How to stay involved with dance when ill/injured?

Amulya

Moderator
I'm curious how people stay/stayed involved when they couldn't dance for a while due to injury or illness.

For example if someone has a knee injury they can still teach sitting down. But what if you've broken your back (like me) and have to wait years to recover? I also suffer from a chronic illness (Ehler-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder) that doesn't really help. But when I don't have a broken back I am able to perform once in a while and teach a bit. I used to be able to teach weekly, teach heaps of workshops and perform a lot, but this illness is gegenerative so I haven't been able to do things at that level for quite a while.

This lead in what I call a 'dance depression'! I would like to get more involved again, but I have no idea how. I'm sure I'm not alone, so I thought it might be good to start a topic about this :)
 

Darshiva

Moderator
Host guest teacher workshops/festivals, go out to performances when you can, mentor more novice dancers, host video nights, organise parties, manage the hundreds of dancers in Melbourne who want good pay & aren't able to speak up for themselves... I hope this gives you some ideas. :)
 

Amulya

Moderator
I'm partially bedridden and 99% housebound. I can go out of the house once a week, and that's very hard. So hosting things won't be possible. Going to events would be possible. I haven't checked recently if there is anything. I was too depressed about it all to be bothered to go out and see others dance (I get jealous haha)
 

Darshiva

Moderator
The management thing though, I'm serious about that. I know of a good handful of dancers who would like a manager so they can focus on the dancing. Being a dancer who is unable to dance on a regular basis you know all the background stuff that goes into it and have the time on your hands. I think it would be a great use of your time and would make excellent use of your dance experience.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Are you able to sew at home? I've spent years looking at pictures of your costumes and reading your descriptions of how to alter and repair costumes. Sewing challenged dancers would stand in line for someone to alter garments.

I understand the envy thing. It used to kill me to watch my range of dance ability decrease despite everything I could do. Now it just wounds me severely upon occasion. ;)
 
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Amulya

Moderator
Sewing isn't an option ATM, it requires sitting up. The moment I can do that again I will pick up my last costume to finish it (although it doesn't fit anymore and you can't shrink a bra, got to find a creative way to work with that)
Is there money in costume alterations? I wonder what one can charge for that.
 

Amulya

Moderator
It's quite a variable 15-25 isn't it? Although I think if someone would spend 2 hours altering a Bella for me I wouldn't mind paying $50 :)
Where would one advertise it if they offer such things? There might be a market for it :)
 

Amulya

Moderator
Btw I think business advice wise I'm useless: that has never been my strong point! I knew all about that sort of stuff in Holland but I moved away 8 years ago so that would have changed heaps and business was different there than here. I sometimes think it might be good to have a site advertising for multiple dancers (for gigs and classes) who can be booked through one person so it takes away the fuss of the business site for the dancers, but I wouldn't know where to advertise and find gigs for them. And I doubt dancers would be willing to give part of their pig payment to the site owner. I suspect that gig prices are very low here from what I have heard.
 

Dunyah

New member
So sorry to hear that you are having such a difficult time. Maybe you can listen to music and run old choreographies in your mind, or make up new ones for later. Watch performances on You
Tube or DVDs to research dance styles. I recently got interested in Greek Rembetiko, for example, there is a lot of great music in that style, while not strictly belly dance, it is fascinating.

Read Aunt Rocky's book, maybe?

Hope you are up and feeling better as soon as possible.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
I've never even heard of Greek Rembetiko. The things I learn from people on OD! (Heads off to look it up on YouTube.)
 

Amulya

Moderator
I haven't heard of that either! Got to look that up :)

I hope my back will heal soon, but it's not just my back, I have some difficult illnesses (Ehler-Danlos and POTS) and it's recommended I spend a lot of time lying down flat, that's good for POTS, to keep the blood from pooling in my legs, otherwise my brain doesn't get enough oxygen and I get real foggy in the brain (and I become a really weird funny forum member haha) Dancing can be good for it, it's not recommended by my doctor, but I feel it helps my blood flow, so the moment my back is back on track I will dance! I refuse to live horizontal the rest of my life. The funny thing is that gentle exercise can be good for Ehler-Danlos as long as you make sure you don't get injuries (very easy to get injured) but it's not good for POTS. Sometimes I have to laugh at my weird body with its contradictions, LOL!

ATM I do other hobbies, things I have neglected a lot due to being obsessed with dancing: drawing, painting, photography and jewelry making. So maybe there is a good side to this, it forces me to go back into old hobbies and use some other talents. Maybe I should draw belly dancers :D
 

Amulya

Moderator
Thanks Shira, that's a good article it sums it up pretty well :) I have heaps of videos and maybe I should start working on my YouTube blog again (that's a blog that replaced the video clip link list) because that's something I can share with people. I like sharing things, doing things on my own isn't always very inspiring. I might some time soon finish my costume, it is part of a costume making diary that I never finished. Sadly while I have been making it it stopped fitting so I have to figure out a way to make it fitting again.

You mentioned forums, what forums are there these days besides this one and Bhuz (I'm not keen on Bhuz, too big!)?
 

shiradotnet

Well-known member
You mentioned forums, what forums are there these days besides this one and Bhuz (I'm not keen on Bhuz, too big!)?

These days, a lot of forum-like activity is taking place on Facebook, in various Facebook groups. it takes a bit of sleuthing to find some of them - there are ones for academic belly dancers, belly dancers who are interested in history, Biz of Bellydance, 1970's belly dance, general belly dance discussion, etc.
 

Amulya

Moderator
I was suspecting so, it's like Tribe, I didn't like that format much because those groups don't have forum sections and posts easily get buried underneath new ones. I also don't like that its harder to keep track of who is who if you're member of many groups (maybe that's just me, I have trouble remembering names)

I was thinking yesterday, maybe I should move my video clip blog to Facebook, seems that everything is happening at FB these days.
 

Daimona

Moderator
I was suspecting so, it's like Tribe, I didn't like that format much because those groups don't have forum sections and posts easily get buried underneath new ones. I also don't like that its harder to keep track of who is who if you're member of many groups (maybe that's just me, I have trouble remembering names)

I was thinking yesterday, maybe I should move my video clip blog to Facebook, seems that everything is happening at FB these days.

Or you could keep it as it is, and then just post links to it on fb whenever you make a new entry. :)
 

Amulya

Moderator
Yes I was thinking of keeping the old one and using the new for new videos I discover. Not sure how much interest there is for such things, when I just started it (more than 8 years ago) it was very popular, but now we have YouTube and its easier to find things, however it's often a lot of work to find good ones, so maybe people still like to have someone else search them and post them for them hopefully.
 
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