However…. While this seems harmless, it is doing the musicians whose music appears in these performances a huge disservice. These event producers aren’t licensing the music to which the dancers are performing. I’m not going to mince words here; it is illegal to sell a recording with music on it without having licensed the songs from either the record label or the artist him/herself. I have had to tell several event producers that when they sell a performance DVD to the audience members of their show that they are breaking the law. Most of the time, the producers are shocked. They honestly have no idea that what they are doing is illegal. Plus, the musicians whose music appears on these DVDs aren’t receiving any sort of compensation for their own art.

I’m surprised and frankly upset that event producers do not seem to know this simple fact.

Every time a belly dance DVD is made, whether it by the Bellydance Superstars or WorldDanceNewYork or the independent producer in her home studio, the music tracks that appear on those recordings are licensed to the tune of over $200 a song.

Please, if you are an event producer, do not sell DVDs of the performance to the general public without having licensed the music to which the performers are dancing. If you plan to sell a recording of the gala show, let the performers in the show know ahead of time not only that the show will be recorded but also that the general public will be able to purchase it so that we can inquire about licensing tracks so that the music can appear legally on the recording. If you plan to sell your show DVD to the public and you have all the performers’ explicit written permission to do so, plan to spend at least $200 a song to license each performer’s music. (Another pet peeve of mine is discovering the day of the show that my performance is being sold to the general public, even though in my contract it clearly states that producers must have explicit written permission from me to record my performance, let alone have it be available for any random person to purchase.)

This issue doesn’t just have to do with intellectual property laws; it’s a matter of respect. My art (or anyone else’s for that matter) is not public domain. Neither is the music to which I dance. It does nothing to elevate our dance form if we can’t even respect the other artists who inspire us.

Also, at the end of the day, we can say that money is just material, but applause and praise don’t pay the rent or buy the groceries. It is only just that every artist whose creations appear in a production get the payment and credit they are due.

The question struck me as odd… I didn’t know I had a “new” dance style as opposed to what I had been doing, but my dancing has changed quite a bit over the past year.

Dance is a physical manifestation of Self. I believe that the way someone dances is a complete and honest reflection of her unconscious, her shadow, her inner demons. If I have a student in my classes who lacks control over her movements, chances are that she’s feeling that her life is out of control as well. If another student has difficulty with fluid movements and is stiff, chances are that she’s feeling stiff or stuck in some other realm of her life outside of the dance studio.

Starting in 2004, I started to use a lot of electronica in my dance performances. For years I had been drawn to IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) and its related electronic music genres, even before I had started belly dancing. I didn’t think to truly combine my love of electronic music with belly dance until 2004. The robotic ticking, locking, and strobing that I used in my performances to (I think) best express the artificial and synthetic sounds of electronic music characterized the essence of my dance. As my visibility in the dance scene grew over the years, the music and accompanying robotic movements I used were (and still are) a hallmark of my own personal style.

Last year, my dance began to soften and return to its Middle Eastern roots. I’ve even been accused of becoming “too cabaret” by some. Not that a few distant voices are going to prevent me from dancing to music I love, from a region of the world that I have been drawn to since birth, and growing as an artist. But why have I changed?

Without getting into details, everything in my life shifted. I quit my job, which had been weighing on my shoulders for several years, making me feel incompetent and inadequate, and most of all, making me feel stuck in a machine in which I was merely a cog. Shortly after I quit my day job, my marriage disintegrated. When I found myself single again, I felt free. I had felt stuck in that situation as well. Both my job and my marriage made me feel like I was living an artificial life: one where I feigned happiness because I should have been happy, not because I truly was happy. I had a secure and well-paying career in a field that most people only dream of; I was married and owned a house. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. I was not living authentically for my own Self.

In living an artificial life, it makes sense that I would dance like an artificial being, a robot, because that is how my essential Self felt. It felt stuck, inorganic, forced into a situation that wasn’t authentic.

I still love electronica; that isn’t changing any time soon. In fact, I’m listening to Lusine ICL’s beautiful album Condensed right now. But, I’m using less and less electronica in my performances. You’ll still see my “signature” ticking and precise technique, but it will have a different feel. I am not sorry if this disappoints you.

Art changes because we, the artists, change. My dance changes as I change. I am living a life in which I am much more true to myself, therefore, I believe my dancing has become less artificial-looking. I am no longer feeling artificial. I feel organic, alive, passionate, and real.

Life is too short to feel stuck in your art… and it’s too short to expect others to be stuck in their art as well.

Before I left my day job, I had been reading several blogs on freelancing, escaping the cube, creativity, and simpler living.  (I also follow most of them on Twitter, which is how I found out about Pam’s DC workshop.) Some of these blogs include:

• Pam Slim’s Escape From Cubicle Nation. (@pamslim on Twitter)
• Jonathan Fields’ Career Renegade and Awake at the Wheel. (@jonathanfields)
• Michelle Goodman’s Anti 9-to-5 Guide. (@anti9-to-5guide)
• Seth Godin’s Blog. (@thisissethsblog)
• Freelance Switch. (@freelancesw)
• Dumb Little Man. (@dumblittleman)
• Zen Habits. (@zenhabits)
• Business Pundit. (@businesspundit)

To me, it seemed like the natural thing to do.  I wanted to start my own business as a freelance, independent creative contractor, in charge of my own schedule and my own life.  It seemed natural to want to approach dancing full-time as an entrepreneurial endeavor, so I wanted to read blogs written by and that inspire entrepreneurs.

What surprises me, though, is that many dancers, even and maybe especially the part-time professionals (those who are dancing, performing, and teaching for pay) are not looking at their dance as business.  They don’t file taxes with their state or with, in the case of the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  They don’t have business licenses on file with their home city.  They don’t itemize their deductions at tax time (because they’re not even paying taxes).  They aren’t demanding that their sponsors obtain work visas for them when they teach outside of their country of residence.

This lack of business prudence indicates several things to me:

• We, as a community, do not place a high value on being legally official.
• We, as a community, do not think that we need to pay taxes because, at least in the case of the part-timers, we make very little.
• We, as a community, do not take ourselves seriously as businesswomen… Even though we are selling services, knowledge, skills, and sometimes products.

And what that boils down to, in my eyes, is a fundamental lack of self-respect.

We owe it to ourselves and the community to go to our local government authorities and get the appropriate business license to teach and perform (and sell wares). Plus, it’s a pretty awesome feeling when you come home with a business license to put up on your wall at home.  We owe it to our students as examples and mentors that belly dance is a legitimate business venture, something respectable and honorable.  We owe it to ourselves and our community to show that we can be professional artists in an obscure and often misunderstood dance form, and still be official and legal about it.

If you’re teaching dance or performing for pay, it takes only a few hours to set up a business as a sole proprietor.  If you have questions about how to set up an official business, take a look at the blogs I’ve posted above… or ask your mentors.  Ask me.  I might not have the answers, but when we fail to report our income and our expenses to our local and federal governments, what we’re saying is, “What we’re doing isn’t a legitimate business”, and therefore “What we’re doing isn’t legitimate.” It’s under the table, shady and hidden.

In my eyes, belly dance deserves better than under-the-table dealings.  It demands respect, which we all claim to want, but unless we can respect ourselves enough to look at ourselves as businesswomen/men and entrepreneurs, then how do we expect those NOT in our community to respect us?

But… I like to think positively.  I try very hard to be a “glass half full” kind of person, searching for opportunity within adversity.  And I think that if I can be financially comfortable in the current economy, when people don’t have as much money to spend on luxury items like dance, I will be just fine in the future.  If I’m moderately financially stable now, in a few years, I should be just fine.

Also, surprisingly, I haven’t noticed a decrease in attendance in either my local weekly classes or my workshops.  It seems to me that even in tough times, or maybe especially in tough times, people need to dance.  They need art.  They need an escape that gives them a time and place for them to work on themselves, where they don’t have to worry about their families, their children, their boss, their finances.  Dance gives the women (and men) in my classes a chance to leave the worries of the world outside the studio, and for that hour they have nothing to concentrate on but themselves.  I was worried that people wouldn’t want to spend their money on dance classes, but maybe in times like these, an escape like dance is even more necessary.

Maybe my worries about dancing full time and not having a steady income are a bit more unfounded than I think they are.  Sure, living off of my art is hard work, and it will never cease to be hard work.  However, I’m not only making myself happier, but I’d like to think that I’m also bringing joy to all of the students who take my classes.  That alone is worth following my passion to teach and dance fulltime.