My approach to my solo for the Charlottesville show this weekend is: keep the dancing small and controlled...
With less muscle strength and a wonky foot to deal with, my style has to adapt. No longer am I comfortable relying on my body to "just do it" - whatever "it" happened to be at the moment. My wonderful dancer's body was strong and reliable for many years and many shows, allowing me to whirl away with the music however I wanted... Now my body needs more careful use.
That's okay, I'm fine with that - aging is not a freak-out issue for me for some reason; I've never felt bad about getting older. Although of course I did used to hide my age when I performed professionally, as most dancers do. Feels so nice not to do that anymore!
I've edited my music (the gorgeous "Layal" by Hassim Saleh-Eddine) to about 7 minutes. It's a lovely Oriental piece one of my former students, Adara Janaani, gave me; it's hard to find online so I'm lucky to have it. During the opening I've been doing a bunch of spins, now my knees and the THR-hip are telling me to take it easy when rehearsing! So I'm only doing a few run-throughs at a time. No chance that it'll be "over-rehearsed"!
What I do wonder is how slippery the stage will be. The foot I broke a few years ago demands to be coddled in dance slippers; dancing barefoot is not an option. A couple of my youtube videos show me dancing on a super slippery stage, in fact, they're the videos from my last seminar show before I retired due to hip pain. Double whammy! But I feel pretty confident even about a slippery stage. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and enjoying a wonderful night in the beautiful "Haven" of Charlottesville.
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