Throughout the weekend, one theme that kept popping into my head: the importance of play in the creative process.  As adults, we sometimes lose touch with our childlike selves, giving in to pressures of being “mature” and “responsible”. (Those aren’t unnecessary quotation marks.) But, if we are to be consistently creative beings, we must remember this is supposed to be FUN goddamnit!

On one side of the creative process is the refinement of technique.  Of dedication to our craft from a methodical, habitual, and dedicated practice.  That would be attending drills and technique classes; learning about rhythm and meter; looking up lyrics to songs; and building strength, flexibility, and stamina.  Without this hard work, we have no platform on which to present our creativity.

On the other side, which is equally as important, is the development of the creative self.  Allowing ourselves to have fun, to be whimsical, to let go and just dance in the privacy of our living room or home studio, of going on small adventures, of going out with friends and being silly.  The Artist’s Way emphasizes the development of diversion as a positive and nourishing activity through the weekly Artist Dates, where you take yourself out, alone, on a date somewhere: a garden, a walk, a movie, a museum, an art store, or anywhere else that might be outside your regular routine.  Observing children can also be a huge inspiration.  I love watching and talking to children between the ages of 5 and 12 because they still have that sense of uninhibited whimsy, yet they’re developing their own distinct personality.  They are instinctual beings, and aren’t yet terribly self-conscious or likely to feel embarrassed about what they like or say.  They inspire me to do the same.  I also love the activities in Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit and the fun and freeing movement explorations in Blom and Chaplin’s The Intimate Act of Choreography.

I’ve realized that I’ve been serious for much too long where I didn’t need to be so.  I am still very serious about my dance practice and attending classes, but the veil of self-consciousness that I have worn for years is worn and tired.

It’s time to shed the facade of seriousness and go have a good time…. and not care what people think about you.  If you follow what brings you joy, you will find more joy, and you’ll find plenty of people with whom to share it.  I certainly did this weekend in Providence.

There’s strange line between actively trying to perform a movement or a choreography and just letting it happen.

Here’s the difference: When a dancer actively tries to perform something, she goes in with a sense of “I have something to show you,” or “I have something to prove”.  Or it could be that the active, conscious, thinking brain just won’t be quiet.  ”Am I doing this move too much?”  Or, “Ugh, I was so off the beat there!”   I think we’ve all gone through this at one point or another in our development as dancers.

But when we go up on stage and just dance because we love a the song to which we’ve chosen to perform, or we’re caught up in the moment and the feeling takes us on a journey, or when we have one of those shows when we can’t remember what we did because we were carried away… those performances are often the most successful, ironically, because we weren’t trying to perform.  We were just dancing. We let the feelings, the movements, and the dance spring forth from the well of our being, and we weren’t trying to do or be anything other than ourselves.

And of course we must train and refine our technique.  Of course we must build our stamina and polish our musicality.  But another skill we must learn is to stop back and let the dance happen. When we start actively performing instead of just letting the dance flow from within, something shifts.  The audience can see it, and we can feel it.  Our performances aren’t as satisfying, and they certainly aren’t as authentic or true to our own selves.  The Spanish call it “Duende” in the case of Flamenco, Arab musicians call it “Tarab”.  It feels like magic, and it is available to and attainable by all of us.

…as my instructor Andrea said in class one night:  ”The dance is enough”.

A few weekends ago, I went ice skating again for the first time in several years.  The first step on the ice was strange, but I was wearing my old familiar skates, which brought me some comfort that I wouldn’t actually kill myself.  I kept telling myself, “You can do this.  You did this for 14 years.  This is all still in your muscle memory.”  And it was.  First I just skated around the rink.  Then I let myself try out single rotation jumps, one by one.  Salchow. Toe Loop. Flip.  All OK.  After a few hours of ice time, I worked up the nerve to try an Axel, which is 1.5 rotations in the air.  And I surprised myself with how easy it was… once I just got out of my own way and let it happen. Once I trusted my body, I was able to land a jump that I hadn’t actually attempted in years.  (So many years that I can’t remember the last time I had tried an Axel.)

With any sort of movement, whether it’s sports or dance or painting, if we have trained and dedicated time to ingraining an action in our bodies, we know it.  Of course we can always improve our skills, but I think a very difficult thing for adults is to trust it.  To let it happen.  To breathe and mentally step out of the way.  Children don’t seem to have this second-guess quality in to their thoughts the way that adults do.  They just do something, and part of that is because they’re too young to have a lot of people tell them they can’t.  They’re also too young to think that they can’t.  Many times when we find something difficult or it seems outside our reach, it isn’t because it isn’t attainable… it’s because we psych ourselves out of it.  We tell ourselves, “Oh, that’s too hard,” or “That’s scary”, or “Oh, I can’t do that”.

The reality is, though, if you tell yourself you can and that you will, you will probably surprise yourself and be able to push yourself well beyond your perceived capabilities and limits.

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There’s also a really fantastic book about this topic called The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee.  It’s accessible for those without a background in neurology, and I recommend it to anyone interested in how the body learns how to move itself through space.

Of course, I like to compare things like this to my past life in figure skating.  A skater wears a specific costume for a specific program.  The costume for the short program is different than the costume for the long program.  Sometimes skaters take the “match the costume to the music” thing to the extreme.  You know that the competitor wearing the black and red costume with the ruffly skirt and a rose in her hair is going to be skating to Bizet’s Carmen or Lecuona’s Malagueña.  And the skater wearing a fire-colored costume, complete with a flame-like skirt?  Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.  It (almost) never fails.  And of course, the skater wearing the purple (sometimes blue) outfit with the illusion mesh midriff?  Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, or something Middle Eastern-ish like Samson and Delilah or even Peter Gabriel’s “The Feeling Begins”, which is actually based around an Armenian folksong (See Oksana Baiul’s costume)  Even when it’s trite or stereotypical (or even an inaccurate interpretation like Baiul’s), the skater makes an effort to match the costume to the performance in some way, because if it didn’t, a judge can actually reduce the competitor’s artistic mark.  The costume is part of the presentation, and while it might not count for as many points as if the skater landed a triple Lutz, it still matters.  Thankfully, in recent years, figure skating costumes have become less matchy-matchy, however the costume is still a reflection of the sentiment or feeling of the piece.

In belly dance, we don’t seem to match the costume to the performance as much as we could be, or (I think) should be.  And, of course, I have worn costumes that don’t really reflect the sentiment of the piece I’m performing… and I look back and ask myself, why did I do that?  A performance is a complete package, and the costume is part of that package.

I’ve seen many performances by dancers in all styles who have worn absolutely gorgeous costumes… but these costumes had very little to do with the music to which the dancers were performing or the sentiment of the piece.  Some outfits even seemed to inhibit the dancers’ movements: the skirt was too tight, or the bra was too embellished, or the belt was too heavy.  It seemed that the dancers chose the costumes before they chose their music.

However, there are some dancers, such as Heather Stants and Urban Tribal Dance Company, have truly fused everything: the music, the movements, and the costuming are all minimal, modern, and sleek, as shown in their performance to Murcof’s “Memoria” (one of my favorites). The costumes seamlessly allow the dancers to move and breathe with the music.  Zoe Jakes and Kami Liddle’s duet to a remix of “Makaan” by Natasha Atlas also exhibits a costume that matches the music and the movements.  All three elements are elegant, feminine, contemporary, ethnic, yet still pulling from Arabic roots.  It is obvious that these dancers have considered the complete package of their performances.

Sometimes it’s not financially or temporally feasible to create a new costume for each piece we perform, but we should remember that the costume is part of the package.  Ideally, I would have a different costume for each piece, but I do have several costumes that fit a number of different songs and performance pieces: there’s the 40s-inspired gold assuit bedlah I made for my more cabaret performances, the rich burgudy velvet bra and belt made for my more Andalusian and Medieval-inspired pieces, and the sporty and flashy rhinestone and coin set I created for my pieces to more hard rock-inspired music.  The first thing our audience sees when we take the stage is what we are wearing, and that is the first message they receive about the nature of our performance.  It is integral to the performance and should reflect our personal connection to our movements and our music.

Yes, it’s expensive.  Yes, it’s technique-focused. Yes, it requires a hell of a lot of dedication.

But why do I do it?  Growth.

By having levels of certification, we as students have benchmarks, a way of saying, “I learned these things, I have passed a test that has required me to demonstrate that I know these things, so now I am qualified to learn more challenging things that will help me become a better dancer, and help me achieve the next level.”  The tools that we are given in Level 1 are the bare basics, and we build on them in Level 2 so that we can begin important creative work in Level 3 so that we can become polished and professional performers and teachers in Level 4.  It’s a logical process, and most of you know, I love logic.  Also, here’s an analogy: You don’t teach someone a foreign language by asking them to write a novel.  You teach her the alphabet, then words, then sentences…  Dance is a language of the body, and belly dance happens to be the language I choose.

My dedication to certification has absolutely nothing to do with me being able to earn more money or get booked for more gigs. In fact, I think I might have fewer fans now than I did than before people knew just how dedicated I am to my particular certification program.  ”Oh, you’re one of those Suhaila girls,” some people say, in that way that people talk about something they don’t understand and therefore don’t like.  Do I think that earning my Level 3 certification will get me more work? Nope. Do I feel like I’ve earned something incredibly special, something difficult, something totally worth all the sweat, tears, and injuries? Oh hell yes. I earned this for me.

This program is certainly not all about technique; it’s about emotion, expression, honest art, musical interpretation, working with live Arab musicians, knowing belly dance history, honoring our teachers, taking pride in our selves and our bodies and our creative work.  Here’s another analogy: The technique is the foundation of a building.  If you want to create a beautiful Victorian mansion, complete with intricate wood details and turrets and spires, you’ll still need a foundation.  You still need that foundation to be strong and well-built, otherwise the house will fall or collapse.  You also need trained artisans to carve the wood that decorates that mansion, artisans who have trained for years in their craft.  This format will give you one of the best foundations in the belly dance world, and it will also help you become a trained artisan through emotional and creative training.  (And might I also add that in merely six months of intense training at the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance, I have lost nearly 7% of my body weight?)

Most importantly, though, this format prevents me from being stuck, stagnant, and it keeps me honest about my work as an artist. I am absolutely never bored with my training or my practice.  It also keeps me working, and my work is never done.

I do hope that dancers curious about the format come out to a Multi-Level Weeklong Workshop here in California, because that is the absolute best way to get a sampler of what the Suhaila (and Jamila) Salimpour Format is all about and how it can help dancers push themselves technically and artistically.  I understand that this format might not be for everyone.  I respect dancers who choose their own paths in this dance that are not Suhaila’s format, but I do believe that it makes incredible dancers out of those who pursue it.  Now, do I think I’m an incredible dancer?  Maybe if I work hard enough.  Maybe.

In my past life, as some of you know, I was a competitive figure skater for 14 years.  Through most of those 14 years, I had a primary coach who was my teacher, my friend, and a mentor.  Of course, I trained with other coaches as well, but I would say that of all of my teachers, I would only call two of them mentors. They looked out for what was best for me, and guided me through tough times, worked with me and my strengths and pushed me when I needed pushing.  I trusted them, even when I had bad days, when I fell on every jump, and when I didn’t even want to be at the rink.  And in the figure skating world, if you are competing and you don’t have a coach (something that usually only happens at the Senior/International/Olympic level), it’s a very odd thing indeed.

Why do we lack this phenomenon in belly dance? It’s certainly not as if we don’t have dancers and instructors who have decades of experience to impart on newer and younger generations of dancers.

First of all, I don’t think it’s in our community’s culture.  We aren’t told from the beginning that such a relationship is important or valuable.  We take classes with a local instructor, and they are our teacher, but usually not a mentor. Second, many teachers in this community aren’t trained as teachers, so many teachers haven’t had concrete guidance on how to impart their knowledge to their students.  (I know I had to wing it for a long time before I even felt I had a handle on the teaching thing, and I even had past experience teaching skating.)  Third, we have a culture of “workshop learning”, where we take lots of workshops from different teachers (which is awesome, and I wholly support this!), but rarely do we connect with just one teacher and go to her for personal guidance.  And fourth, I believe that because so many of us come into this dance as adults that we are less likely to seek out a mentor or think that we might need one.  It might be more natural for a child or young adult to find a mentoring relationship natural or acceptable than for a grown woman who already has children or is married or has been living on her own for many years.

And not every teacher has to be a mentor, but I think a mentoring relationship is incredibly important to a dancer’s technical, professional, and emotional development as an artist and performer.  The mentor is an archetype in all cultures and societies because in order to grow, we must find our guru, someone whom we can trust, even when she puts us in uncomfortable situations.  The mentor appears throughout mythology, ancient and contemporary. One of our earlier mentor characters is, of course, Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey, who guided and taught Odysseus’ son Telemachus while Odysseus struggled to find his way home to his wife and child.  The mentor also appears in contemporary myths, such as Star Wars, where Luke Skywalker seeks the guidance of Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda, even if he doubts himself in the process of becoming a Jedi and even when Yoda puts him through what seem to be impossible tasks.

We can all benefit from such a relationship, regardless of our age or experience… Even mentors have mentors.  Having a mentor teaches us not only more about our art and its history and culture, but also gratitude, humbleness, and respect.

Of course, my advice to all of you would be to find a mentor.  Find a wise instructor not only whom you trust, but also will take you under their wing and guide you.  Your mentor doesn’t even need to live in the same area as you; many of us have mentors who live quite far away, but of course learning from them in person is imperative.  And remember, everyone has different needs and goals in this dance form, so make sure you find a mentor who understands what you seek but will also guide you in directions of which you might not have previously considered.  A true mentor will look out for what is truly best for you, even if that means being in uncomfortable situations or being a bit scared.  How else would Luke Skywalker have become a Jedi if it weren’t for Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda?

1) There is a difference between what I mean by “discomfort” and “routine”.  Creative people must have routine.  Every morning Twyla Tharp gets up at the crack of dawn to go work out.  That’s her routine.  But, on those cold New York mornings where the bed is more appealing than lifting weights, I can assure you that going to work out is not “comfortable”.  That is Twyla’s discomfort.  I,too, have my routines.  I go to class at the same times every week at the Suhaila Salimpour School of Dance, but I can assure you that being in class is not a physically comfortable experience.  As artists we must regularly show up at the page or the studio, but what we create or how we practice isn’t necessarily a pleasant experience.  Sitting at home in my cozy robe on the couch with a cat on my lap is way more comfortable, but that’s not going to be at all conducive to my art as a dancer.

2) The 8-5. Here I mostly mean contemporary cubicle life, and, yes, this does work for some people.  I would say that this is one of the ways in which they are not comfortable.  It was mine for a long time.  Sometimes we need that in order to kickstart us into our true calling.

3) Where we make art must be nurturing, safe, and, yes, comfortable.  The studio is a place where we should feel free to make things without criticism, even self-criticism.  We must have the right tools and guidance available to us so that we can make art to its greatest potential.  But in order to find inspiration and new creative material, we can’t stay in the safety of our studio.

4) Hardship often does make great art, but we must revel in the beauty of the world, even when our times are tough.  Inspiration is everywhere, but you’ll never see if if you stay comfortable all the time.

Does that make more sense?

This isn’t to say that you should revel in strife.  There are those who love to tell their friends about how much they’ve suffered to get where they are, but I say the more you wallow in your hardship, the more hardship will fall upon you.  Don’t wade in your self-pity.  Just keep moving.  If you’re in a creative swamp, the only way to get out is to move.  You might be more comfortable standing in that murky water, but don’t tell me that you can’t get out.  It might be a long hard slog to get your boots out of the mud, and your feel will get blisters, and you’ll be tired and thirsty and sore… but you’ll have at least fought your way out of the swamp.

*And after a thoughtful comment from Christina of Sihaya Designs, I think what I really meant is “safety”.  Art isn’t ever a safe venture.  But I do believe that discomfort and strife make good art, even the art that is rooted in happy times – because how can celebrate our happiness through art without having first traveled through the awful times?

So, if this is the case, why do we see similar things happening in belly dance so often?

Let’s replace the hypothetical situation above with a dancer and a top-of-the-line costume.  Just as the instrument does not make the musician, the costume does not make the dancer.  No matter how well a dancer costumes herself, a costume will not make up for a lack of training, strength, conditioning, flexibility, emotional expression, choreography, or technique.  A costume can not hide the absence of these essentials, and without these elements, the dance can easily become a fashion show.

Of course, a dancer’s costume must match her performance in theme and style.  It must fit her well and be made of good quality materials; it must allow her to move and express herself without restraining or distracting her.  As dancers we must look good on stage.  Dance is a visual art, and the costume is an essential part of the performance, whether it’s a classic beaded bedlah for oriental style, or coin bra and tassel belt for American Tribal Style, or a unique creation sewn by the dancer herself.  The costume is part of the experience, especially for theatrical performances.

But… if we spend more time worrying about costuming ourselves than we do actually in the studio or our dance rooms training, we hold back our beloved art.  No matter how good we look on stage, if we don’t have the movement to back it up, then the performance will fall short.  The costume is only one part of a complete performance.  There’s a reason that if someone says, “Well, she had a great costume”, it’s often because her performance was lackluster and her costume was the only thing that stood out.  A dancer’s costume shouldn’t upstage the dancer herself, and we should be spending more time and money on our training and the development of our choreographies than we do on our costuming.

Another way of putting this is: You can buy the best paint brushes, the finest oils, and the top-of-the-line canvas, but unless you practice your brushstrokes and actually learn how to use your materials, you won’t become a better painter.

If you take away your costume, can your choreography speak for itself, or are you relying on your costume to speak for you instead?

Opeth. Best known for being a Swedish death metal band who has had one foot firmly planted in the world of modern progressive rock for quite some time.   But their most recent album, Heritage, is not death metal. At all. And they didn’t play any songs with growling death metal vocals at their absolutely stunning live show here in San Francisco.  Heritage is a tribute to the bands’ influences, to metal and progressive rock of the 1970s, but with a personal, modern, and truly unique approach.  It blends classic heavy metal with quiet acoustic interludes and even a Swedish folk song played in a jazz style.

What makes Heritage so brilliant, though, really?

One:  It is not a hackneyed attempt to revive the musical trends of the past. It is a showcase of technical and emotional musicianship and a clear understanding of the music that paved the way for bands like Opeth to form and gain worldwide fame.  These five men are masters of their art, tip their hats to the past, and make emotional songs.  There is a fresh passion in their work, even as it references sounds from nearly 40 years ago…. and music even older than that in their reinventions of Swedish folk melodies.

Two: The lead singer makes no apologizes for any changes in the band’s musical style.  Ever.  In fact, he says that if someone doesn’t like it, they can fuck off.  Death metalheads lament the lack of RAWR in the recent album and tour setlist, but Opeth stands firmly by their creative decision to showcase more mellow and melodic songs from their already diverse repertoire.

Honor the past.  Know your roots. Be a master of your instrument (whether that’s your paintbrushes, your guitar, your words, or your body). Create honest art.  Stand by your creative decisions.

Wise lessons to live by, I’d say.