Valentine’s Day: are you picturing roses, chocolates, and candlelight dinners? Culturally, the holiday tends to focus on romantic love. Yet there’s no reason that we can’t celebrate it more expansively; we can also honor the love we have for friends, family, and all sorts of things that bring us joy. We can take a step back to appreciate the things in our life that both make us smile and push us to grow, that engage us: mind, body, and spirit. Now are you picturing dance?
Yes, dear readers, we can celebrate our love for dance on Valentine’s Day. Yet it can go beyond the art form itself, all of those tendus and leaps and spotting. If we stop to think about what dance means for our lives, it’s also friends, wider communities, memories, creative investment, deep emotion, physical and mental fitness: that’s a list that could keep going on.
How can we honor our love for dance on Valentine’s Day, you may ask? True, we can’t exactly take it on a date or buy it something thoughtful. Here are three approaches to try!
Journaling
All of those ways that dance impacts our lives, as noted? For a journaling exercise, pick three to five of those areas – for example, mental, emotional, and in your friendships. Then write on those, in any way that feels right to you: lists, paragraphs, and/or more stream-of-consciousness style (throwing punctuation and grammar to the wind!). Another approach could be focusing even more on one of those areas, if it feels particularly meaningful for you – going deep rather than broad, if you will.
As another exercise, see where the following prompts may take you (again, writing in the style and manner that feels right to you):
Dance is ____.
Dance means ____.
Dance feels like ____.
Dance gives ____.
Dance requires ____.
Dance is vital because ____.
As you journal, get comfortable and cozy. Try turning off your phone for the duration of your writing (if you don’t need it on to address a potential emergency). The more you limit physical and technological distractions, the more you can focus and really dive in. Set a timer or alarm if you need to be watching the clock – yet aim for at least ten minutes (if at all possible). Above all, stay open and curious. Notice what flows out of your pen!
Dance Day or Date
What better way to celebrate dance than with dance-related things? If you can invest a whole day, make yourself a fun schedule for it: perhaps a class or two in the morning and afternoon, a show or dance movie at night.
If dance friends and colleagues can join you, who better to enjoy that with than those folks – people in your dance community, those who share all of the challenges and triumphs with you. You’ll need food and drink at points throughout the day, which also offers chances to chat and catch up with any of your dance people who join you.
If a whole day doesn’t work (indeed, dance people tend to be quite busy), the next best thing is a dance date: a class, a show or movie, even a meal or drink with dance friends/colleagues. If it’s a challenge to fit it all in a day, you and your dance friends could schedule a few events throughout Valentine’s week – and make it a dance week! The possibilities abound.
There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with doing any or all of that solo. Pick a class, go to a show, fire up a favorite dance movie, dive into a favorite dance book or publication. Schedule a dance day or date with yourself – why not?
Move it out
Okay, maybe there’s an even better way to celebrate your love for dance than the above….in the art form itself. In a word, this approach involves improvisation. Moving as your body, mind, and spirit are calling you to move – without self-censorship, without limits but with boundless possibility opportunity….when it feels good, it feels really good.
If you don’t have adequate space in your living arrangements, you can rent space (though that will certainly cost you) or dance outside (if weather/climate permits). Just as with journaling, set a timer or alarm if you need to be watching the clock, but try to dedicate at least ten minutes.
As inspiration or prompts for movement, perhaps there’s a song or songs that you have in mind – one that really digs into your soul and sinew. Maybe there’s a poem or passage, focused on dance or not, that could fuel your movement.
A special dance memory – a pivotal class or audition, a meaningful project, just messing around with movement along with treasured friends – could also be something to inspire movement that honors your dance love. If you did the journaling above (some or all), perhaps that produced writing to guide your improvisation.
Or, who says you can’t choreograph something? Perhaps free movement produces vocabulary that you can make into a few eight counts (or more!). As with any or all of the above, what matters most is what feels right and natural to you. After all, it’s your celebration of your love for dance!
None of the above has to be mutually exclusive with celebrating your love for people in your life, whether those relationships are platonic or romantic. Your Valentine’s Day could include moving or writing in the morning, and then seeing friends and/or a significant other later in the day. That’s balanced with all else you might have going on during the day, of course. Such balance can certainly be a challenge, but – with planning, intention, and adequate self-care – not impossible.
Alternatively, if you’re feeling a bit lonely this Valentine’s Day, dance days or dates – with your dance people or with yourself – can also help focus your attention away from feelings of loss and absence. Your love for dance can always be there for you….and it doesn’t even expect presents. Why not celebrate it, why not enjoy it? Happy Valentine’s Day, and happy dancing, all!
Image credits: first two images via Unsplash, second two courtesy of the author
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