Dance Your Troubles Away

Belfagen Dancers
(photo courtesy of Liz Fenwick/dancers courtesy of Anna Louise Lucia)

I’m still in recovery from last weekend’s RNA Conference in Penrith. A weekend which has become my writing New Year’s Eve, a time and place for me to assess the last year and plan for the new. A place to learn as well as a place to talk too much, drink copious amounts and generally get up to mischief.

This year it hit me like a proper new year. With all the angst and fear and heartache that I suffer every 31^st December. This last year has been full of ups and downs and beyond busy in a personal sense. I also realized (after being grumpy and various Heroine Addicts giving me great advice) that I haven’t been writing enough. Three hours of solid writing later and my mood was on the way back.

But what really got me in the new year spirit was something not directly connected with writing. The lovely Anna Louise Lucia is a morris dancer and asked her dance side to come and demonstrate to us on Sunday afternoon. They also taught us two dances. It was AMAZING! Everyone was grinning from ear to ear after we’d finished. All the cobwebs and problems were swept away as we tapped and twirled, dipped and swung.

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” Voltaire

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking” Agnes De Mille

“It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.” Xiaolu Guo

“Life is sweet when you pay attention. When it doesn't seem sweet, put a sticker on your nose and do a funky dance.” Whitney Scott

Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna (who we missed at the RNA)