Vamos a Bailar: The Unexpected Cure for Creative Overload
String and Tins senior producer Alina Miroshnichenko reflects on how moving to the music has brought back balance to her life
Up until a couple of years ago, life felt off kilter - my nervous system was in override, and coming home from work every day, I was binging Netflix and doom scrolling - neither left me feeling particularly rested. Covid also meant I couldn’t see my family who were living abroad, and having paused socialising for a while; I found myself quite isolated. Work became my main social environment and despite loving my team, we all need people in our lives to see us just for who we are, without the work prism, don’t we?
That’s when the universe introduced me to dance. Whilst on a run, I was passing Kings Cross by the canal and heard salsa blasting nearby which piqued my interest. I thought it was a little random and decided to see what was happening. Following the music, I discovered a crowd of people, social dancing in the April sun, laughing, moving and having the time of their lives. I was never a dance kid growing up, but that evening something in me clicked - after people-watching there with a child-like curiosity and admiration, I finally thought, "Why don’t I try this out myself?”
Not going to lie, my first salsa class was *ahem* very far away from the suave moves I saw at that street party, but it was fun to do something completely different and meet new people. I kept showing up to that class each week, month after month and found myself hooked. What I didn’t expect was how quickly those Thursday evenings started to affect everything else…
Working in audio post-production, you spend your day making hundreds of tiny decisions. Managing engineers' time on different projects, liaising with clients, constantly alert and ready to put out any fire that might come up. Even when you’re in a room full of people, you can be in your own head, juggling twenty to-dos at the same time, focused on details most people would never notice. That’s exactly the part of my brain that never seemed to switch off in my personal life. Salsa did something surprisingly simple: it forced me out of it.
On a dance floor, there’s no room for overthinking. The music is moving, your partner is moving, and you either stay present or you fall behind. It’s the only place in my week where my attention is fully occupied - not split between ten tabs, not half-thinking about emails - just there.
Salsa is also a nice way to connect to your body and is a physical reset as much as mental, but not in a way that feels like another task to complete, like I always found the gym - something I *have* to do and improve. Dancing doesn’t work like that. You show up, you move, laugh as you mess up, and try again. Before you realise it, you’ve been active for hours without negotiating with yourself to get started. And then there’s the social side, which I hadn’t realised I needed as much as I did… You meet people as they are, from all over the place, and you have dozens of fleeting positive interactions in one night - a song, a dance, a 'thank you' - and then you move on. It’s light, low-pressure, and oddly grounding.
The overlap between work and play also comes back to music and creative expression. As an audio post producer, sound and music are always a part of my day, but often in a very functional way: what’s the brief, when does the client need it, how do we address the feedback. Creativity can funnel into a task to complete, and dancing gave me a chance to put the heart back into it - use it as a way to express myself and also to experience music physically. Feeling and embodying the rhythm instead of just hearing or analysing it.
That all had a knock-on effect at work. I show up to the studio feeling much more balanced and relaxed, and generally have more energy for the people and the process - not just the output. The work itself hasn’t changed, but the headspace I bring to it has. And in a job that depends so much on focus, communication and energy, that shift makes more of a difference than I expected.
Whether you’re reading this in the office or on the commute home, I’ve pulled together a playlist of tracks that never fail to shift my mood, hoping to bring some sunny energy to your day and if it makes you groove… I’ll be the first to endorse it - vamos a bailar!
