We can always begin again — The Family Dances

Six years ago this month we started dreaming up this thing in our tiny, one-bedroom apartment. There were two munchkins then, 2 years old and 6 months old. We were arguing about how much time we each needed to pour into our creative passions—capoeira for him, and, what exactly for me? Everything it seemed, thick into new mommy life as I was, having just birthed two humans a mere 21 months apart! I wanted to be supported when I was dancing, writing, breathing, taking a shower every once in a while!

This wasn’t a new argument. We’d been back and forth so much. James felt he needed to train while he could, with a great teacher and peers who could help him grow. Capoeira could be transient. Schools come and go. Teachers move on. The time was now, he insisted.

I felt like if he had aaaaalllllll that time to be training, then he should be prepared to back me up with the kiddos for the same amount of time. Which he claimed he couldn’t do. Because after work, and capoeira, he was….wait for it…TIRED!

So you know, I was pisssssssed off about that for, like, years! And then one night, weary from all the arguing, a new idea emerged in the room that quadrupled as our kitchen, dining room, living room, and movement studio. James came up with the name, The Family Dances, and I liked it.

*The Family Dances logo, inspired by a picture of Mother Bee dancing, designed and drawn by James*

I had seeded the spirit of The Family Dances long before it had a name, a thing that we could collaboratively plant and let grow roots, for all of us. The simple truth was this: as parents we needed to be able to create with our children. I knew this, and had beeeeen saying this. But it was as if, on this night, James finally realized it too. In our arguments I’d often challenged him: If you need to train all these hours to grow in the capoeira, but you’re training in a space that isn’t family and child friendly, when are you supposed to be with your children?

I had learned as soon as Bloom, our oldest, was born that my creation labors had to be mother-sized. There was no one to take care of my baby while I was somewhere else deepening into my passions. Because of our sacred nourishment (what some might call, breastfeeding) labors, we were attached all the time. Everything I created, I did so with my baby in mind, in my arms, at the breast, on my back. And it’s been that way ever since, only now it’s times 4.

James, on the other hand, had spent the early years of family life trying his best to balance the demands of work, new fatherhood, and intensive capoeira training—while I managed all the caring of our children. Arriving to the understanding that something had to change was a complicated thing. Him seeing for himself that his pre-kids capoeira flow was no longer sustainable for our family was HUGE!

So, no, as much as I wanted to, I did not say, I TOLD YOU SO, MAN! When he came up with The Family Dances, and said it would be how he would continue developing in the capoeira WITH HIS CHILDREN, and that it would be for my dancing creations too—something for all of us—I was like, let me go ahead and support this BRILLIANT, long overdue revelation and not be a Petty Betty!

That was the beginning. And now we are at another beginning. Six years later, two more munchkins later, almost 2 years into post-pandemic living—so much has changed for our family, for the world. We’re in a reset and reimagine space. Who we are, how we create, it has been evolving. Here inside these stories we’ll be unpacking parts of our journey, and threading the way forward. Let’s see where this dream grows.