214. Dancing with True Authenticity and Confidence with Choreographer Alexandra Beller

Dr Chelsea: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm your host, Dr. Chelsea, and today I got to sit down with accomplished dancer, choreographer, and educator Alexandra Bella. If you have ever struggled with negative self-talk, had a hard time being calm and confident during auditions or felt frustrated when you're learning someone else's choreography, Alexandra has great advice to share.

She talks about her own journey from being a young dancer to a world touring professional, to the accomplished choreographer and author that she is now. She also offers valuable insights on dealing with that inner critic, building body awareness, and fostering authenticity in your performance. Here's my conversation with Alexandra.

Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer, turn sport psychologist, and this podcast is for everyone in the dance industry who want to learn actionable strategies and new mindsets to build happier, more successful dancers. I. I know what it feels like to push through the pain, take on all the criticism, and do whatever it takes to make [00:01:00] sure the show will go on.

But I also know that we understand more about mental health and resilience than ever before, and it's time to change the industry for the better. This podcast is for all of us to connect, learn, and share our passion for dance with the world.

Dr Chelsea: Hi, Alexandra. Thank you so much for coming.

Alexandra B.: Thanks for having me.

Dr Chelsea: Will you just briefly introduce yourself, tell us a little about your dance journey.

Alexandra B.: Yeah, so I started, dancing as a kid and was very serious about it right away. I think I was probably 10 or 11 years old and people would say, you know, do you know what you wanna be when you grow up? And I would say, oh, I'm already doing it. I'm a dancer. So I, um. I was ballet a jazz dancer. I went to college and became, you know, a bonafide weirdo, modern dancer.

Um, left college and pretty immediately got into Bill T Jones and I was, uh, fortunate enough to tour the world with that company for seven years, and [00:02:00] then really got the bug to choreograph myself. So I left in 2001 and started a dance company right away and was choreographing and touring with my work and somewhere in there.

Um, I was also teaching a lot while I was with Bill, and that was predominantly how I, uh, supported myself afterwards. And then somewhere in there I went and got my MFA and then I got a CMA Certified Movement Analyst, which is a degree in Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals. And that was about 12 years ago, at which point I really started choreographing for theater.

Um, and then inside that, started studying intimacy direction. And so now I choreograph direct and intimacy, direct mostly for theater. I teach dance choreography, pedagogy, Laban/Bartenieff acting, uh, movement for actors, et cetera in higher education situations. I see [00:03:00] private clients in somatic therapy.

Um, I run workshops in New York and online, and I'm just about to submit my manuscript, uh, for a book on creative process. So that's going in in a couple months.

Dr Chelsea: Oh my gosh, what a journey. I love that. That was a beautiful summary of, but now I wanna dig into it for a second and ask so many good things. The way you describe it feels like a natural flow of like then this thing, then that thing, then this built out of that. Will you talk a little about those transitions, how you make choices, how you decide like, I need to do something else, leave this move on.

What is that process for you?

Alexandra B.: Yeah, it's such a good question, and I have ruminated on my own process for decades because it feels like I don't really think that I've ever gotten to that point where I'm like, I'm miserable. I don't wanna do this anymore. I have to figure out what to do. I feel like something else just slowly starts to infiltrate my consciousness and [00:04:00] imagination and desire and, and then I start to engage in that and it just pulls me towards it.

And then that becomes my next thing. So I don't feel like I've had that many, um, really violent shifts, even though I feel like I've had about eight careers, but. I do feel like they're so organically intertwined and you know, of course not every dancer wants to choreograph. There's no, you know, hierarchy or roadmap that has to lead you there.

But for those of us that get that bug, I think, you know, being in somebody else's process, especially somebody like Bill t Jones, who's, um, got so many skills and is such a great artist and crafts person. And so, you know, being in his process and watching him work for seven years, definitely,, fed that.

And, the, the teaching just came very naturally, and then each thing just felt like there was a hunger for [00:05:00] more structure, more foundation, more information. Like I was teaching a lot and. Felt like my classes were going quite well and got a lot of good feedback, but I felt like, I feel like I'm winging it every class, I just feel like I'm making it up and it goes well, but I want more, I want to put more thought and intentionality into my teaching and I didn't know how to do that.

I had so many, uh, different forms and modalities from, you know, having studied a little bit of body mind centering and Alexander technique and, you know, all these different. Styles and forms of dance and somatics and I felt like I wanted a system to be able to coalesce and organize all of this disparate information so that I could be using exactly the right tool at the right time.

You know, I felt like I had collected, uh, you know, 300 tools, but I didn't have a toolbox or a garage with, you know, pegs on the [00:06:00] walls. So I couldn't see anything, and I would just kind of root around in my dark bag and pull out a tool and it would work. You know, I would make it work. But Laban Bartenieff gave me that toolbox organization to put everything in.

And so that became a real through line ever since I got my degree about 12 years ago. That has become, um, a foundational through line now with everything I do and teach.

Dr Chelsea: I so relate to that. I feel like that space in the, in the mental skills world, that I have accumulated things from so many different teachers. 'cause most of it is in traditional sport, so it's been like. To find the people who have transitioned it into dance and then now it does feel like, okay, I, I do know a lot of things and I can, like you said, I can, it will work if I, pull out that tool in the moment.

But the organization, yes. I guess I'm just now self-reflecting in the moment I need that. I need,

Alexandra B.: and I also have a neurodivergent brain, so one of the beauties of it is [00:07:00] that I, I'm curious and novelty speaks to me and I get excited about new information and I accumulate and gather and somewhat hoard information from a lot of different fields. Neurology, you know, psychology, trauma therapy, et cetera.

And then. Part of the difficulty of that neurodivergent brain is that it will, you know, hop skip around from thing to thing. So having Laban Bartenieff was a very grounding, um, system for me to be able to locate my material inside my own brain.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that makes sense. And I have, you know, a, a different experience, but the same outcome in that I pursue learning. It's just a value. But then that means, yeah, like you said, hoarding of knowledge. But then I need an organization of what do I do with this and how do I bring it out there? So I appreciate that.

It is good to think about , when you've been working for so long, you have collected so much and sometimes it's nice to pause and be like, [00:08:00] is there a good way to, uh, to restructure this for me?

I like that.

Alexandra B.: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I do think that's. A lot of the, the impetus for the book was I felt like I need to start getting some of this out of my brain, not only in real time when I'm teaching, but in a more, um, comprehensive way. And so it was really over seven years ago that I started writing the book and I wrote it in fits and spurts and off and on, and I would touch it and go away.

And then about a year ago, I was having a real dry spell in terms of choreography and direction. Just, you know, like not a lot coming in of, in terms of offers to get in the studio. And I think, and this goes back to your earlier question of like, how have these transitions happened? Um, I feel like, you know, maybe unconsciously my creative hunger and need to [00:09:00] make something started rearing up.

But I didn't notice like, Ooh, you don't have any creative work and you're feeling, you know, a little dry. Why don't you go turn to your book? Just, you know, I opened it and I started working on it and I had a little more time and then I was like, you know, this is really. Ready to start pitching it. So I just turned my focus to publishers and, , eventually was, um, so grateful to receive an offer from Bloomsbury.

And now this has become my whole creative focus. I'm just, you know, obsessed with finishing this book.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, I'm excited to to hear more about it. And I also think that is a. Experience for creatives, and like you said, it's just the next way that you are expressing your creativity. And maybe that's where the transitions feel more, like you said, they're not a violent shift. They're like, my creativity is filled.

It just looks a little different in

Alexandra B.: Yeah. And I think sometimes we get overly attached to the, the title or the symbol. You know, I [00:10:00] think we do this with goals. Like, oh, I wanna get into this particular company. And when I'm mentoring, um, artists and they're like, you know, I wanna get into, whatever it is, Rebel's Company or, uh. I, which is great.

Great goal. Nothing wrong with it, and I'm not trying to dissuade you, but I do wanna dig under it like. Why do you want that? And often there are a lot of different components to it that can be filled without that outcome. And I'm not saying don't also go for that outcome, but you want to get into that company because you wanna be in a connected, committed, artistic experience with, uh, like-minded group of people and have community.

You wanna travel. Or you wanna stop waiting tables or you, you know, like so many different reasons and many of those can be filled on their own before you get that job while still trying to get it. And I feel like the opposite is often true for me is I'm just like, my creativity is a mobile [00:11:00] thing inside me and sort of wherever I look.

That's where my creativity is gonna land, and it doesn't feel essential to me that it looks a particular way. Like I'm absolutely still very passionate about choreography and direction, but I can imagine a world in which that starts to get replaced with something else. I've been really enjoying writing books and being in one-on-one.

Physical relationships with clients in terms of their body healing and their, their practice and their movement qualities. And um, so, you know, I think things just morph and transition when we don't attach to the title of it so much.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, I love that. Especially in an age of. Celebrating the outcome where it's social media and how many followers and what names you are associated with. And that, yes, feels good, but it's that outward praise [00:12:00] that, yeah, if that's your only goal or that's your only direction, you miss so much of the journey and the positive things.

And like you said, you could fulfill it in so many ways if you detach a little bit from that end outcome. That's such good advice. Uh, but I. Not leave the book because I think that you're, we're here and we're touching on it right now. What is your, your take home, your message that you're hoping dancers get from this?

I.

Alexandra B.: Well, the book is, uh, about the creative process. It, it is geared towards downtime theater makers overall, but I do hope that other artists find a. Just as much benefit from it as dance and theater artists. Um, there are so many takeaways, but I would say if I had to boil it down, um, my biggest pursuit in the book is to empower and [00:13:00] validate, and, give opportunities for choice to artists in regard to making their own work. So I'm, I'm not writing the book to tell anybody how to do anything except for how to look at their art through. This lens, this lens, this lens, and potentially see something that they hadn't seen before. I do believe every artist is the expert on their work, as I believe every human is the expert on themselves.

But that doesn't mean that we, um, I. We can't benefit from feedback, and I like to remember the origin of this idea of feedback, which is an oral, you know, a sound idea where something goes out, it hits something, it bounces off that thing and it comes back to the source. And so I'm trying to have the book be the thing that your art bounces off or your artistry bounces off, and hopefully, a reflective enough device, like if you [00:14:00] have a crystal in the sun and then you get this, you know, gorgeous rainbow on some surface, you are the sun, the artist is the sun, and the book is the crystal. And then what comes out of it is this, you know, hopefully beautiful kaleidoscope of, color and shape and, and imagery.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, I love that analogy. That absolutely makes sense. And. So I think one last piece to this, kind of tying back, I have been talking a lot about success lately and talking to artists about how we define success, and I think that's kind of what we were getting to is when success is only this external thing and you don't look inward for it.

That's where you see, you know, the burnout and the disappointment and the frustrations along your career. So will you share a little about how you define success as an artist, if that has shifted as you've had your careers?

Alexandra B.: Oh yeah, it, it has shifted, um, momentously over [00:15:00] decades. Um, I would define success for an artist as knowing how to look inward and find themselves, and then how to take that material and turn it into something that they believe in.

Dr Chelsea: I love that answer. Oh, we always wanna create something we believe in. Thank you. I love that.

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Dr Chelsea: I wanna turn to, , body awareness. So I think something that you have talked a lot about and have an expertise in, and I think as dancers we are familiar with that need or we hear feedback of needing to work on your body awareness or, I talked to a lot of teachers who were like, oh, that little girl has no body awareness whatsoever. I can't find her body in space. So, uh, we talk a little about why that body awareness or embodiment, I don't know if you use those terms interchangeably, but, um, why that's so important to dancers and how you help them find it.

Alexandra B.: yeah. Well, it feeds right into the last thing that we were just saying, um, which is. If we're not gonna turn to an outward [00:17:00] model for success and we're gonna turn to an inward model, that then becomes visible on the outside. That's exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about embodiment, which is, I feel myself, I know where I am on the inside, and that can mean a lot of different things.

I know how to use my breath. I know how to use both tension and freedom, or flow or yielding or surrendering. I know how to use physics. I know how my joints work. I know, um, you know how to engage or release really specific muscles. Um, I know how to connect my emotional state to my physical state, and.

Allow myself to learn about me through what I'm sensing and feeling on the inner body. Um, and then when I move, when I dance, when I express myself, it's really me. It's not me copying something. It's not me trying to fit into somebody else's model or mold. It's not me [00:18:00] trying to. Hit an arbitrary, um, you know, outside metric of, flexibility or turns or height or strength or anything like that.

It's really, and I think there are a lot of different reasons to dance and I'm not negating anybody else's reason to dance. This is really about what I appreciate about dancing. But I think then you're allowed your real humanity and your awkwardness and your, variety of feelings and expressions to become visible to the world in a way that is authentic.

And I don't think there's a bigger gift that we give either ourselves or the world than our authenticity.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Alexandra B.: Maybe authenticity leads also to empathy, which is the other biggest gift. I think we give both ourselves and the world, and I think our authenticity leads to that empathy because when we're real, we can recognize the realness in others.

[00:19:00] And we're also not hedging against or defending, or masking, which keeps us from seeing other people accurately. If you know we are not expressing ourselves accurately and fully, I think we have trouble. I. Seeing other people accurately and fully because not only do people have a filter on us to get through to reach us, but we have a filter between us and the world to also see others.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, absolutely. head is going in too many places. I think I want, I wanna start with the part about, you know, building that sense of body awareness and authenticity when you are trying to learn somebody else's choreography. Uh, because I think, like you were saying, you can learn from a specific person, but if you are trying to just mimic them, and I think a lot of dancers do that.

Like, okay, I'm supposed to learn this person's work. I have to just mimic them. And there's differences, right? There's some [00:20:00] areas of dance where like the extreme precision is the point and that is what you're supposed to do. And then other areas that have a little more freedom with that. But in either realm, I think dancers. If they don't try to figure out, how do I do this well, and they just say, I have to look exactly like that. You have this frustration or this sense of, I'll never look like that, or My body doesn't do that. Uh, so do you see that as where the embodiment plays in? That's what I'm hearing that.

Alexandra B.: absolutely. And again, it's that like dissociative state of I'm gonna match that thing on the outside that really has nothing to do with me. And yes, , there are differences in, somebody's teaching you very stylized specific choreography and you need to match it, and they want a particular look.

They're not looking for your flavor of it. Especially, but then when you get to the granular level, they're always still looking for you and your uniqueness and your specificity and idiosyncrasy. Even in something [00:21:00] as codified as ballet, the people that eventually you remember their names for a hundred years is because they didn't dance like everybody else.

Even though, yes. You know, Balanchine laid out this shape and you know, Suzanne Farrell hit it and then Wendy Whalen, hi it and right, these different people. Match certain metrics, but still they are uniquely themselves. So even, even in the most codified forms still, when you get to the highest levels of expression, you are still looking at this unique human being expressing who they are and how they feel.

And so for me, I feel like it all comes down to. Zooming out to understand the task. And this is what I think some choreographers are especially skilled at being transparent about the tasks and allowing that level of thinking and autonomy to come through the dancer's body. Because essentially it's like.

In [00:22:00] science, you don't teach scientists how to do an experiment. You teach them how to think. You teach them how to come up with a hypothesis and, and then come up with, um, you know, experiments that are gonna prove that hypothesis true or false, or take them in a new direction, and then how to test it. Um, and I think.

Many great choreographers know how to bring their movement collaborators in at that level where you're like, here's the movement question, even if it's set choreography, the movement question for me is still, there's this weight shift, there's this folding of the knee, which is gonna offset the pelvis, it's gonna create this rotation.

That rotation's gonna create a kinetic chain that goes up. The spi, you know, spirals up the spine, and that's gonna create the turn of the head and. So even if that choreographer wants a very specific chain of events that when they teach it, everybody who does it will be in unison. They still don't have to say, your knee moves forward and your this goes here.

They can talk about [00:23:00] the tasks and each artist can find it. And the thing that's so wonderful magical about the human body is we do have limited options when we're really responding to physics, right? Like if you say, you know, hold your arm up high and then release all the muscles that you're using to hold it up, everybody's arm is gonna do pretty much the same thing, right?

If you say, keep your pelvis facing this way, but bend this knee, everyone's pelvis is gonna move in pretty much the same way. You know, of course there are slight variations based on our rotation, et cetera, but. The thing about tasks is you bring in a, the whole brain of the mover in a way that mimicking does not do, and I think it's such a gesture of respect and, um, sharing autonomy and authority and

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Alexandra B.: diminishing hierarchy in that [00:24:00] choreographer dancer relationship.

Dr Chelsea: And I think with dancers too, when we see a lot of like burnout and is because they are just trying to mimic and show up and do what everybody else asks me to do without. Giving themselves a chance to, like, you can still be you, even while you are doing what is asked of you in the moment, and, and hold onto both and not let go of who you are.

Alexandra B.: absolutely. Yeah.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Part of that then makes me think about the, the internal critic that comes up in this process, right? Because if you are, you know, struggling with those, those negative thoughts, feeling like, oh, I, I don't look like her. My body doesn't do that. I can't match his lines, like being able to.

Deal with that little nasty internal critic. Will you talk a little about that? Did you have one? Do you still have one? How do you handle

Alexandra B.: Absolutely. I think

Dr Chelsea: We all have one.

Alexandra B.: one. Absolutely. Everyone's got one. Mine has talked about different things over the years, you know, and certain things heal and then other things [00:25:00] rise up. Um, I think I. Shame is an inevitable part of the human psyche. And I, I do think it is malleable and plastic and I do think we can talk to it and negotiate with it.

Um, I have a few strategies and things that I think about around inner critic. Um, one of them is, I think that there are two different routes to take with the inner critic at two different moments. When the inner critic rears up, unbidden and unsolicited in the middle of, uh, a moment where we're having flow and expression.

I like to treat that inner critic the way I would treat, uh, like a teenager who maybe wanted to talk to me about something while I was right in the middle of workflow and like I'm in the middle of writing or I'm in the middle of a Zoom call and it's not a quick thing. They wanna have a whole conversation and I'd be like, sweetie, I'm sorry I can't do it right now.

We will talk later, but I'm, I need you to, [00:26:00] I need you to leave me to this right now. Right now, I'm not saying a toddler. Um, I'm purposefully saying, uh, a teenager because they can self-regulate and so can our inner critic. They can

Dr Chelsea: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra B.: Um, so I don't, I don't use violence. Um, when I'm talking to her, she has, I. A reason for being there. She has something she's trying to express and she is part of me. And just like one of my children, you know, sometimes there's behavior that interrupts me or gets in my way, but that doesn't mean they don't have something to say. It doesn't mean that it's not something that I wanna make time to listen to.

It just means this is gonna take me too far off of what I'm doing right now and I need to. Put this aside. So that's one way that I deal with her in that particular moment,

Dr Chelsea: Well, I think there's so much value in that distance in that like she's with you, but she's not you and I, I think that's where a lot of dancers get stuck was they hear those negative thoughts that are interrupting your flow, and [00:27:00] we immediately believe that they're all true and just get stuck there.

Alexandra B.: yeah.

Dr Chelsea: distance of like, I hear you, but I'm not doing this right now.

Alexandra B.: Yeah. And,

Dr Chelsea: we can come back to it, but this is not the time.

Alexandra B.: Yeah, and I think that that note can be a lot easier than we think of, you know, we think of this like, oh, it's such this therapeutic trauma process, and we can go there as well. And that's the other side of it that I, I will talk about. But I, I actually think that developing a pretty quick, simple habit of just saying not right now, you know? And, um, I have a friend who named her inner critic, and she'll just be like, Becky, I can't right now. And she'll say it out loud, you know, and Becky will come up in her mind and be like, you don't have the phrase, or You're not as good as that person, or You used to dance better, or whatever the thing is.

And she'll just go, Becky, not right now, please. And then Becky goes away.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, it's so powerful and it feels silly, but it's so real. And I've had, even with the youngest of dancers, sometimes I'll have them like draw it out, [00:28:00] like, draw your monster. And they, they're so creative and they draw the goofiest little things. I'm like, name the monster. And then when the monster comes up, you know, if they make their monster silly, like a lot of times they'll do that.

Like make it silly and, but then yeah, you'd be like, Nope, not right now. And it's so powerful. So I love that. Even as adults, call her Becky and kick her out.

Alexandra B.: And then the other side of the inner critic is the opposite, which is making space for them. And I. This is something that I'll preface by saying, you need to know yourself and your, um, your resilience at a given moment. You need to know how to create a safest space as possible for yourself and how to do self-care and aftercare.

If you do this thing that I'm about to describe, you don't wanna just jump into this. You need to really consider how's that gonna feel. Do I have the resilience for this? Is this the moment? The thing that I am gonna describe is I, I make space for my inner critic to have at it. Go ahead, take over. Tell me everything.

Take over my voice. Say it out loud in the [00:29:00] room. Tell me every nasty thing you're thinking. Go ahead, say it all. Like get it out. And the, and I do not interrupt her, just like I asked her not to interrupt me. I don't interrupt her. And she says terrible things. She says terrible things in the room. The thing that I love about it is that she says such terrible things, they start to sound ridiculous, you know?

And I go ahead and say everything, go you. You are gonna be such a failure. This book is gonna be the worst thing that's ever been written. Everyone's gonna laugh at you. And you know, I started hearing her and I almost start laughing sometimes because it's so hyperbolic. It's so, it's ridiculous. And you know what I'll do sometimes?

Sometimes just letting her say it is enough and it, it hangs in the air and it sounds so silly to me, like your kids' drawings, that it just loses its, it loses its punk, you know. Sometimes if there's still feelings lingering, like, well, yeah, well part of that is true, um, and I'm still [00:30:00] feeling, well, it's still attached to some real feelings of shame and doubt and insecurity.

Okay. Then ICBT it do some cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive behavioral dialectic and I start talking to her and often. I'll do this in, you know, a private space like my bedroom. Nobody can hear me, and I'll do both sides of it out loud. And so she'll say, you know, I think you're, you're, everyone's gonna laugh at you and your book is gonna be so stupid.

And then I'll say, you know, that's, that's interesting. Where, where are you getting that? Where are you getting those thoughts from? What kind of evidence are you looking at? Um, well, I don't know. I just think it, okay. Well, well let's dig into it a little bit. You know, where's that thought coming from? And we have a discussion often out loud, both of us talking out loud.

Um, but we have a discussion about it and then, you know, I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to refute it. I'm not trying to invalidate her feelings. I'm having the conversation the way you would with a [00:31:00] whole other human being who's like, I think your book is gonna be terrible and you shouldn't have written it.

And if I had the wherewithal with that, you know, doesn't sound like a friend. But with that person, if I had the groundedness and the wherewithal inside me to have a really high level evolved conversation with this person, I would say. Wow. It sounds like you're really having like strong feelings about how bad my book is gonna be.

Can you tell me, you know, where you're getting your information or how you built this theory? And honestly, their argument collapses so quickly, you know? And then I can bring up like we, you just had 75 people each read a chapter and you got feedback from it, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Where does that fit into this? Feeling that the book is gonna be a miserable failure

Dr Chelsea: evidence. Yeah.

Alexandra B.: just starts collapsing. And then, you know, I'll say, what's really going on? What are you really, what are you really worried about? What are [00:32:00] you really scared of? And often something much more interesting than what she was originally saying comes up.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that's such a great advice, and admittedly an advanced way of handling this because you've clearly had the time and the practice to decide that that's how you wanna, I love it. I think the starting place maybe for some people, I don't know if you ever started with this, is the journaling or writing it down.

'cause the same thing happens, but if. You feel, it feels too awkward to like say it out loud. I'm like, you write it down. But the same thing happens. 'cause as soon as you read it back, you're like, oh, that's ridiculous. Like, but it gives you that same distance whether you're hearing it audibly or writing it down.

But like give your inner critic the full voice and then separate yourself slightly. And when you look back at it, it becomes clear pretty fast. You're like, wow, that's not. What's happening and or again, digging into like where is that coming from and what's the actual evidence? 'cause there's usually none in being able to reframe that is so [00:33:00] powerful.

Alexandra B.: Having raised two kids, you know, I, I have had so much visceral experience of sitting with somebody who's, you know. Acting irrationally and in a, in an outsized way, but there's always something real underneath it. And sometimes that real thing is just like, I'm tired or I'm hungry. But sometimes that real thing is like, you haven't been spending enough time with me and I'm lonely and I want attention and.

Sometimes the inner critic is some part of us that's like, you haven't been playing and I'm, and I'm tired and, and I don't like the way things have been going lately and I want to be listened to. And sometimes the inner critic is one of our parents' voices or, um, you know, a teacher or authority figure who had a negative impression or impact in our lives. And sometimes when we say it out loud or read it in writing, we'll see somebody else's voice. Sometimes when I'm talking out loud, I'm like, Ooh, that's not my voice. I mean, it's my physical voice, but that's not my [00:34:00] voice. That's somebody else that I have allowed to incept me and infiltrate my thinking.

And actually I disinvite them to be part of my brain.

Dr Chelsea: I think that's so powerful with teenagers, especially because they assume. All these other negative voices that maybe they've heard, like you said, it could be a, a past teacher, a, a parent, a friend that is maybe not acting like a friend. But then yeah, they bring those voices in and they're in a critic and they feel like it's them and it's true.

And it's just not when you evaluate Yeah. Where it came from. Like, oh wait, that's not what I actually believe or what I want to hold onto. I. I would love to turn that, maybe it's the same idea, but a little bit to confidence about dealing with those moments when you are really nervous and maybe that's like actually backstage you're about to go do something.

Or you know, going into a big choreography job, something that makes you really nervous. Uh, and if you have other [00:35:00] strategies in that kind of body awareness or mind body connection, that helps when you're really nervous.

Alexandra B.: Yeah, I mean, one of the situations that of course comes up most frequently is the idea of an audition.

Dr Chelsea: Sure.

Alexandra B.: And one thing that I always like to remind, um, young dancers about is that when you're going into an audition, you are auditioning this company or, you know, entity or show just as much as they're auditioning you.

The thing about that that I think is relevant to all these, um, nervousness, situations, is that what I'm asking them to do is be curious. . Listen to their own interests and needs through curiosity. , Have their own goal and, um, and be very awake and aware and present. And. So when you're about to go on stage, certainly like there are a ton of more [00:36:00] traditional grounding techniques.

This is the same thing that gets you out of a panic attack. You can look around and name things that you see. I'm looking at the wallpaper. It's dark teal, and it's got gold flowers drawn in. A very thin design in a repetitive way. And I'm just like saying what I see, I feel the soles of my feet. I feel the ground, um, letting your weight drop down.

So. Finding your breath, but sometimes controlling our breath when we're in a near panic state doesn't feel like the way in. And actually looking to the outside world fore grounding, 'cause that's where we are projecting the threat is outside of us. Right? And they want something and I'm not gonna be able to meet it and that terrifies me.

And so to look around the world and name things kind of puts things in their place. The world isn't bigger than me. I'm big and I'm naming the world, which means I have that omniscient perspective. Um, so that's one thing. Definitely finding other [00:37:00] places where you can access your body.

Just feeling my hair, touching my face. I'm feel my clothing on my body. I feel my bum on this chair, and I can feel the weight of my pelvis and I actually could surrender a couple ounces. Where I'm holding my pelvis together, I'm noticing that I'm squeezing, condensing my lower abdominal muscles a little, and it's affecting my breath.

So I wanna see if I could relax some of those lower abdominal muscles. So just finding ways into your body and also finding ways out into the world and allowing yourself to name and notice things so that you gain a sense of control over what may feel like a threat of the outside world.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, that's great advice and something similar that I like to talk about with dancers because to me it works. Because the, the panic, the [00:38:00] nervousness is about usually the future, right? Like, so I don't wanna mess up, or what if they don't like me? Sometimes it's about the past. Like, I did this wrong last time, and, but it's usually past or future and we want to be present.

The things that are present are your vision and your sense of touch. And exactly as you're describing, it's like, well, if I look at this wallpaper in front of me, that is this present moment right now. If I feel my body in this chair, that is the present moment right now. Yeah. So to that dancer, like what does your, what does your costume feel like?

Where, what does your hair feel like? What do your feet and your toes feel like? And being able to go back to your body is so powerful and I think. Dancers are uniquely positioned to do this well. Like we understand our bodies. I'm biased, but better than a lot of athletes because we understand all, like you were talking about earlier, being able to release and um, contract specific muscles.

So yeah, just validating that. I think that works so well for dancers to just put yourself in the [00:39:00] present moment and what you see and what you feel in your body are great ways to do that.

Alexandra B.: Yeah. The senses are only only work in the present, right? Our senses don't work in the past or the future. They physically function to take in the world and assess what's happening, so. Past and future are both stories, but our senses are only functional in the exact present moment. So if we engage in our senses, we by the nature of it, are present.

Dr Chelsea: Yes. You've had so many good ideas. Thank you for sharing like concrete ways that dancers can connect with their body and use that and battle that inner critic.

Name it and get rid of it. Will you share a little about your book, where people can find it or how they can connect with you further?

Alexandra B.: Yeah. Uh, depending on when this comes out, it's about a year away. It's May 20, 26 will be its release. So I'm gearing up for the final manuscript delivery. The book is called The Anatomy of Art. Unlocking the creative process for theater and dance. [00:40:00] Um, it. Looks at your artistic process, your creative process through 12 different lenses.

I think, uh, other people could have come up with an entirely different set of 12 ways of looking at art. This is not exclusive, but these 12 things are ways in which when I enter the house of my creative process through this doorway. I see certain things when I enter through this doorway. I see different things.

When I know how to go through all 12 of those doorways. I feel like I get a pretty full picture of my insides, what I wanna say, my vision, my style, et cetera. So those 12 things are time, space, meaning relationship, communication, environment, process, facts, faith, context and culture, material and priorities.

Dr Chelsea: Wow.

Alexandra B.: Each one of those, um, is a chapter in my book with an [00:41:00] essay, a score to take into the studio, an embodiment exercise, a creative process, exercise, writing prompts, uh, an anecdote from me about how I use that my. Creative life, um, and about a hundred questions that are meant to take you into the studio with you.

And when you wish that you had a mentor there that you really trusted to, and that mentor would be like, talk to me about the duration of that. What is that timing about for you? And that question just breaks open your thinking and makes you realize what you needed to realize. book is meant to be that mentor.

So my hope is that it's a very holistic, non didactic meaning. It's not trying to tell you how to do anything, but it is offering you a lot of specificity and options to break your habits, develop new directions, and find yourself.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, that sounds wonderful. Where can people who will find you [00:42:00] a website

Alexandra B.: Yeah, if you just Google my name, Alexandra Beller. Uh, all my, all my stuff comes up. I've got a website and it's got, uh, free classes on it. It's got, um, excerpts from the book on it. It's got ways to contact me and places where I teach. So my website, alexandra beller dances.org is the best place to find me.

Dr Chelsea: I'll make sure that is linked as well. Thank you, Alexandra, for sharing your perspective and your work. I really appreciate your time today.

Alexandra B.: Thanks so much, Chelsea.

Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance. You can find all episode resources at passion for dance podcast.com and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high performance tips at Doctor Chelsea dot Otti. That's P-I-E-R-O-T-T-I. This podcast is for passionate dancers and dance educators who are ready to change our industry by creating happier, more successful dancers.

I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the [00:43:00] world.