5 Ways to Feed Your Creativity as a Dancer
***This post is part of our guest contributor series, written by Stacey Allen, who brings a unique perspective to our community.
For us, dance is more than a performance—it is our life force: a connection to our Creator, ancestors, and one another. In these times, I often think about the healing and community-building power of movement—the duality of physically moving your body and social movements. In the preface of Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, Alice Walker speaks about the functionality of dance—how our brothers and sisters on the continent would twist and contort their bodies after a long day’s work, stretching out kinks and tension. As one of our dance heroes, Alvin Ailey, so infamously reminds us, “Dance is for everybody.”
Photographer, Titus Butler. Site: Mary Allen Museum in Crockett, TX, Tour Led by Viktor Le Givens, Movement Mediation by Stacey Allen
And I think everyone can be an artist. Our creativity is part of what makes us human, and many use their art as a source of recreation and expression—keeping the balance between our innate desire to create and the continual demands of life. With my 10,000 hours behind me, I still often wonder if the hyper-focused nature of dance training produces better athletes at the expense of artistry. In expanding how I define my artistic practice, I've found unmeasurable value in other creative pursuits.
Expand your movement vocabulary.
Like many dancers who matriculated through conservatory and college, a sizable portion of my dance education was centered around Ballet and Modern. Decentering these genres as "classical" and taking a global view of movement has been rewarding. I would encourage dancers to immerse themselves in learning a cultural dance form—not solely for performance’s sake. Embedding yourself in a cultural dance form often means diving fully into another worldview. These experiences shape who you are at the core and grow your empathy, giving you more authentic experiences to pull from for character development. In addition to learning African diasporic dance styles, I have taken movement classes in Bharatanatyam, Tai Chi, and Kemetic yoga.
Photographer unknown, Sister Mama Sonya as Granny Griot in “The Fairytale Project” in Shankleville, TX
Learn your own family history.
As the proverb goes, a people with no vision will perish. There’s no better way to connect to your inner creativity than to start with your own family tree. Being grounded in who you are helps so much with artistry because you are pouring from a full cup. You’re able to pull from your own memories to tell more stories. I encourage dancers at all phases to take the time to learn more about their family. It could be learning a recipe, going through photo albums, or even helping to plan the next family reunion.
Photo Credit: Stacey Allen. Dancers with National Ballet of Senegal, Dakar Senegal
Travel intentionally and responsibly.
As an extension of emphasizing learning our family histories, travel is so necessary in self-development. This past year, I had the opportunity to explore my ancestral homelands—from East Texas to Mississippi to Senegal. During this intentional time with family in East Texas and Mississippi, I was able to take oral histories and look through family photo albums. My travel to Senegal, West Africa—the region where the majority of African Americans can trace their roots—was centered around the study of dance and drum, but we learned so much about ourselves during the stay. Having the opportunity to learn dance and drum in the environment they were created helped me think through functionality and the multiple purposes movement serves. I often tell my students to approach alignment with the image of women carrying items on their heads—much like what you’ll see throughout the African diaspora. These intentional travel experiences not only expanded my worldview but also deepened my understanding of my own lineage.
Image courtesy of Houston Public Libraries
READ!
We all love a well-read dancer! Many ballets and operas are adapted from literature, and the more you are well-versed in the canons of literature, the more source material you’ll have to pull from. Reading transports us to times and places our bodies can’t travel to as quickly, exposing us to new ideas, information, and points of view. Whether you choose nonfiction, investigative journalism, romance, or historical fiction—through text, readers are encompassed in storytelling and develop an understanding of complex characters. As new voices emerge, more African American choreographers and librettists are pulling from African American literature. Familiarity with the text will, without question, increase your bookings as you’ll be an asset to the creative process.
REST and RECHARGE.
Please don’t let the idea of rest become cliché. We need rest not only to function but to thrive. Creative rest—one of the seven types of rest—prioritizes giving your mind an opportunity to reset and come up with new ideas, which is key to creativity. Ways of resting can include picking up a hobby like quilting or knitting, visiting a loved one, or even going for a walk. Pre-professional dancers make tremendous commitments to their craft. Proper rest not only limits burnout and fatigue and increases career longevity, but also allows dancers to be present in the opportunities in front of them and reconnect with why they fell in love with dance in the first place. Dancers are more than machines that can push their bodies limitlessly to achieve extraordinary aesthetics. We are people with sensibilities and curiosities that should fuel the outward expression our bodies create. Balancing discipline with creativity is the making of an embodied storyteller—whose artistry can move generations.
Photographer: Jakaya Monay
Stacey Allen is an award-winning dancemaker, curator, and advocate for arts education, equity, and reproductive justice. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Nia’s Daughters Movement Collective and the author of A Little Optimism Goes a Long Way and D is for Dance: Dancing Through the Diaspora. She also created The Fairytale Project, a touring dance-theater piece inspired by Texas Freedom Colonies. Based in Houston, TX, she holds a BA in Dance and an MA in Cross-Cultural Studies. Her research interests include dance anthropology, material culture, and the intersections of movement and memory. Stacey is the Director of Artistic Programming at The Anderson Center for Arts and a consultant for the Out(Sider) Preservation Initiative. Learn more at www.niasdaughters.com or on IG @theblackartsymom.