Awwwwwww!

Just had to share these....they are from a wedding I recently danced at. I love dancing when there are children in the audience, especially little girls. Little girls love the sparkle and the glitter and prettiness of it all. You can just tell that their new dream is to be a bellydancer when they grow up, which is an especially interesting observation in light of the post below...

Enjoy!

How young is too young?

There have been some threads recently on bhuz.com talking about children bellydancing. It has gotten me thinking about the subject - how young is too young to start dancing?

I've always thought that - when I have children - if I have a girl, she will be dancing as soon as she can walk. Not just bellydance, all forms of dance. I started "ballet" and "tap" (if you can call it that!) when I was two, and never looked back. I envision signing my toddler up for dance classes, and dressing her up in sparkly costumes. I want us to dance together, and to perform together. Dance is such a huge part of my life, I can't imagine not sharing it as much as I can with my children.

Suhaila Salimpour and Isabella Khoury are a great example of a mother/daughter dance duo, where the daughter is a bit on the young side. Isabella is around 9 years old. Some people think that's too young. I say it depends - what kind of 'moves' is she doing? What is her costume? Is she trying to emulate and adult, or is she doing the dance in 'child-appropriate' manner? I think it is great to start a child young - especially in bellydance, where so many of us don't get our start until we are much, much older.

What do you think?