Mm Mm Monday - Kalbeliya Reunion

A dance from Rajasthan, India which is part of the fusion roots of tribal bellydance as we know it today. Enjoy the movement, the sounds, the colors, the energy of this amazing dance!

Authenticity requires context

"I think that we get squeamish about using the term "American" because we are concerned with authenticity. I do believe that it's important to study and respect the dances that came before us and label what we do appropriately. However, I think that when we stress too much about being "authentic", we forget what authenticity really means.

I read an article in Saveur magazine a few years ago that changed the way I think of that term. It talked about how people were going to great lengths to recreate the earliest known recipes for ravioli. In their quest for authenticity, they were ordering game and organ meats from specialty vendors on the other side of the country. They got the details right, but lost the spirit of the dish: ravioli was a thrifty food, what you made with the scraps you had left over from other dishes. The point of the article was that authenticity is meaningless without context."

jmdruadh on Bhuz

This quote really gave me some great food for thought about our definition of authenticity in the dance. When the dances we do today were first conceived, what was the context in which it was created? Why did they move the way they did, address the music the way they did...it's really worth thinking about. Because it can better guide us in making decisions about our adaptations or fusions which really get at the heart of the original form we are building on.

Is fusion getting "too hot"?

 I came across an old interview with Rachel Brice I had not read before, conducted by Salome of OrientalDancer.net. While it doesn't have a date on it, it speaks a bit about the Bellydance Superstars tour as if it were still a fairly new tour, which makes this article as much as 8 years old (she began touring in 2003), though the video accompanying the article is 2009, it may have been added later... But I digress.  Regardless of the age of the interview--which is largely the typical 'who did you study with?', 'what is it like to tour?', etc.--it has a couple of nice pearls tucked away in a short, otherwise typical RB interview. I thought I would share my faves:

On performing so much you can't grow:
"I think, however, my main struggle is that of growing as a dancer when there's no time to create. We're always performing, so that leaves very little time to go watch other dance forms, find new music, sneak into the underground for costuming ideas, practice yoga with new teachers, or make new dances. Since newness is one of the things I require to feel passionate about my dancing, I am afraid that I'm lacking direction sometimes. In fact, just the other night I had a dream that I was given amazing powers, and a guide to show me how to use them, but the guide was killed. I think this is indicative of my mental state."

On fusion straying from the purpose of tribal:
"I love the individuality of Fusion, but I think sometimes it strays from the original intent of Tribal Style. Overtly seductive movement with flirtatious expression seems to be creeping back in here and there, and the lack of that is one of the things that drew me to Tribal in the first place. With the thirst for new developments, I hope we always keep striving to go deeper rather than hotter."

Oh, Rachel! I love that. Deeper rather than hotter. For sure!

You can read the full article here: http://www.orientaldancer.net/star-interviews/belly-dancer-rachel.php

(PS The photo is from a photo shoot conceived by Kristine Adams from FCBD, where Rachel dressed as Carolena and vice versa. Isn't it awesome! There are some other great poses from this same shoot, it's really fab!)

Cues & Tattoos This Weekend!

The festival season is upon us, and for Deep Roots Dance that starts with the festival of all festivals for improv tribal dancers: Cues & Tattoos!  We are so blessed to have this festival right here in Seattle, chock full of workshops, shows, and shopping.  Nomaditude and Students of Deep Roots Dance will be performing this Saturday at 2pm. Full details on the show and much more at http://www.troupehipnotica.com/cues/

Steampunk Bellydance - an article and some thoughts

 On a discussion over in the comments section on this article on Gilded Serpent, there is some debate about whether Steampunk Bellydance is a legitimate genre of dance or not--the article asserts it is not, and some commenters argue the contrary.

One very articulate poster, going only by the name "T.", is clearly a Steampunk practitioner/enthusiast/community member, and had some very articulate thoughts to share on her frustrations with the overuse of Steampunk in everyday parlance.  A portion of her post read:



"It’s never a good feeling, having your meticulous, time-honored craft dismissed or eclipsed by a trend you have no immediate connection to. It’s difficult not to feel uneasy, watching your art form be oversimplified, lumped in, or lazily dismissed by an all-too-easy and reductive definition. It’s not fun, being shoved in a box that you have no desire to be in, even if that box is comfortable, or even inspiring, for plenty of others who’ve willingly placed themselves inside of it."

My reply, which I share as a founding member of the Seattle Steamrats in addition to my over a decade of teaching and performing bellydance, are as follows follows:

Article: Tribal Fusion Bellydance on Gilded Serpent

Have a read, and let me know what you think:

http://www.gildedserpent.com/cms/2010/11/03/jasmine-june-intro-tribal-fusion-belly-dance/

"The “fusion” in Tribal Fusion Belly Dance makes this dance genre elusive and tricky to define. Two dancers could have nothing in common except a few core movements and a couple costuming pieces, and yet both could define themselves as Tribal Fusion dancers. While this can be confusing, both to outsiders and to Tribal Fusion belly dancers, the freedom that fusion grants is exactly what makes the genre so attractive.

The other side of the coin is that sometimes Tribal Fusion Belly Dance is interpreted to be completely open-ended. This can lead to dancers changing or ignoring technique, musicality, and proper training. 

Since Tribal Fusion Belly Dance is a relatively new dance form, it is especially important to treat the genre with a level of professionalism, or else one runs the risk of discrediting the work of dancers who have dedicated their lives to creating and elevating Tribal Fusion Belly Dance."

"Can you teach me to dance like _______...?"

Most every teacher I know has run into this question in one form or another from new students--some of us hear it many times a year. "I saw 'The World Famous Debbie Dancer' on YouTube. Can you teach me to dance like her?"

The short answer? No.
The only slightly longer answer?
Neither can she!

No teacher can truly teach you to dance just like them. What they can provide you is tools for your own dance--tools perhaps they themselves used to arrive at their own personal style, which you can then take to create your own personal style.

I am here in Lincoln, Nebraska getting ready to teach my first of two workshops at the Tribal Dreams Festival, and over breakfast this morning was chatting with Jawahara of Chicago about teaching and workshops and the culture of the bellydance world today as we know it. And one phenomenon we were talking about was the propensity for some dancers to come to classes or workshops wanting to be or dance just like another dancer. Jawahara was talking about dancers who would look at old footage of Taheya Carioca and Samia Gamal, and wanting to emulate every little nuance of those dancer's performances. For others, it might be like the many people who watch Rachel Brice or Aziza of Montreal, and try to make every single detail look and feel exactly the same.

It's a good jumping-off point, but the question is, are you trying to be them, or do you want to be you inspired by them?

An article on ATS/fusion.

Dear readers, I am curious what your thoughts are on this summation of ATS, ITS, and fusion.
http://www.4dancers.org/tag/bal-anat/

Nightmare before Christmas as metaphor

Once upon a time there was a character named Jack Skellington.

Jack was very very good at Halloween. Everyone looked to him for leadership because he was so good at it.

As time went on, Jack became bored of Halloween. He kinda felt like everything that could be done had been done, and he really wanted to try something new to spice things up.

He stumbled upon a town which celebrated something called Christmas. "What's this?!" he exclaimed joyfully. It was something really different, and it looked fun and interesting. On the spot he decided to give that a try.

He took Christmas back to his friends, none of whom knew anything about Christmas. Jack himself really didn't know much except what he thought it should maybe look like a bit (from his brief visit to the town), and some general ideas about the traditions. Armed with this spare information, they set to work on their version of Christmas.

Fusion as dessert

I was musing to my husband recently about musical choices, and how our troupe went from a good mix of folkloric and funky, to straight up funky, and is now trying to bring back in some of that folkloric. I compared funky music to dessert--you would have this really great yummy sweet unexpected thing to cap off the "meat" of the performance. He agreed and said that with the use of primarily funky music in recent years, our sets had maybe become a little one-dimensional. "It's like all you're giving them (the audience) any more is dessert!" And we all know what happens when we eat too much dessert. We get sick of it!

I know when Chris agrees, I am onto something. Heh He has a keen eye, and is not critical without constructive feedback.

Amy Sigil video from Gilded Serpent

I was linked up to this via Facebook--a video clip that was taken of Amy Sigil chatting up some more traditional bellydancers and folk dancers at a show in Toronto. The video and my thoughts after the jump:



My thoughts:
I love Amy's fearlessness and raw energy. It's inspiring, and I adore that girl. And I gotta say, I am glad to hear her talking frankly about not being bellydance, because as much as I love her and admire Unmata's style of entertainment, it can be frustrating to see non-bellydance performers dominating the bellydance stages and workshops. A lot of bellydancers work really hard at their craft, specifically the delicate and sometimes frustrating task of trying to make one's style unique and different while maintaining a strong balance with and connection to bellydance. And honestly, it's hard to see so much OMG!-Bellydance Glory being devoted to performers who are not actually *performing bellydance* or doing the difficult work of striking that balance.

And believe me, I am well aware of the seeming irony that this is a similar argument that more traditional bellydancers had to say about ATS when it came on the scene, but I would argue that tribal (as I define it and primarily perform it) is still bellydance, even if it treats music, staging, and costuming dramatically differently from what had come before. Not so with so many modern fusions which no longer maintain any significant thread of bellydance in their work. It is these latter fusions that leave me scratching my head and feeling disheartened with regard to my own struggles to keep the art of bellydance alive and thriving--recognizably an expression of bellydance, and not whatever new thing came down the pike.

I just keep plugging away at what I believe in, and the "boundaries" I understand to exist which define the art in time and space, and try to keep it fresh without loosing that connective tissue that is so important, I think, to the true evolution of bellydance in the new millennium. I don't mean to sound like some kind of downtrodden martyr--on the contrary, I feel it is an honor and a privilege to get to perform this dance as I do! But sometimes, some days, it does get a little exhausting and frustrating...like a two steps forward, one step back kind of struggle to keep bellydance...ya know...bellydance!

(BTW, some more interview with Amy and some more video clips as well at http://www.gildedserpent.com/art44/amyinterview.htm Check 'em out!)

Bellydance rubbernecking...

I wasn't even at Tribal Fest this year, but its reach is far...

My first reports came from close friends who had attended. And I noted something key in all their reports. They very offhandedly reported "Oh you know...Our Favorite Troupe So-and-So was great, Super Famous So-and-So was great, just like we expect. But you should have seen Troupe Blah Blah (detailed description of bad dancing and distracting illogical fusion). Oh man, and then The Blah Blah Dance Group tooootally (detailed description of more bad dancing and overused schtick)!"

The real stories were the poor dancers/bad fusions/sloppy prop'ers, while the really great dancers...well...they were great. What else is there to say, right?

And this is from friends who are NOT gossip-hounds who were just waiting to dish. This truly is a sign of a phenomenon that has been growing more and more in the tribal bellydance community in particular. For the purposes of this metaphor, I will call it Bellydance Rubbernecking.

And Asharah does it again...

So part of why I dug up my older kudos-post to Asharah is because she continually asks the tough questions, and gives some thought-provoking and worthy answers. Her most recent post about "Vintage Fusion Bellydance" is again right on the money with regard to the Victorian/Burly fusion fad. Here is a snippet to whet your whistle, then pop over and read the entire thing!

"What if someone from the general public came to see one of these performances? What if this person knew nothing about bellydance? Do we want to give the general public the impression that we’re only comic relief and slapstick acts that have no qualms about showing our frilly panties to strangers, particularly as we lose (or pretend to lose) our inhibitions through the imbibing of alcohol on stage? Is that bellydance, and, more importantly to me, is that tribal? And, I know that many of us bellydancers are trying very hard to elevate this dance into the realms of both popular and high art… and in order for that to happen, we must earn the respect of not only our peers but also the general public. How do we expect to be respected as an art form when we’re stumbling around on stage in our underwear?"

Honesty in dancing...a RLJ

Can someone Re-LiveJounral, like we ReTweet? And can we RLJ ourselves?

I am building up some content over here on Blogger, and thought I would grab some recent posts from my LiveJournal that might be of interest here, where I plan to talk mostly about dance (that is the PLAN anyway). So here it is:

Asharah posted in her journal last year about "honesty" in dancing. And it just got me postin', so I thought I would post a bit over here.

I see a lot of contrived performances--in aesthetic and execution. I see a lot of inauthentic dancers. Dancers who are not being their authentic selves on stage. They are clawing and grasping at trying to be or do the next big thing. I remember one gal at a workshop I taught not too long ago saying she was going to take a hula class because she was excited about the possibilities of fusing it with her bellydance, but then she found out Unmata was already pretty famous for that, so she was going to try and find something else to study to fuse. I was stunned into silence.