For Me, It's Time to Dance

The other day I had the pleasure of dancing for my daughter's class. I danced the folkloric dance of my native country...in costume. It was exhilarating! I had not danced this dance nor worn this costume in about twenty years, but something told me it was time.

Over twenty years ago, I started dancing folkloric dance. It began with a festival. On this particular Saturday morning, I was feeling pretty low...despondent. I had spent the previous night cutting, and my boyfriend at the time had come over to get me out of the house. It was the first time I had cut. I knew that I was not suicidal, but I did not really understand why I was doing it.

We went to a festival by the river with quite a variety of live entertainment, including a company of folkloric dancers. At the end of their performance, they invited anyone who wished to join their company to come forward and sign up. I was hesitant, but my boyfriend encouraged me and I joined. It was a life changing decision.

I danced with them for years, until I moved away from that city.

What was rewarding about the dance was that it allowed me to do something beautiful with my body...to have control of my body in a beautiful way...to tell my body to do what I wanted it to do and not what someone else demanded. I was free to express myself in movement. This was important to me. This brought healing.

Sexual abuse affected my body image not so much in the way that I perceived myself in regards to physical appearance, but more in my ability to establish boundaries for what others could do with my body. I was not able to say no.

With dancing, I had a say...I had control. Cutting also offers me a way of controlling my body and doing with it what I want, but it is never a beautiful thing. Dancing is the the antithesis to cutting. It takes the negative energy and turns it into strength, and with this strength you will your body to perform and create something splendid and graceful. Dancing turns the anger and the pain into art.

The original plan for this presentation in my daughter's class was to give a small demonstration on the instruments used for the folkloric music of this country they were studying this month. I would introduce the children to the instruments, let them play them, and then play recorded music and ask them to listen for the individual instruments in the composition.

We did this, but for me, it was also time to dance.