September always ends up being the messy month. Last year it was a real emotional roller coaster ending in my amicable split with Erin’s Fiddle, after 8 years that no one would ever believe. It was an incredible time that I wouldn’t trade for anything but, with so many creative people in the same hub, well… the creative differences had to get real at some point! Now I needed a break.

So I treated myself to a “gap year” – I kept dancing in the sessions, but I wasn’t teaching and I wasn’t dealing with noooo dancing school, troupe or anything of the sort. I traveled a bit, attended some workshops, met a bunch of new dancing friends from different places. Got myself a concertina for some reason. Neighbors ain’t complainin’ yet. Overall, I must say I enjoyed it! But now the gap year was about to end.

This September thus became a whole different kind of mess as I was preparing, with a bunch of people, three new projects to kick off in October. One’s not dance related so I won’t bother you with that, but here’s a quick look at the other two.

The first decision I made was that I needed to expand my blog into doing more to promote our community and all the great things we’re doing. To that end, I realized that “Steps of Aleks” – the blog name up to now – felt too self-centered. And to be honest I never really liked it, I just didn’t have a better idea. Guess now was as good time for a rebrand as any – the new name is “Living Steps”. Still figuring out exact plans for the year there, but I have a couple ideas – should be a fun time. For now, the site is slowly getting remodeled – not fully done with it just yet but I kinda like doing the sloppy rollout so it’s fine. Got the new event calendar in! Not very pretty but it does work!

On the other hand, I needed to get back into teaching as well. While I toyed with the thought of doing it independently, a different thing happened. If you’ve been keeping your ear to the street you already know – my good friend Marko and I have joined Irish Dance Belgrade, and along with me teaching sean-nós, he’ll be starting the first set dancing group in our country! So, lots of traditional styles starting this very weekend!

Thank god September’s over – even if the busy times are not! It’s gonna be an exciting year.