I am almost 2 years old. My eyes are closed. I can feel my heart beating, and I try to slow down my breath, taking huge inhales and releasing huge exhales. I’ve never felt so scared, and yet being on stage is all I ever dreamed of. As I wait...
Blog
Endings on Opening Night
Life isn't "black and white." There are all these shades of grey—and so many colors—that create beauty in it all. They're never static, either. The shades and colors change all the time. Every day, I'm feeling that challenge of being fluid, accepting and knowing that nothing will ever stay...
I never learned how to ride a bike
So, this might come as a surprise… but I never learned how to ride a bike. Like, not ever. My mom wouldn’t let me. Starting as a pre-teen, I was the breadwinner of the family, teaching dance around the country. And my mom was afraid that I would hurt myself...
What the body knows
Have you ever gotten weak at the knees and felt like your body couldn’t hold you up? Like you couldn’t even breathe? And the feeling came out of nowhere? One of those experiences when your body had such an immediate and visceral response before your mind even had a chance...
Going in to go out
As the stay-at-home order here in California goes on and on, week after week, month after month, I keep thinking about the concept of Home Position. When my body is in Home Position—the starting posture of my dance format—I go into a kind of meditation. It’s where I find awareness...
What can heal us?
If COVID hadn’t spread around the world this spring, I’d be in the middle of teaching summer workshops in the dance studios of Mills College. Right now I'd be sharing dance, movement, and community with the global Salimpour School. These annual summer workshops have been such a vibrant anchor not...
The power of persistence
It can be hard to find the inspiration to keep working in times like these. With so much conflict and change, it’s really easy to get sucked into watching the news or just being distracted from what we need to do. Personally, I’m the kind of person who has to...
What does freedom mean?
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the recent events here in the United States, wondering what I could possibly say that would be appropriate or meaningful right now. And today is the 19th of June, the date in 1863 when Black people in the United States were...
I am Inspired
I am INSPIRED. I am so inspired by you. You have fed my soul through my entire life. I grew up listening to your music. My mother grew up listening to your music. Every move I manifested in my childhood, if it wasn't music from the Middle East, it was coming...
Ladybugs for Isabella
When Isabella asked me for a ladybug themed birthday, I giggled. I thought it was a bit silly. But then I started thinking about what that meant… and I realized that it was a lot deeper than I first thought. When Isabella was little, I used to call her my...