I cannot wait to take this to my grad seminar class on Friday and show it as an example of a) how a student could be better served by educators with a background in multi-cultural education b) the wrong way to approach assessing a reflective journal. The instructor only saw a student who clapped back at her and called…

Thank you Jinni! I love what I do! Sometimes, like any other profession, I can’t get motivated. I was taking an extremely challenging modern dance class last semester. There were times when I felt like, man— what am I doing in this program? I’m 36 years old. And then I pulled my back in ballet class, and I was going…

I learned the hard way with respect to the coccyx pain. I was teaching two two-hour long beginners ballet classes at the local university (and taking technique for a couple of hours a day). Part of my warm up for these classes is a very slow deep core initiation exercise designed to teach the students how to use their…

My pleasure! I love what I do, and I love teaching what I do. I want to dance and move as functionally as I can for as long as possible, and I want the same thing for my students and anyone I run into who loves movement theory!

I’m a dancer and dance teacher, and yes- Pilates is one of my “core” resources. Joseph Pilates, the founder of the method, was also a contemporary of Ida Rolf (think Rolfing deep fascia massage), Martha Graham, Irmgard Bartenieff and Rudolph von Laban of the Laban-Bartenieff dance/dance therapy technique, and Moshe…

Pelvic floor initiation is used by dancers and is something that should be encouraged, however...as a dance professional (I hold a BFA with a concentration in Ballet and I’m getting my masters in dance ed) someone with a 6 week certification who has never taken an anatomy class and doesn’t know the difference between…

I would suggest (if you can, given your schedule) finding an adult beginner’s ballet class taught by a professional with at least a bachelors in their field. Teachers who only have experience as “studio dancers” don’t have the most up-to-date perspective or education on dance and movement science. The adult body is…

I am a dancer and dance teacher, and I’m not a fan of barre. I am getting a masters in dance education, and one thing that I can say is that many of the exercises and stretches that barre classes (and dance teachers of a certain generation) teach are terrible for your connective tissue and joints. There are at least…

I remember being 12 years old and watching Aladdin in the theater when it first came out. I was not into Disney so much at that age, but I went because a) I LOVED Robin Williams, and b) I was excited to see a Disney character that vaguely resembled me on screen. My family are Armenians and Arab Christians from…

This bullshit “I’m not a racist (I’m being subversive) or a nationalist (because fuck patriotism); I’m an anarchist because that sounds cool” segment of punk rock and hipster culture has been around for a LONG time. Watching this dude go from just a fucking misogynist who penned the most galling of Vice’s Do’s and…

Three words: health code violation. It’s the establishment’s duty (not doody) to warn the customer that they are violating health code by changing a diaper in FOH. The establishment would be within their rights to eject the customer if they refused to comply.

My grandmother was a Christian from Cairo and the old ways filtered deep into their practice. They never stopped worshipping the Goddess, they just replaced her image with the Virgin Mary. She carried an ankh, read coffee grounds and tarot, and wore this balm that smelled like sandalwood and lemon rind. I cried, too,…

I still remember (barely) the Rozz Williams memorial party at my local Goth bar. Sigh.

I was so bummed when they took Ashes and Catastrophe Ballet off of Spotify.

Dude. She’s wearing a lively blue prom dress. Her hair is in a playfully loose chignon. If this was me 20 years ago, This Mortal Coil or Christian Death would have been blasting from the stereo and it would have taken me an hour to wash off the special effects makeup with Noxema.

Poser.

I was religiously taking orthotriciclin (8:36am every day on my way out the door to work) when I conceived my son. I was nearly four months pregnant when I found out. I had fibroids and endometriosis, so missing a couple of periods on the pill was not only expected, it was a relief. So yeah. These things happen. My…

I don’t know how many of the writers of <i>Arab News</i> are actually Arab, but I do know that the women of my family are masters of the craft. From casually forgetting the names of my Anglo in-laws (my husband and I have been married for 12 years) to the, “Oh, I had a dress like that when I was 10 years younger than…

Wait, isn’t this the whole point of the immigrant provisions in VAWA, or do those just cover those with active visas??

These pants, as hideous as they are, make me miss the 90's rave scene. So much more fun and positive than the sound of the apocalypse that is EDM in the post 9/11 era. I went to see Moby a couple of years ago expecting a good-old-fashioned heart-felt disco mouse set. Instead, he spun dubstep and I nearly set off a…