Mixed results

OK, I think I've finally recovered enough from dance camp to blog about it. Since I made so much of a fuss about performing at the event in my last couple of posts, I'll address that first and get it over with - I didn't. I was scheduled to perform at the student show Sunday, which was supposed to take place from 8:30-9:30 p.m. But after two days with little sleep, a headache began to set in Sunday afternoon - not one of my more severe ones, but a headache nonetheless, and the kind that only goes away with sleep. OK, I thought, I'll perform and then turn in fairly early and sleep it off. But then the show organizers decided to move the student performances to the end of the show, after the instructors performed, meaning we wouldn't start going on until after midnight. So at that point I decided not to go on - I knew I wouldn't last until then, and besides, who wants to go on after some top-notch professionals had already wowed the audience?

As far as the camp itself - the instructors were awesome. I'll just mention two here because it was my first encounter with each and I enjoyed their classes the most - and they're about as far apart on the dance spectrum as you can get: Lee Ali (who taught traditional Moroccan trance dances and Greek folk dance) and Darshan (who taught tribal fusion and ATS). There was "old school" (Egyptian and Turkish) and "new school" (Indian fusion and flamenco fusion). And the evening performances were great - live music with open dancing, followed by some amazing performances by the instructors and others.

And then there were the accommodations ...

Now, I'm not one for "roughing it," but even so, this was probably the worst campsite I've been to in my four trips to dance camp. Start with a musty, dusty cabin where the windows wouldn't open, meaning you had to keep the screen-less doors open in order to get any air, bathroom stalls built on a scale for small children, and no privacy in the shower area. Add to that the main building used for dance classes that gave off a stench when it was first opened on Saturday (it improved after they opened all the doors) and with a floor covered with some kind of artificial-turf-like rubber that was painful to dance on barefoot; terrible food served in a musty, dusty dining hall that had birds flying around in it; and the fact that we had to actually share this "paradise" with a youth camp; and even some of the most enthusiastic camping-types were grumbling. It seemed that a number of corners were cut in order to keep the fee down to $375, but my friends and I agreed that we would gladly pay up to $500 for better accommodations. As it is, I wouldn't go back to that campsite again, unless the made some big changes.

So I had fun at dance camp, and I didn't have fun at dance camp. I guess I just have to learn to take the bad with the good.

Camp-o-phobia

OK, so I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks - too busy rehearsing (yeah, that's it - rehearsing). Two weeks from now, I'll be at dance camp. Certainly looking forward to the "dance" part of it (as well as being with friends) - it's the "camp" part that gives me the jitters. Why? Let's see: deer ticks, poison ivy, rabid animals, bears (they seems to be turning up in northern NJ lately), violent storms - at least it's too soon for mosquitos (although I guess I need to add "bedbugs" to the phobia list).

So why am I even going? Well, my friends don't worry much about these things (one is concerned about allergies and possibly having to leave the cabin in the middle of the night to use a separate bathroom facility, but that's about it). My dance teacher doesn't worry, the musicians don't worry - so I grit my teeth and resolve to push these phobias aside as much as I can so that I can enjoy an event like this and not be confined to the sidelines while everyone else is having fun. And when I actually do arrive at the camp and see that it's not the festering hell-hole I imagine it to be, I relax - a little.

Meanwhile, I am rehearsing for the student performance night - but not with the intensity I've had in the past. Since I will be somewhat stressed-out and sleep-deprived by the time I get to perform, I'm going to take more of a "winging it" approach rather than having to remember a full choreography. So I'm practicing a set of simple traveling steps and combinations that will fit any 4/4 music, plus slower moves for any improv section that the band might opt for, and I'll just try to let the music carry me along.

It will be interesting to see how this approach works for me. I'll comment on it when I get back from camp - if I haven't been eaten by a bear, that is.

A performance on the horizon?

I did a lot of performing in the first half of 2010 - I was in front of an audience, with varying rates of success, in February, March, June, July and August - and then nothing. A planned show in December never occurred, and another hoped-for opportunity fell through - and suddenly it's been nine months since my last performance. (Not terribly unusual if you're a bellydance hobbyist who doesn't belong to a student troupe and/or doesn't have access to a regular "student night" venue.) Now, I'm not a performance addict or anything, but having at least a few opportunities every year helps keep a dancer like myself acclimated to facing an audience (not to mention providing an incentive to practice - and of course, an excuse to assemble a costume and buy some fresh makeup).

But my performance-less streak should be coming to an end soon - I signed up for the Folktours dance camp that takes place Memorial Day weekend, and this year they're giving students an opportunity to perform in "pre-shows" (that is, the "real" show with the professional dancers starts right after). Not sure how many campers are going to turn out for the "pre-shows," but a performance is a performance - and now I have a month to prepare, from picking out the song (something simple - there'll be too much going on for me to worry about a complex choreography) to choosing a costume (something washable and easy to pack and unpack). Feels good to be shifting into "rehearsal mode" ...

New school

So, a week after returning to the classic bellydance days of yesteryear, my friends and I attended "Objects of Desire," the latest presentation by Venus Uprising, a loosely affiliated group of mostly NYC-based dancers. Venus Uprising describes its shows as "Fantasy Bellydance," and the aim is to present a theatrical presentation as opposed to the restaurant-cabaret show we saw the week before at the Lafayette Grill. That means a theater setting (actually a dance studio with a few row of seats), recorded music (and not always Middle Eastern) instead of live, and no dancer-audience interaction (in a restaurant show, the audience will often clap along to the music, and there's the obligatory dancer-wrapping-her-veil-around-some-guy-at-one-of-the tables and/or trying-to-get-the-guy-up-to-dance-with-her). 

Generally speaking, the dancers in a Venus Uprising show use a base of Middle Eastern dance moves (adding other styles, too) in order to tell a story or define a character. The theme is usually an exploration of "darker" feminine archetypes - dancers in "Objects of Desire" depicted, among others, Eve, Helen of Troy, Cruella de Vil, a "dominatrix" and a group of taxi dancers (performed to "Hey Big Spender" from Sweet Charity). The soloists are all top-quality professionals, generally a generation or so removed from the veterans that performed at the Lafayette Grill show, although each Venus Uprising show usually includes one "Old Guard" NYC dancer (the honor for this show went to Elena Lentini, who also performed the week before at the Lafayette Grill).

So, does Venus Uprising represent a radical departure from traditional bellydance? Not so radical - the dance style still has a Middle Eastern basis and the costumes are generally some variation on the traditional bra-and-belt look. Is it as enjoyable for the audience as it is to be at a restaurant show clapping along to the music? Yes, but in a different way. What you lose in the sense of shared communal experience is made up for by seeing dancers design creative performances that go beyond the bounds of what you'd see in a restaurant show - the "dominatrix" performance by Elisheva was one of the highlights of the show (and it didn't involve leather or whips, either!). I would like to see a bit more thematic variety in future shows, but otherwise, Venus Uprising is a great example of how Middle Eastern dance forms can be used in creative ways to develop a new art form that doesn't represent a complete break from the old.

Old school

The place: The Lafayette Grill in Greenwich Village. The event: "A Star-Studded Evening of Dance and Music Celebrating the Legacy of Ibrahim Farrah." On Sunday, my friend and I "stepped back in time" to witness bellydance the way it used to be in NYC, when ethnic venues were numerous and cabaret-style dance flourished.

These venues are pretty much gone, although there are still a few restaurants and nightclubs that have bellydance with live music (usually on weeknights or very late in the evening). Major bellydance events such as Sunday's, which was a tribute to Ibrahim "Bobby" Farrah, one of the premier Middle Eastern dance instructors until his passing in 1997, are usually held at The Lafayette Grill, which, true to form, was overbooked (and you practically had to bribe someone to get water for the table. The Greek-Middle Eastern food, of course, was delicious). Also true to form, the show ran late enough so that my friend and I had to miss the last couple of dancers so we could catch the midnight trains home.

As for the show itself, in an era of fusion, fantasy and Gothic, the evening featured traditional cabaret-style dance as it evolved in the 1950s and 60s - lots of finger cymbals, veils, and traditional sparkly bra-and-belt sets. (There was also a Tunisian folkloric dance that you would not have seen in a nightclub back in the day.) The dancers were veteran NYC performers as well as a few out-of-towners, all of whom had studied with "Bobby" at some point, so we were treated to some top-quality dancing (although there were a few dancers that I didn't think were nearly in the same league as NYC legends Jehan, Elena Lentini and Dalia Carella). Music was provided by Middle Eastern musicians whom I wasn't familiar with, but they did a great job (and there was open dancing, too - even though there wasn't much room to dance!)

There are differing opinions in the bellydance community regarding the "new" forms vs. the "traditional," and I think at this point, shows like Sunday's are going to be just one part of a larger "bellydance menu" - a part that may shrink even further as younger dancers seem more drawn to the newer forms. I don't believe that an art form can survive and flourish through generations without any changes whatsoever (at least not in a diverse culture such as ours), but hopefully there will continue to be enough people interested in traditional Middle Eastern-style dance and music to keep shows like these a part of the present and not the past.

Use it or lose it

In class the other day we started practicing a routine using finger cymbals. I don't think I've picked up my zills more than once or twice since the last time we worked on them in class, more than a year ago. I always thought I was pretty good with the zills, at least for a student-hobbyist, and I had incorporated them into a few student hafla routines back in the day. But I haven't been using them for awhile, mainly because most of my performance opportunities over the last few years have been to live music, and I've never been confident in my zill-playing to the point where I'd try it with a band. 

And, boy, did my rustiness show in class. I knew it had been awhile since I'd practiced when I first put them on and realized I was wearing one on my index finger instead of my middle one (ooops!). Things didn't go too much better when I tried to dance and play at the same time - I felt like a first-year student.

So I got the message: "Use it or lose it." At least I had specific practice goals after that class - work on those zills! Hopefully by next class I'll be closer to getting my groove back - sure don't want to let one of my few (relative) strengths go by the wayside.

Queen (Victoria) for a day

So I went to my first steampunk event on Sunday: The Second Anachronism: Steampunk Expedition To Candyland at Webster Hall in NYC. The bellydancer in me felt at home admiring the costumes - everything from full Victorian get-ups to folks dressed as clowns and fairies, as well as people like myself who threw a few things together that looked "period" (although what period exactly would be difficult to determine). There were also a few vendors selling pretty baubles, which I regretfully passed up in a vain attempt to save a few bucks - although I did buy some absinthe-flavored fudge in a glass for $4 (non-alcoholic, of course - I tried the real thing once and it was waaaay to strong for me!)


My main complaint concerns the poor scheduling of events - the performances ran so late that I didn't get to see some of the acts I had wanted to. Of what I did see, the highlight had to be Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band. They played a set of Balkan/Gypsy music that had my friend and I busting bellydance moves on the dance floor (where my friend discovered it's hard to bellydance in a corset!) The other band I got to see in full was This Way to the Egress, who have a Gothic/"dark cabaret" sound. During their two sets, a number of acts performed to the music, including (despite my prediction in my last post) a steampunk bellydancer, as well as a couple of fire dancers, a woman who stripped to her underwear while hula-hooping (a pretty neat trick) and a guy who danced with fan veils, which have become a popular bellydance prop.


Would I go again? Definitely. Am I ready to become a full-time steampunker? Probably not, at least for now. I already have a hobby that requires monetary outlay for classes, costumes, music, etc. and time to set aside for practice, performances, events, etc. So, until the next steampunk event, I'll just put away my lace gloves and pick up my zills ...

Dropping names

As I was perusing the online belly-sphere, I came across a dancer referring to a "compass hip drop." I must confess I don't really know what she means. Is she dropping one hip while pivoting on her standing leg, thus going around in a circle (compass)? I'm not really sure.

Bellydance is famous for not having standardized names for many of its moves. Unlike, say, ballet, which was created as a formal discipline with specific terms for each move, bellydance derives from a number of traditional folk dances across the Middle East/North Africa, where the moves are picked up in childhood and generally not taught as part of a formal "school." Thus, no need for standardized names. It was up to those teaching in the West to find ways to describe the various moves, and, at least for the basic moves, the descriptions are common enough - hip drop, hip circle, rib cage slide, etc. Where we get into trouble is with some of the more complex moves and combinations. For instance, what I've learned in class from my NYC-trained teacher as a vertical figure-8 (of the hips) is known in many places as a maya, because a West Coast instructor admired the way a dancer named Maya did this move. And, when done in the opposite direction, it is called an umi for whatever reason. (And I can never remember which name goes with which direction, because we don't use these names in my neck of the woods.)

A few years ago, there was a bit of a push in the bellydance community to try to create a standardized system of naming moves. However, many others objected, saying it would stifle creativity, etc., and nothing ever really came of it. (Getting the entire bellydance community to agree to one person or committee's list of "official" names would be like herding cats anyway and certainly not worth the time or effort.) Personally, I lean in favor of some kind of standardization, since I'd like to know what a dancer means when she says "compass hip drop."

However, I have a feeling that standardized names will eventually take hold, because of the way information is disseminated these days. The reason I know about mayas and umis, and that what my dance teacher calls an Arabic hip walk is known as a three-quarter shimmy in many other places, is by watching instructional DVDs and reading online material by instructors who use these names. The changing nature of the dance itself will also play a role: American Tribal Style (ATS) bellydance was created with a formalized structure, and therefore uses standardized move names, and as ATS morphs into tribal fusion and other forms, the ATS move names get passed along to more dancers. There will never be a formal codification of all bellydance moves, but I think future generations are less likely to confuse their mayas with their umis.

In the meantime, I'm going to sign off now and work on my "compass hip drops" (or at least, what I think they are).

Time for a quickie

We students and hobbyists can sometimes find ourselves in need of a bit of inspiration - an idea for what we're going to work on that day, or maybe just a little reminder of "why we dance." I'd heard of "Daily Bellydance Quickies," e-mails sent by a dancer named Mahin to subscribers, but I didn't get around to signing up until last week. She started this a little over a year ago, and when I signed up, I was half-thinking "oh, I bet by this time 'daily' is now more like 'weekly'." But, true to its name, there's been a DBQ sent to my e-mailbox every day since I signed up.

DBQs are basically links to YouTube videos of several minutes in length that touch on the theme of the day. This past week, "Monday Musicality" was a demonstration of dance rhythms played on a doumbek; "Tuesday Technique" featured Mahin reviewing different types of hip circles; "The Wednesday Watcher" was a comic routine wherein a dancer performed "My First Belly Dance Lesson"; Thursday's "Thrills with Zills" was a demonstration by Mahin of a chiftitelli rhythm with finger cymbals; Friday's "Bellydance Grab Bag" was a couple of videos focused on eyebrow grooming; the "Saturday Stretch" involved an ab-strengthening exercise; and the "Sunday Dance Inspiration" featured a tribal-fusion dancer performing to Turkish music.

So, after a week, I had a few helpful tips and reminders involving rhythm and dance, saw a couple of entertaining videos and got makeup advice on one of my more troublesome issues. (I skipped the Saturday exercise because I have a hiatal hernia and need to take it easy when it comes to ab work.) Oh, and the Tuesday DBQ included a link to an online UK bellydance magazine that had an article about Mahin, so now I have another BD mag to check out! Bottom line, I ended the week feeling just a little more inspired and determined to "get out there and dance"!

As for Mahin, she's a cabaret-style dancer based in Arizona, and her Daily Bellydance Quickies main page can be found here. She also has resumed doing podcasts, which feature interviews with people in the BD community (the interviews themselves are very well done, although the sound quality of the podcast does need some work).

Looking forward to tomorrow's BDQ!

That's (live) entertainment

I've just finished reading "No Applause ... Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" by Trav S.D. This is a highly entertaining (and a bit opinionated) look at the history of vaudeville that is both reverent and irreverent. If your interest in bellydance extends to a curiosity about what popular entertainment was like in the U.S. at the time the dance was introduced to the public, you'll find this book of interest (although by way of explaining how "cooch" dance made it onto stages across the country, the author repeats the myth of Little Egypt performing at the Chicago World's Fair that I discussed in a previous post).

I found the description of vaudeville's decline particularly thought-provoking. It was, of course, mainly technology that "killed" vaudeville - silent films in the 19-teens and then radio in the '20s. (Working in an industry - newspapers - facing a similar threat from electronic media, I could relate). But it made me think about how audiences started abandoning live performances in order to watch grainy black-and-white films with no dialogue. Sheer novelty was a big draw, no doubt, as were the much cheaper prices to see films rather than live shows. (And even in those days, film producers were able to lure top talent into their stables.) Radio's popularity was easy to explain - listeners were able to enjoy their favorite vaudeville singers and comedians without having to leave the comfort of home. But of course all this led to a shift away from watching live performances and into watching them through a medium. This also meant a shift in the kind of performances people were exposed to - singers and comedians made the transition to radio (and, later, television), but dancers, acrobats and other vaudeville stalwarts didn't get the same kind of exposure and their artistry began to be pushed out of the mainstream.

Now, none of us today would give up the luxury of having entertainment that's pre-recorded and/or transmitted through a medium of some kind (I'll confess to being an iPod addict), but I think we lose a little something in not being in the same room with the entertainers. I know I enjoy bellydance much more when I see it performed live than while watching it on a performance DVD - and it's even better when it's done to live music. There's a vibe between the dancer, the musicians and the audience that you're not going to feel watching a DVD at home by yourself. The music, for that matter, sounds better live than on a recording.

Since I am fortunate enough to live within a train ride of NYC, I try to attend live professional bellydance shows as often as I can - and a few of these have been a mix of bellydance and "neo-vaudeville" so I've been able to get at least a glimpse of what entertainment was like "in the old days." In an age of corporate entertainment, the opportunity to gather in small groups to watch dedicated performers give it their all can be very rewarding, and should not be passed up.

Meet my brain at the fair

As the situation in Egypt continues to unfold, I, like so many of us, hope that things are resolved in the best manner for all concerned and as peacefully as possible. However, during this crisis, I keep hearing two phrases - "the streets of Cairo" and "Little Egypt" (a neighborhood in Queens that local news reporters have been seeking out for reaction) - that send my mind off the topic at hand and drifting over to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

"Little Egypt" is the name of the belly dancer who, legend has it, drew people to the fair (and scandalized the arbiters of morality) with her "hoochie-coochie" dance (although there are no records from that time that indicate anyone performed at the fair under that name). After the fair, several dancers claimed to be THE Little Egypt, and the myth of her performing at the fair took hold. 

Something that did originate at the 1893 fair was a melody improvised by Sol Bloom, the manager of the Middle Eastern dancers at the fair (some of whom danced at an exhibition called "A Street in Cairo"), which was later appropriated by other composers. The most popular version of this song was called "Streets of Cairo or the Poor Little Country Maid." Although no one today remembers the lyrics, everyone knows the melody - it's the "da da DA da daaahh, da da da DA da da da" heard on cartoons, commercials, spoofs, and sung by kids with lyrics such as "All the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance . . ." You can check Shira's site here for a song clip and more history of the song (the song clip plays right away, so don't try it at work). A short write-up on the various Little Egypts can be found here.

So what does all this have to do with what's going on in Egypt today? Nothing, of course - but after all these years of studying bellydance, this kind of free association just can't be helped, I guess.

Can you learn to bellydance from books?

When I first started taking bellydance classes, I couldn't learn fast enough. Weekly classes weren't enough to satisfy my appetite, but, as I've stated in earlier posts, I was reluctant to shell out $40 or $50 on videos that may or may not prove to be helpful. So, bookworm that I am, it was off to the area libraries to see what I could find. I couldn't come up with much. No videos, one book about the dance's development in Middle Eastern countries, which I devoured, but which didn't help my dance any, and one how-to - a book from the late '70s or early '80s by the dancer Serena.

When trying to work with this book, however, I soon saw the limitations of trying to learn this way - for one thing, you have to keep picking up the book to read directions and then put it down again to execute the move, then pick it up again. . .  The accompanying photos weren't much of a help either for a "newbie" like me - a series of black-and-white images for each move, where the "mirror effect" that I wrote about earlier adds to the confusion - the instructions might say "lift right foot" but the lifted foot in the photo would be on the left, for example. All in all, rather frustrating for a new dancer whose ability to focus isn't the greatest, so, since I had the luxury of live instruction,  I decided to just stick with what I was learning in my weekly class.

But I've retained a desire to have books about bellydance, including how-tos, so I began looking for them in used bookstores and managed to find a few over the years. The how-to titles I found, all from the 1970s, are The Compleat Belly Dancer (by Julie Russo Mishkin and Marta Schill), The Art of Belly Dancing (by Dahlena),  The Belly Dancer in You (by Ozel Turkbas) and The Secrets of Belly Dancing (by Roman Balladine). The first three, in particular, advertise bellydance as a way to get a more youthful figure and to re-ignite your husband's interest in you (apparently only married women were supposed to learn this dance!). But the books are also written with the assumption that the reader is going to go from an absolute beginner to someone who will be performing in public, and come complete with instructions on costume making, tips for putting on a show, etc.

Considering that back in the '70s, these books were the often the only access a woman had to any kind of bellydance instruction, was anyone actually able to learn how to dance from them? I imagine that if someone were absolutely determined to learn this dance and were willing to spend hours and hours working with these books, one could fumble one's way to a facsimile of bellydance, but without an instructor to provide guidance on proper positioning and movement, one would, at best, have poor technique and, at worst, sustain an injury by doing a move improperly.

So, are these books useful at all? If you are already studying with an instructor, they can provide some useful pointers, provide a few variations on moves you already know, or help you devise a practice routine. And the dance-for-your-sultan kitsch factor is good for some smiles. But overall, when it comes to learning bellydance, books aren't better.

Despite the advent of video instruction, however, there are still how-to books being published (and, of course, I own several of them!) These are somewhat improved over the older books in that the photos are in color and are easier to follow, but, again, I would use them as I described above and not try to learn from scratch from them.

And then there are the books that include a big dollop of history, real or imagined, along with a bit of instruction. I'll look at these in a future post.