Let’s kick this Monday off with a little Wednesday.

I’m going to steal a page from Buzzfeed and write about Resting Bitch Face, or RBF for short. If you aren’t familiar with this concept, it’s a cheeky name for when your neutral facial expression looks angry. People with RBF frequently get told “Smile, you’ll look prettier that way!” or “Cheer up, it can’t be that bad!” or worse, they get constantly asked why they’re annoyed.

There’s nothing more annoying than being expected to smile on command, so in general, I feel like you should just enjoy your natural RBF and tell people to mind their own business about your facial expression. However, in the belly dance world, there are a few times when you’ll want to make the effort to put on a happy face.

Obviously, you have to be really conscious of your facial expression when you’re actually dancing. I think I’ve mentioned before that I have a lot of pictures where I thought I was smiling beautifully during the performance, but my face actually says “I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR SOOOOOOUL.” This can make it really difficult to get gigs anywhere but the Goth club. But there’s plenty of resources out there talking about how to give good face on stage, so today’s post is more about giving good face when you’re in the audience.

One of two things can happen if you’re hanging out in the audience with your RBF on. Either the dancer on stage is going to think “OMG, look at that one gal, she can’t even fake a smile, I must be awful and everyone else is just faking it to make me feel better oh no, why did I pay for a video, this is going to look awful!” or she’s going to think “WTF, I know I’m nailing this performance, who does that woman think she is? Why does she hate me? Ugh, haters!” Either way, she’s going to be distracted from doing her best. Obviously an experienced dancer can take that in stride, but for a baby dancer taking the stage for the first time, it’s awful. I should know, it happened to me.

This can lead to really strained relations later on, because the dancer thinks that you are well, a bitch, when really you just have Resting Bitch Face. You could have been lost in a reverie, enjoying her performance, too caught up in it to remember to clap, and she thinks you were sitting there hating it the entire time. So sad.

If you’re planning to teach someday, you’ll also want to come up with a friendlier resting face to put on when you’re watching your students. Oh man, there is nothing more nerve-wracking than having the teacher ask to see the class do something without her, and then she watches you with the stoniest, angriest face you’ve ever seen. You want to just shrivel up into a ball and die.

So what’s a dancer with RBF to do? Well, just like being on stage, you’ll have to spend some time in the mirror and practice. Obviously you don’t want your default “I am watching dance and this is something I like to do” face to be a huge grin, because that’s going to be really inappropriate when someone gets up to do a touching memorial piece. Try to cultivate more of a Mona Lisa smile, where you look pleased with what you’re seeing, but it’s not over the top.

Once you’ve got an expression that feels comfortable to you, practice it a lot. Wear it when you’re watching belly dance videos on YouTube. Try it while you’re having conversations with friends (maybe even ask them to let you know if you revert to RBF). Soon you’ll easily be able to wear a li’l smile and make those baby dancers feel loved and supported when they get on stage.