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Change your mind Today, I changed my entire brain state from cranky and tired, to relaxed and calm in 5 minutes. What did I do? I turned off the outside...

1. Turn up – 5 minutes at a time Practising doesn’t need to happen in a formal situation with a ritual to begin and a long time set aside. It...

Why do we dance? Why don’t you dance? Why do we wrap ourselves up in tiny little balls at the thought of practising our dance, or if given the freedom...

Where do you turn when your mind gets “rough”? When the turbulence gets loud and it gets difficult to think, let alone do anything? What can you do to help...

Shut-in? Got nothing to do? Need to dance but don’t have any inspiration? Family/housemates not really into dance but you need someone to do it with? Well, push back the...

With this time of sheltering in our homes, a lot of us, teachers and students alike, are turning to online classes as a way to connect to our community and...

When you are stuck at home, on your own (or even with your family), it can be difficult to stay focused and in touch with your regular daily life. So...

As a part of the belly dance hack posts, you’ve seen what’s in my gig bag, but that’s not the only bag that is important to me. Just as important...

First Run Stage. All heart. No frills. But what does that mean? Why a blog post on an event? And why should you even care? Well, let me give you...

Have you forgiven yourself recently? Don’t look surprised at the question, nor your answer. As women, and as dancers, we rarely give ourselves a break. We sometimes will take some...

We’ve all seen the clickbait headlines “10 things you need to do to be a great dancer!” and “Top 5 stretching trends you must do now!”. We are already doing...

You may find it hard to believe, but I’m not a dancer who lives to perform. I can and I do, but that’s not where my passion for dance lies....

There’s a particular excitement that happens when performing on a stage. From getting ready, all the rehearsals and planning and selecting your costume, getting nervous. Plus culminating when your music...

As 2019 comes to a close and a new year starts, many of us will start considering what we want to do in 2020. Resolutions, plans, plotting, become the go-to...

You may remember, we touched on some of the myths about belly dance in an earlier blog post. We’re back today to cover a few more, so lets jump right...

I had a friend who performs sword swallowing. He tells people before he puts the sword in his mouth that he does this to get rid of the butterflies in...

I have a confession. I love playing finger cymbals (zills, sagat, hellspawn carried on the fingers, whatever you wish to call them). They can be considered a very noisy instrument,...

Being a belly dancer can sometimes seem like all hard work and shaking jingly stuff at customers… but there are some magical moments too. Read on for the top 10...

Continuing our belly dance hacks posts (see all the posts here), in every group of dancers, there’s always the one who has a huge bag filled with everything all the...

Feels a little like an oxymoron right? Doing less with more. We are continually encouraged to do more – buy more, be more, see more, do more, but how often...

I don’t know about you, but my favourite performances change over time. I look at what I had saved in my YouTube playlists from 4 years ago and it’s a...

We have talked previously about how important your eyes are in dance. We scratched the surface on a topic I feel strongly about – how we look at ourselves. How...

It is said that your eyes are the gateway to your soul. That you see everything (not that we can always remember what we see), and that by looking into...

Suhaila Salimpour is Director of the Salimpour School of Belly Dance in San Francisco(1). Daughter to Jamila Salimpour (often considered the ’mother of Tribal bellydance’), she began her dance tuition...

Have you ever found yourself wondering why you can’t get things done? Why it seems like such a big issue to get in and practise? It could be because you...

Taqsim (Arabic: تَقْسِيم‎ / ALA-LC: taqsīm; Greek: ταξίμι, romanized: taksimi, Turkish: taksim) is a melodic musical improvisation that usually precedes the performance of a traditional Arabic, Greek, Middle Eastern, or Turkish...

“The upper limb is the lightning rod to the soul.” Robert Markison Hands – those funny things that hang off the end of your arms. They are a significant part...

Documenting dance. Sounds super un-fun right? But, also kind of essential. After all, it’s one thing to remember what you’ve done, but something entirely different to remember it tomorrow! For...

Our feet are planted in the real world but we dance with angels… John C Mitchell Feet. They’re those floppy bits on the end of your legs. They support everything...

Belly dancing isn’t one of the more “normal” options when it comes to selecting a dance style. So it often comes as a bit of a surprise to people when...

When I originally had the idea to share some of my belly dance life hacks, I thought I’d do a quick search to see what everyone else had already blogged...

Like most dance styles that have been around for a while, there are always those common myths and questions that people have. I’ve collated some of the ones about belly...

I’d like to confess something up front, I’m a procrastinator. Yes, a procrastinator. As in I put off doing tasks until I have no options but to get it done....

I was struck by a moment of inspiration this last weekend. My jingly-appreciative-belly-dance-husband and I went to Sydney to see a concert as a part of the Vivid Festival at...

If you’re happy and you know it… clap your hands.But what if you can’t clap as a part of your performance? How would you show happiness on a stage? Or...

Continuing in our “Belly dance 101” series, we are going to take a look at all the major different styles of belly dance in this post. So how do you...

I’ve just finished another week of amazing training with Suhaila Salimpour from the Salimpour School of Belly Dance. The week elicited emotions from pure joy at finding freedom in dancing...

While some of you readers may be well versed in what Belly Dance is, I’m sure there’s a few who are a little confused, or are curious to learn a...

Happy Chooseday! I was clicking through the Tedx talk archives the other day and came across an interesting talk given by a choreographer who showed how he works with dancers...

Did you know that there is more to learning dance than just learning how to move your body? On this Chooseday, we are going to look into how you can...

Welcome back to Chooseday! If you are new to Chooseday you can catch up on the previous posts here (It’s ok we’ll wait while you catch up). Done? Great! This...

Why do you belly dance? Why do you dance? Why do you perform? Why do you create art? 10 years ago, I was convinced to come with a friend to...

My personal practices took a bit of a secondary position last week due to my eldest daughter’s 5th birthday. If you’ve ever had kids or known someone who has kids,...

In an ideal world, this post would be a short one that said You are worthwhile, deal with it. But we as humans are far more complex than that. We...