“I know that I shimmied… a lot. For almost the whole 4 minutes, I think.”

Oh that sounds so familiar. That nervousness, the zoning out, the fall-back-moves taking over your dancing and the brain that can’t come up with the right mix or variety of moves.

We all know that you don’t need twenty spectacular moves to perform a spectacular dance. Three moves will do just fine if they’re done boldly. But what about those times where you spend an entire song fighting to get away from that one fall-back move, trying to remember anything else that you know how to do, and boldness is just a footnote waiting for there to be a move to attach it to.

Let’s look at how to bring more variety and creativity to your dancing. Creativity is rooted in the right hemisphere of your brain. During normal activity, your brain’s function is a kind of synchronized exchange between your right brain and your left brain.  Your right brain contributes those ideas that seem to strike like lightning, leaving you astonished at where it came from. Your left brain contributes the ideas that are a logical extension of what worked in the past, with thought processes such as, “shimmies will work well for this tight drum roll.” And, “Ah, I can always fit a nice egyptian hip drop to this baladi rhythm.”

But it’s a combination of these ideas that will give you a nicely balanced dance, showcasing moves that are a perfect, logical fit to the rhythms, with occasional moves that seem inspired by the music leading your body with no amount of logic required. So how do we open up the right brain so that its juices are flowing and it gives us those moments of inspiration more often? True improvisational dance is like brainstorming — you can’t force it, but you can give it an environment where ideas flourish and you can flex your brainstorming muscles more often so that, when they’re needed, they don’t cramp up and leave you in a perpetual shimmy.

You may remember that one of the most important tenets of brainstorming is to not censor ideas. When you’re brainstorming, accept all ideas as being good enough, because once you start editing, you inhibit the flow of new ideas — ideas which could be your best ones yet. In the same way, the key to doing good brainstorming dancing is to open yourself up, and let yourself be uninhibited about your dancing.

Here are four ideas for more brainstorming-oriented dance:

1. Dance at 200%. 

   This is a good trick for when you’re feeling self-conscious. If you’re dancing at 200%, you can’t ask yourself if a move is appropriate, because the answer is “of course it’s not. so what?” If you start asking this question, just turn up the intensity of the move — bigger movement, more enthusiasm, huge eyes, bigger smile. Keep turning it up until the question of “is this the right move?” disappears.
    

2. Dance for a child.

   Similar to dancing at 200%, only now, you have an audience. But the only judgment this audience is capable of making is, “am I having fun?” A child won’t care about your technique, doesn’t care how impressive your backbend is, they only care if you, and they, are getting lost in the moment. 
    

3. Do it without technique. 

   If you don’t already, make time to dance where you HAVE to just let go and enjoy it, throw out your technique, forget choreographies, stop asking if it’s good enough. Don’t even say “I am going to belly dance”, because that sets limits on how you will move. Just put on music and move. Don’t stop to think or to check a move. Don’t question if this is the right move; just turn off the mental chatter and go. Do this however often you need to, but no less than once a week. SRSLY.
    

4. Dance a story.

   This is a common suggestion for investing your dance with more emotion, but when you are really sunk into a story, you can be surprised where this takes you in your dance. If you have been particularly into a novel, historical figure or movie, try dancing the character that intrigues you the most. Let go of who you are. Stay away from mirrors so you don’t jar yourself back into remembering who you really are, or slip into critiquing what is happening. In fact, try turning off the lights. 

As you can see from the above list, the art of creativity seems to boil down to, “shut your inner critic up and enjoy yourself.” Some people find this a lot easier than others. So what do you do to get creative?