming, brand-new 10-week coaching immersion, Create Your Glorious Self. More information about these in the next week or so (I am SO excited!).

You can start right now!

How do you want to feel? ACT THAT WAY. Not pretend. For real. Immerse yourself in how that feels in your body, how your body and face show that state.

See what happens.

Alternatively, you can take how you feel now and show that in movement. Consider moving very slowly while breathing in time to the music. Slow movement gives stuck nervous systems an opportunity to reset.

Either way, let me know how it goes!

I feel so strongly about the power of this approach that I added it to Make a Dance in Five Days. The Templates and these somatic energy states fit so perfectly in with Day 4 that I updated all the information to reflect that. It felt really good. It feels really good to bring these simple tools to help us improvise more effortlessly–AND to improve our everyday lives! (Sneak Peek: Day 5 will soon expand into a complete month-long class all by itself!)

Speaking of which…

MD5 enrollment is open through Sunday, May 29.

Live coaching is available through June 5, so there is plenty of time to make your dance, with plenty of support–plus powerful new content!

Plus it’s fun to do creative things in good company ; )

Why not try it? If you decide it isn’t for you, ask for a refund. Easy peasy.

More info is here: https://alia.teachable.com/p/make-a-dance-in-five-days.

With all my love!
Alia

Where do you Start when Making Dances?

Before we get going, I thought you’d like to know about a really great new venture. Shining Peacekeeper has been living in Egypt for the past several months, with an eye to helping Khairiyya Mazin, last of the famous Banaat Mazin Ghawazi dancers. Well, she has done it with BanatMazin.com.

This website is an online portal to Khairiyya’s classes music and more. Lessons can be arranged, live (virtual) music for events, and many many more things. Khairiyya is thrilled to have both an income and her legacy available to a wider world. Please do check it out, buy some stuff, and share. There is no social security in Egypt, especially not for dancers, especially not for Ghawazi. Thank you, Shining, for doing a great good in the world! BanatMazin.com

We’ve been talking about finishing work, but it can be just as hard to get started. For example, say you want to make a dance. What do you do first? There are so many things!

The music, the costume, the steps, the concepts–! What comes first?

It depends upon the project.

Usually we find a song we like, and we start there, listening to the music and choosing steps to go with it. The RakSultana dancers, for example, chose a song they liked. Their normal routine would have been to put steps and staging to it, but they had been paired with me as a choreographer for the BellyDance Blossom Festival. We explored what they felt from the music, what imagery came to them. A story emerged, and the dancers found characters and substories within the music, The staging suggested it self, as did much of the movement. The result was unique and surprising.

Sometimes it happens differently.

For example, the lovely Australian dancer Rachel Bond is a graduate of CDA (the program that preceded MD5). She was in a project where each participant was given a Major Arcana Tarot Card, and asked to make a dance that expressed that card. In that case, the concept came first.

Rachel got–The Emperor. The hard part was finding music–and a connection to the card. Once she found a song she liked, she went deeply into the music and herself to find the connections between the music and her own journey to authority.

For myself, the music usually comes first–because t moves me in some way, suggests something that I want to express. I make the dance around the content that the music suggests to me. For one pice, though–Medea–I was researching the myth to write a play. At the same time, I was listening to the Hany Mehenna’s epic vintage song Mash’aal on repeat, as I loved it and wanted to do something with it.

One day I was walking along, listening to Mash’aal, and it hit me–the entire myth of Medea fit perfectly into the song! It was like those ads when the peanut butter and chocolate crash into each other. The dance came quickly because the entire piece had meaning. I wish I had a video fo the piece to share, but there is none. Maybe one day I will revive it. But here is the original version of Mash’aal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKkmMds6dDM

So there are many ways to start making a dance.

But sometimes you want a little help.

One way to get some help is through How to Make a Dance in Five Days (MD5). It starts this Sunday, May 22, and runs for two weeks, so you will have plenty of time and support to get your dance made.

I’ve been getting some questions about MD5, so I thought I would share them here.

Question: How many hours of study is there in How To Make A Dance In 5 Days?
A. It’s not that there is so much study, like hours of video. Each day, there is

A process piece–for example, mapping out your chosen music, with several models for doing that, along with a demo, and
A dance étude to help contextualize and practice the process piece–for the example above, you might dance the map that you create.
Me, checking into the course to answer questions, advise, and troubleshoot.

There is an hour long audio recording for each day discussing that days process piece. There are also extra resources for each day. So there is some time there. These are optional, but helpful. There will also be a couple of open Office Hours each week, where you can hop on Zoom with me and ask questions directly.

The various process pieces take different times for different people, so its hard to quantify. I’d say consider allocating two hours per day (which you might not need), OR plan on using the whole 2 weeks and giving 2 days to each section. We also take a day off during the week, so there is time to get back on track.

Q. This isn’t a standard pre-videoed class? How is the class created?

This course is fully coached over a two week period. This means I am there every day to advise, assist, troubleshoot, and celebrate. It has daily process pieces with resources, prerecorded conversations about the tasks, and practice elements.

It’s hard to do all this in a week, plus many elements might be unfamiliar to people. Originally, this was the final piece of a 3-month dance composition course, so it’s pretty in-depth. MD5 goes beyond placing a bunch of steps in a row. Hence the two-week window. Folks can join anytime through the first week, and have specific individual, personalized support through the process. Also you will still have the class after 2 weeks, it will just be self-led at that point.

For anyone who wants to get their dance done, this is a great opportunity.

The system we use is quite robust–dancers who have already been through the program continue to use it, and I make all my dances this way.

If you’d like to make unique dances that suit you, that showcase your passion and joy, that your guests will love, this is the place for you.

Come check it out! There is even a sliding scale price.

https://alia.teachable.com/p/make-a-dance-in-five-days

With all my love,
Alia

Aaand here’s a whole lotta Tito Seif, just for you

Finishing School–Finishing’s Cool ; )

Before we get going, here is something really great for belly dance: Middle Eastern bellydance. Variations, styles, nomenclature. Wednesday 18 May 2022 at 17:00 Cyprus time (10amEDT). CID is the dance arm of UNESCO. A MAJOR world heritage organization highlighting our dance! This is HUGE. I encourage all dance professionals to attend! Click here to learn more.

Now back to our regularly scheduled article ; )

The spring semester at the college where I work closes this week. Semesters have ends, and you are done whether you’re ready or not. Seasons, too. It’s spring here now (finally), and the plum trees are just leafing out. Summer will come and go, fall, winter–there are these natural rhythms in the world. As there are in human lives, and in our creative processes, starting things, and finishing them.

Or do we?

It depends…

Some writers, for example, crank out a novel a year, or even more. It took me four years to write Midnight. It took Michael Crichton 20 years to write Sphere (and 8 for Jurassic Park). Ralph Ellison took 40 years to write Juneteenth, and passed away before he finished. All of these are wins–I read recently that 97% of writers never finish their novel. Yikes!

Okay, so what does this have to do with dance?

Creative folks often struggle to finish their work. We start things, and they get hard, and we lose steam, and…. um…

Yeah. Nada. Zip, zero, zilch.

I was at a talkback with screenwriters a few years ago. Two things folks said really stuck with me. Michael Arndt, screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine (which is hilarious), said. “Finish what you start.”

Easier said than done.

What does it take to finish work?

Deadlines help. Oh yeah. We can adrenaline up and crank something out when the chips are down and a grade, paycheck, show is on the line. For me, and maybe for you, it has to real–self-imposed deadlines, meh–I need some external accountability to kick me into high gear. For example, the 30-day time-frame of National Novel Writing Month helped me complete two novels!

As dancers, we often have deadlines for shows. We have to send in our song by X date (which means we have to pick a song, which is hard enough–never mind finishing a dance!).

Some of us just show up and dance–improvisation is a wonderful thing ; ). But others of us have an exacting and often fraught relationship with dancemaking, agonizing over every second of the music–this move or that one? And even improvisers may want some structure for their dance–a context, a story, a series of stage patterns–we’ll wing it, but we also like some structure.

And we don’t always have deadlines.

Sometimes we make things for ourselves–A book. A new class, a dance, dress, picture, desk, chair, stained-glass lampshade–whatever. And even when we do have a deadline (hello tax return day), who needs all that anxiety?

How do we reliably make things without the external pressure/adrenaline addiction of deadlines?

At that same panel discussion, a woman writer, whose name escapes me (sigh), said, “Writing equals ass plus chair.” She didn’t coin this (Stephan King did), but it was the first time I heard it. And this is how completion happens. Let’s broaden this a bit.

Creativity=ass+chair.

It takes Time and Focus to make creative work.

Time has to be set aside, made special, because Focus takes Time.

Recently I have been enjoying an “AM Bookend.” When I get up in the morning, I don’t open my phone. I don’t check my email. I don’t even read a book (!). In fact, I stash my phone the night before, so I will be less tempted. I get up, wash up, do my morning things, and eat breakfast looking out the window (instead of at my phone). I visualize my Glorious Self for the day’s tasks, and then I get to work.

No inputs until the day’s most important creative work is done.

The less sleep I’ve had (I have a PM bookend, too), the sooner I flag/crash/burn, so those early day moments are key.

My brother’s early morning is around 3pm. Like many folks, he works 9 to 5–that’s 9pm to 5am. When you get up isn’t the issue–the designated Focus Time is (and okay, yes, the body does seem to want to sleep at night and that’s better for it, but we make do with what we have).

So how does it work?

I make my to-do list the night before–and I don’t add things the next day (well, sometimes–but I avoid it). So each morning I don’t have to decide what to do–I have a plan. I just get straight to Number One. Today it was this article. Last night I chose what to write about. This morning, I knew what I wanted to do, so I drew the above picture. Then I started writing. And here we are.

This is how I finished Midnight, too. I got up at 5am every day, before anyone else was up. I protected that time. I sat down and I worked.

I invite you to try it. It is popular among creative folks because it‘s effective.

The other most useful thing I’ve found is daily accountability. We’ll talk about that (and creative fallow periods) next week.

With all my love,
Alia

PS If you’ve got a dance to make, or just feel like making one for fun, I invite you to join How to Make a Dance in FIVE Days! Registration is now open! The class will be available from May 22 through June 4. I’ll be around through that time to support, advise, and cheerlead!

PPS if you’ve had issues completing work, and you’d like to resolve this, please email me. I have a project that might interest you.

Your Glorious Dance Self

Back in the day when everyone had to have a dance name, I thought about making one for myself. I already have a perfectly good Arabic name (being SWANA), but part of the dance name thing was separating one’s dance identity from one’s every life. Safety being one of the concerns, also sounding more glamorous (and sounding more “ethnic,” now regarded as brownface, kinda racist, and best avoided*). However,

Safety and glamour are entirely legit–scads of performers have stage names, authors have pen names, and they can make a big difference in our sense of confidence as artists.

So I was wondering about a stage name for myself. I love my name, Alia–it means sublime, exalted–“the high clear place at the top,” my mom told me. But you know, the safety and everything. So I thought about borrowing my cousins’ name–AbuSamra. Talk about Glamour!

Alia AbuSamra!

But then I thought about keeping track of two names (I can barely keep track of the one I have). And I thought about divorcing my dance self from the rest of my life-accomplishments. And I though about how much more glam Alia AbuSamra would be than I am. I did not want to be jealous of myself, and I wanted to own all my facets, so I let it go.

Recently, I have been thinking about her again….

During Secret Stories, and now Mix n Match, we’ve been playing a lot with different qualities–of movement, but also of attitude–ways of being.

Confidence is a big issue for dancers.

Part of it is the way we’re often taught. We squint into the mirror and criticize ourselves–constantly. We tend to look at what’s wrong, and how we can fix it, generally by developing an ever-more rigid focus on technique. On top of this, we endure an unending deluge of media messaging telling us just how we do not make the cut–too fat, too skinny, not pretty, young, shapely, smart enough–need this cream, that blush, deodorant, shapewear, and so on, day after day after month after year.

It’s no wonder we doubt ourselves.

So how can we increase our confidence?

Part of the problem is that we bring our squinting, criticizing, fault-finding, terrified self to the party. Because that’s the only dance self we’ve ever had, that’s who shows up.

What if it were Alia AbuSamra who showed to dance? Or Aphrodite? Or Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of love, sex, war, and hunting? Or Elena Lentini, the goddess of Oriental dance? Or Taheyya Karioka?

It starts to get interesting, doesn’t it?

Richard Wiseman, author of The As If Principle, reviewed study after study, all of which show that behavior creates emotion. For example, when folks act as if they are cheerful, they start to feel cheerful. So if I started to act as if I were my mythical Alia AbuSamra, I would start to feel like her–to become her. I wouldn’t have to be jealous of her–she would be my secret! And I could BECOME her, as I practiced embodying her qualities.

When we act as if we are Taheyya–embodying our sense of her–we start to feel like her too. We start to embody that mindspace. We start to become it.

I’ve been diving into the research in this and other areas as we explore these qualities of being in the FUN classes. They’re like Secret Identities. We’re having a lot of fun with them–and not just for dance.

Superman has Clark Kent.

Selina Kyle has Catwoman.

Who might you have? Imagine who could show up in other areas of your life!

I’m thinking about a 3-4 month coaching/course to develop and field some Secret Identities.

I wonder if that might be interesting for you. A deep dive with monthly accountability, email updates, and lots of opportunity for exploration and test-driving, reporting back, tweaking–and reveling!

What would you like to see in a course like that? What would make it work for you?

As you ponder that, I invite you to try it out. Act as if you are your heart’s idol!

Please let me know how it goes.

Reply to this email, or comment on the Blog!

Love,
Alia

PS it’s Recital Season again!

Wouldn’t you love to show up to your recital with a mesmerizing dance you made yourself? Without all the frustration and tears?

You can!

Announcing

How to Make a Dance in FIVE Days!

From entrance to applause without setting a single step
Learn a time-tested, systematic approach to dance composition that you can use over and over again.

MD5 opens Sunday, May 22 through Saturday, June 4th. I’ll be monitoring the forum during that time to answer your questions and help troubleshoot any roadblocks that arise.

I invite you to have a look, and see if MD5 is a good fit for you:
alia.teachable.com/p/make-a-dance-in-five-days

*Of of course, if you have a vintage Eastern dance name, please go right ahead with it. Currently we can do better, but anyone who already has an established name, kinda gets grandmothered in ; )

Announcing! THRIVE with Alia!

For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been envisioning a new web presence that highlights my unique skillset. Finally, I have made that vision a reality!

I invite you to check out my NEW home,

THRIVE with Alia!

It’s got clear portals to the services I provide, updated pages, a simplified nav, and general ease of use. Our new domain, ThriveWithAlia.com will soon be live (aliathabit.com still works, and still goes to the same place. I just like this option ; )

In celebration, I’ll be rolling out some special new events and classes over the next several months. Our Free FUN Class last week was the first of these. Look for more coming up in the next week or so!

THANK YOU for being part of my life–and evolution!
Love,
Alia

What is Agency anyway? And how does it conquer the Spaghetti Factor?

I have spent a lot of time in my life feeling overwhelmed. There was always so much that had to be done, YESTERDAY! All the things squshed together like a big plate of cold, congealed spaghetti. You get that image, right? A solid block of spag-shaped starch. I couldn’t even contemplate it. I couldn’t make a decision about which one of the many screaming tasks came first. I felt sick when I tried. So I put out the most flagrant fires. The rest of the time I played solitaire and read novels on my phone.

Agency is the opposite of overwhelm

Agency is a nice hot plate of fresh pasta rich with olive oil (and maybe a little sautéed garlic ; ). Every strand is separate, easy to pull out and manage. You have choices. Options. Confidence. Ataraxia. Ahhh!

The word Agency comes from the Latin. Its root means doing. Agency, according to Napper and Rao (they wrote the book The Power of Agency), is “the ability to act as an effective agent for yourself–reflecting, making creative choices, and constructing a meaningful life.” They go on to explain that folks who feel more agency also feel less anxiety and overwhelm.

What’s the Number 1 problem dancers tell me about improvisation?

Fear. Anxiety. Overwhelm. What to do next? I freeze on stage. I can’t remember any moves. What if I am boring? What if I do something wrong? They hate me!

Building agency (and thus confidence) helps fend off anxiety and overwhelm.

What is Agency? The ability to make confident decisions in the moment, which is, coincidentally, what improvisation is. Improvisation is baked into Oriental dance. Even if all we were ever taught was choreography. One of the most basic principles of our dance is improv.

And this is what Agency means for us, as dancers: We have all the power in our dance. We dance what we feel from the music in the moment. WE make those choices. No one tells us what to do. The musicians follow us.

So if we want to improvise with effortless ease, we want to increase our Agency.

Napper and Rao give seven principles to increase agency. We’ll look today at the very first, which they say is maybe the most important of all.

Reduce Stimuli

The more random things we have to track, the less attention we have. The more fear, anxiety, and overwhelm crowd our brains, the more we try to remember our entire dance vocabulary so we can decide what to so next, the less we can be in our Zone.

How can dancers reduce stimuli?
We focus on the music and the present moment. Everything else is a distraction. Thinking, remembering, is a distraction. So what do we do?

Part of it is practice. Part of it is prior building of Agency. But here’s something we can use in any moment, without any previous prep.

Creative Limitation

That sounds like an oxymoron, right? Limit our creativity? WHY? Isn’t that what daily life is for?

Well, yeah, but intentional limitation can be a wonderful thing. All of the little pictures that I draw have intentionally limited palettes. I use only a few colors–often only three, rarely more than five. After I pick the line color and draw the squiggle, I test that color with a bunch of others, and pick the few that most resonate for me.

When I practice, I focus on one thing at a time—sometimes for only a minute before moving on, but just one thing–the connection between my feet and the floor, or the orientation of my ramii bones, the initiation of my undulation, my breath–whatever. Something will come into my head to notice, and I will focus on that only for a while. Then move on to something else.

Limiting our options is a way to diminish the overwhelm of too many choices–while increasing our creative expression!

Templates

Templates are patterns of qualities. Qualities are dynamics, like fast or slow, heavy or light, flirtatious or serious, traveling or stillness. Shapes can work, too. Circles, for example. Circle… Circle… Circle… Accent Accent Accent. Pretty much any part of our body can make a circle. Or an infinity. Or an accent. So we get to relax and enjoy all the variation and surprising discoveries within Circular movement.

Templates are an intentionally limited palette of options.

In the Free Mix and Match class last Saturday (the recording is available until May), we looked at Quick Quick Slow, a classic pattern for Oriental dance. Quick and Slow are qualities. Quick Quick Slow is a pattern. It can repeat. We can dip into any color on our palette–move quickly for a while. Move slowly for a while. We also explored qualities of being, generating our Glorious Dance Self. Affect is another quality. We can Imperious, or Flirtatious, or whatever quality the music brings to mind. Just one thing at a time. In our current Mix and Match 5-week series, we explore different qualities every week.

Specific movements don’t matter–any movement can be infused with any quality. So we can let go of trying to think and focus on one simple quality. Attending to quality brings us into the present moment.

When we let go of worry about which move will show up, and just let them come, we get more in tune with the music, our own bodies, and the present moment. We have time to be playful. We have time to interact, to relax, to enjoy ourselves.

We have time.

And isn’t that a lovely thought?

As I worked towards health, I taught myself to notice when I felt overwhelmed. I visualized that clump of cold spag, and I drizzled a little olive oil on it. I let the ease of that olive oil seep into my consciousness. Over time, that clump began to loosen up around the edges. Individual strands began to emerge. And one day there it was! The image of a hot plate of yummy fresh pasta. That’s when things really started to change for me.

They can change for you, too.

With love,
Alia

I hope you will check out the recording of the Free Mix and Match class. It’s up until May 5, 2022. Please do sign up, and please do share the link with friends. https://alia-thabit.ck.page/ec91673801

Here’s what folks had to say about our Mix and Match class..

“I just finished your recorded quick quick slow template class. It was Amazing! My body felt so good doing it! Thank you so much!”
“That exploration really opened up something new for me. That it really is powerful to just work with qualities, taking my time, owning the space, and not having to actually “dance”. I really enjoyed it. And when I watched you, Alia, I could totally see the power in it. It was compelling to watch”
“Feeling my individual dancing spirit free to shine through!💗 “
“Thank you for the experience……So much for me to think (and feel) about!”
“Going more into your own pleasure and then bringing it out/sharing it with audience.”
“I feel more confident about performing!”
“It reinforced the the value of trusting myself.”

Please also consider the 5-week Mix and Match Templates FUN Class! I just posted the first recording. So you have plenty of time to enjoy it before the next one ; ).

Registration for Mix and Match is open for a little longer. More info and register here: https://aliathabit.com/mix-and-match-templates-for-improvisation/

Show and Tell

with Joe Williams
Delsarte Technique for Oriental Dance

Joe Williams, guest artist for Wonderland!

Please join Joe Williams, internationally acclaimed Delsarte expert, in this 2-hour live online workshop geared especially to Oriental dance.

Oriental dance is an expressive impressionist genre. As dancers, we show our guests what we feel from the music. Delsarte technique gives us subtle yet powerful tools to enhance expression. Highlighting specific body parts suggests meaning in subliminal ways. When we understand this physical language, there is a delicious feedback loop of knowing what we suggest, validating our expression through movement, and giving ourselves and our bodies permission to feel, to speak, and to exist with agency and joy.

In the first hour, we learn how to Show what we feel and highlight character through physical expression.
In the second hour, we Tell our stories as we compose short dance sequences based upon emotional expression using the Delsarte system.
Joe live coaches participants as we find our way in this unique mode of expression.

Please note, this workshop was recorded for the Wonderland class and for Joe’s archive. It is ONLY available to stream through April 1. Joe seldom allows recording of his classes. This is a rare, unique opportunity to learn from one of the only teachers of Delsarte as a physical system of expression.

Two-hour recording of LIVE Zoom workshop. Special price: $30.

Please note, this workshop is ONLY available for purchase through April 1.

YES! Purchase via

Note Gumroad policy: Upon purchase, you will have a 30-day window in which to watch the video. Please note that once you click “play,” you have 72 hours to watch before access expires.

How many of us celebrate our successes? How many of us celebrate anything?