“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”  – Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged

Some people have questioned why I am a fan, of sorts, of Ayn Rand, particularly as her philosophies have been hijacked by people calling themselves members of the modern-day “Tea Party” movement. (Her political and economic policies advocate laissez faire capitalism, which, I think if there were no greed on this Earth, might be able to work.  In this world, alas, greed is everywhere, as well as people and organizations to seek to take advantage and harm others.)

Well. Her fiction calls on the power of the individual to follow his/her calling according to his ability, which lies within his/her competence and knowledge.  Her heroes are strong, empowered individuals who fight against collectivism, the naysaying of trends and the masses, the mediocre and the apathetic.  Her heroes strive for knowledge; they ignore those who tell them what they’re doing isn’t “acceptable”.  They march to the sound of their own drum.  Her philosophy also advocates that one must not harm another in their pursuit of their vision.  To harm another means to mooch off of them; to have a victim means that you’re taking from that victim and not working on your own accord.  This aspect of her philosophy appeals to me very much.  Work hard, make money doing what you do best, and don’t harm others in the process.  Sounds like a good way to live, yeah?

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll see why these stories have inspired me so much.  My tattoo, the star in the circle, is not only a derivation of a logo used by the band Rush, but also a visual manifestation of these ideals.  The band’s drummer created the symbol to represent the masses, the collective, the mediocre, the naysayers – I put it on my back to remind me that I have a duty to myself to push ahead on my own, regardless of whatever obstacles come before me.  I am my own leader, and I will follow my vision.

My first Saturday on the continent included teaching two workshops in the small town of Lotzwill, Switzerland, where a very dedicated and hard-working group of participants took four hours of workshops with me in both technique and choreography. The Swiss take their extra-curriculars very seriously.  Every single student put in their all, and not once did they complain about their arms, their thighs, or anything else for that matter.  They were clearly there to learn, take it all in, and practice once they got home.

When I got to Italy the week after, I found a lot of the same work ethic in the students not only from Italy, but also in those who came in from Spain, France, and the United Kingdom.  On Friday night, I performed in the professional gala, and although I didn’t get to see the performances, I did see the amazing and creative costuming of my fellow dancers.  On Saturday night, I attended the “open stage” show, where students and semi-professionals showed off their recent routines and performance pieces.

Something struck me as I taught these European dancers and watched them perform.  These dancers have fewer resources, teachers, costumers, and venues, and yet their drive and creativity was off the chart amazing.

I think in the United States, we’re a little bit spoiled, particularly those of us who live in large metropolitan areas.  In Washington, DC, there are two studios dedicated to teaching only belly dance and its related art forms.  There are several annual festivals within reasonable driving distance.  We bring in multitudes of instructors every month to the area. The European dancers don’t have nearly as many events and resources, and yet many of them are beautifully costumed, creative, unique, and driven… dare I say, more so than many of the American dancers I’ve observed.

I think there’s a connection here.

When you have less to work with: fewer materials, classes, costumers, and instructors, you’re forced to make due with what you have.  You can’t just go out to the latest festival and buy the hottest new kind of Melodia pants.  You can’t just go on eBay and buy the hottest accessories because it’s very expensive to ship it to your home country.  You can’t attend weekly classes with a well-known instructor because the train ticket to get there is too pricey.  You have to make it up as you go along with the materials, money, and ideas that you have.  And you gobble up any resource or material you can get in order to learn and grow.  You don’t take anything for granted because it’s a lot harder to get your hands on the knowledge you need to become a better dancer.

There’s a book out now called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, based on the idea that if you use the restroom and there are only three squares of toilet paper left on the roll, what do you do?  You use those three squares to their fullest and you don’t waste anything!  You need all you can get!  It’s a strange analogy, but that’s what I think is happening in Europe.  They aren’t blessed with a whole roll of tribal fusion toilet paper, so to speak.  They’re working with a lot less, and yet, they are creating beautiful dancers; I didn’t see one performer at the open stage night who was trying to dress or dance like a more famous performer.

The experience made me think of how I can make more art with less… How can I use what I already have to make a new costume or create a new performance piece?  How can you do the same?

As a child, I was always interested in anything Middle Eastern, mostly in a fantasy context.  The Arabian Dance in The Nutcracker was always my favorite part of that ballet.  I constantly asked my mother to play her worn out copy of Scheherezade on the record player in the living room.  I would pretend that the oriental rugs in our house were magic flying carpets.  The Tales of 1001 Nights were my favorite fairy tales.

In 5th grade, I learned very basic elements of Middle Eastern geography.  Our teacher told us about Iraq and the basics about the Gulf War.  I never quite understood why the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia was always a dotted line on maps, but I figured I would learn someday.  I didn’t understand much about Israel and the Palestinian territories, but I had an idea that it was contested.

It wasn’t until 7th grade that I really had any idea about the Middle East, its people, arts, music, or history.  And I stumbled into my future through something quite unexpected.

In 1991 I saw a trailer for Disney’s newest movie, Aladdin. I remember being so excited.  The art captured my imagination, and I got my hands on anything I could about the film.  I read up on the making of the movie, on the research the artists did on Islamic art to give the movie its look.  When I learned about Islamic art, I started to look further into the culture.  I remember dragging my parents to the Freer and Sackler Museums in Washington, DC, during our annual summer visit to the East Coast, because I wanted to see an exhibit there of illuminated Qur’ans.  I still have the poster I bought in the gift shop that day.  What started as a childhood fancy started becoming something near and dear to my heart.

My obsession with the Middle East carried on through high school.  I bought Passion: Sources during my Freshman year of high school, which first exposed me to the music of the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.  I listened to that CD over and over and over again, letting the melodies and rhythms feed my imagination.  It’s still one of my favorite recordings.  I continued researching what I could about Islamic art and other aspects of the Middle East.  During my senior year, I took beginner Arabic classes through the local parks and recreation department.

When I entered college, I discovered that my university had one of the oldest and established Near Eastern Studies departments in the United States.  With the department’s small student numbers and reputable professors, I was hooked.  Early on, I decided to major in Near Eastern Studies (before 9/11, i.e. before it was popular).  I took Arabic language classes every semester (but my brain has a hard time with languages, and I don’t remember as much as wish I did!). Even my University’s Arab Society considered me a bit of an honorary member, even though I am not at all Arab (and if I am Semitic at all, I’m part Sephardic Jew). When my friend (who also majored in Near Eastern Studies – we were the only ones in our graduating class who did) and I saw that the university gym offered belly dance classes, we decided to sign up.  Hey, it’s Middle Eastern and related to our studies!  Why not?  I took my first belly dance classes (with the amazing Kim Leary) in January 2000… and I was completely hooked.  I loved the music, the movements, the expression, and it was one more thing to bring me closer to this culture to which I have always been so drawn.  For my next four years or so of studying belly dance, I stuck very much to being a Middle Eastern dancer, dabbling in everything I could: Saaidi, Turkish Oryantal, Turkish Romany, Egyptian Oriental, Khaliji, Modern Egyptian, and American Cabaret.

So… you might be wondering what happened after that… well.  That’s a tale for the next blog entry.

OK, tribal and fusion dancers. I know we generally don’t dance to classic Middle Eastern music, but we should know these recordings and know them well. We should also be able to dance to them, should the opportunity arise. If you haven’t yet invested in a few good oriental music recordings, now is better than later. It’s a part of your education as a bellydancer. In my opinion, if you’ve been dancing for over a year there are no excuses for not knowing most of these songs. There’s also a reason these songs are essential: They’re damn good.

The songs with links to translations if available.  Hardly a complete list:

• Alf Layla Wa Layla (A Thousand and One Nights)
• Aziza
• Habibi Ya Ayni (My Sweetheart, My Eye)
• Enta Omri (You Are My Life) Sometimes transliterated as “Inta Omri”.
• Lama Bada Yata Sana (When She Begins to Sway)
• Laylat Hob (Love Night)
• Lissa Fakir (Do You Remember?)
• Mashaal
• Mastika – Turkish Karsilama
• Rompi Rompi - Turkish Karsilama
• Salam Alay (She Greeted Me)
• Sawwa (Vagabond)
• Set al Hosen
• Tamer Henna (Henna Flower)
• Zay al Hawa (Like the Wind)
• Zayna (Zaina, or Zeina)

Where do I find this music?

• Bellydance Superstars Volume 1
• Suhaila’s Surpreme Selections
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 1.
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 3.
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 5. I love this recording.
• Masters of Bellydance Music Volume 1 and Volume 2

Please, dear fusion dancers, give these songs and these recordings a chance.  Not knowing these songs and not respecting them is like disowning yourself from your family.  And, who knows… you might find yourself loving some of these songs.

For new dancers, the next scariest thing to actually performing might be watching that performance on video.  I have to admit that I have never been terrified of watching my belly dance performances on video, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve enjoyed the experience. Believe me.  I’m not exactly a fan of watching my own performances, but doing so is like eating my vegetables: it’s good for me.

The video camera is perhaps the best tool by which to improve your technique, stage presence, and overall appearance on stage.  It will show you all those things you never realized you were doing when you practiced your performance either at home or in front of the studio mirror.  The video camera doesn’t lie.

A videographer at Rakkasah East once gave me some valuable advice about watching my performances. He said to watch my performance three times in a row.  The first time, he said, is when you see everything you did wrong.  The second time is when you see when you did things well.  The third viewing gives you enough distance from yourself to start evaluating your performance with an objective and constructive eye.

The video camera doesn’t have to just be a tool for finding ways to improve your dance.  It can show you how much progress you’ve already made.

If you’ve collected videos of your performances for several years, watching your older videos will show you just how far you’ve come and how much you’ve improved.  We sometimes lose sight of our progress when we’re watching our most current performance.  We pick it apart and see all the things we could have done better… but I guarantee that your performance this weekend was much better than your performance last year.  Or last month.  Or last week.  The camera gives an excellent means of measuring our growth.

Video cameras these days aren’t so expensive.  You can pick up a digital video camera for less than $300 (or less if you enjoy bargain hunting) which is pennies compared to how valuable the camera is to your progression as a performer.  Being able to view your performance the day after you’ve taken the stage is invaluable, whether you’ve been dancing for a year or 20 years.

I recently started reading The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee. There’s SO much good stuff in this book about how the brain perceives the body and the immediate world around it, and much of it can apply to learning dance. The authors also explain how visualizing body movements can help you execute the actual body movements better than if you had never visualized that movement before.

One of the most striking findings presented in the book is this (my notes in brackets):

Pascual-Leone [a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School] found that the level of performance after five days of motor imagery [visualizing the movement] was equivalent to three days of physical practice. But when he added one day of physical practice to five days of motor imagery, his subjects were as good as those who practiced only physically for five full days. This means motor imagery can give you a distinct advantage in your training. You can be better with less rather than more physical practice.

I’ve totally found this to be true in my own practice of dance. I urge you to try it too.

Several of my students and friends have asked me why I’m so dedicated to the format and why I think they should try it too.  In the words of Renee Drellishak, here is one perspective on the Suhaila Salimpour format and why we the students are so dedicated to it.

Link to the original article…. or just keep reading…

My first encounter with Suhaila was via her Stretch & Tone video, which I purchased way back when the interview bits were still spliced between the workout sections. I appreciated the conditioning focus, but had no idea how it related to her technique, or even that she had a technique. Years later she came to Seattle to do a series of 1-day workshops. I had reached a point in my dancing where I didn’t really understand how to improve, in that mysterious “intermediate” level in my class where I could see distinctions between myself and beginning dancers but couldn’t have necessarily explained what they were. Suhaila’s workshop was a revelation. It was road map with clear and precise directions, which I was elated to have.

I attended my first weeklong workshop in September 2001, shortly after 9/11. A number of the workshop participants had canceled, afraid or unable to fly, so there were about a dozen attendees, 5 TAs and Suhaila. With that much personal attention there was no slacking, no hanging out. I worked harder than I ever had in my life, sweated so much my dance clothes were soaked through, raged and cried at my body’s inability to do the things that my brain was telling it to do. My calves were so sore by day 3 that I couldn’t walk upright and while getting up from the toilet I lost my balance, fell against the towel bar, and gave myself a black eye. It was the best dance week of my life.

I certified Level I in June 2002, Level II the following October. I figured if I averaged a Level a year I’d be done with the format in 5 years. Hah! I had not realized that the difficulty of the levels increased exponentially, nor did I fully understand how deep this rabbit hole went.

In 2003 I attended the first Level III weeklong and got a peek down that rabbit hole. Holy shit! All of the drilling in Levels I and II did not prepare me for the emotional work in Level III. On the first day I could tell the girls from the studio were nervous about something and came to find it was about the emotional work. “Yeah, whatever, ” I thought. I was more concerned with the drills and choreography. I had my emotional baggage all packed up, nice and neat. Little did I know that Suhaila knew just how to pop the clasp so that it would explode all over the room. Mind you, this wasn’t gratuitous emotional torture. She didn’t try to make us fall apart, rather her goal was to help us delve into our psyches and present authentic emotion instead of “acting sad” or “acting happy.” [Note to the uninitiated, there are no "happy" songs.] On the second day I sat in my rental car, sobbing and blindsided by my own emotions, for 20 minutes before I could get on the freeway and drive back to my cousin’s house where I was staying. I had called before I left the studio and she met me at the door with a glass of scotch and a bubble bath running in the bathroom, and she did this every day for the rest of the week. I went back to Seattle spent and amazed. It was 3 years before another Level III workshop was scheduled. I was scared because I knew what was coming, but I threw myself into the work, had a great time, and when Suhaila announced she would start holding the workshops every six months I was thrilled.

In August of 2008, after 8 years of studying the format, I tested for Level III. Along with the other testers, I had to submit a number of projects before the workshop—papers, a choreography, a documentary about my dance world. The physical portion of the test began the moment we set foot in the studio on Monday morning, 5 of us being graded while the other workshop participants worked alongside us, witnessing our process and supporting our efforts. We had to dance the two test choreographies in front of the whole group, not just do them, but truly dance them. No one held back an ounce of energy or emotion. Suhaila made it very clear that we had to bring it, and it was a tour de force. On Friday at the culmination of the workshop, Suhaila had us all stand up, and, in tears herself, told us how proud she was and that we had all passed. It was a long road, and afterward I was stunned that I had been able to accomplish so much—more than I had ever expected.

As I write this I have just returned from the inaugural Level IV workshop. I was gratified that on the second day when we had to bring our emotional perspective with maybe a minute of preparation, I was able to do so. That when asked to absorb a choreography a day (and not just any choreographies, some of Suhaila’s most advanced choreographies. With finger cymbals!) I was able to at least muddle through. This is not to say the workshop wasn’t hard. On Tuesday I had a moment, that moment that we all have, again and again, where I wondered what the hell I was thinking and whether I even belonged there. Some of the other women in the workshop, women I have known for years, who have seen me lay my soul bare and who have laid theirs bare in return, talked me down, reassured me, in that way we do for each other. We commiserated throughout the week, reminding ourselves that we were not actually expected to master Yanna Yanna in one afternoon, that this was merely the overview so that we could take these choreographies home and work on the over the next year or two (or five, or ten.) The experience really highlighted for me that I am a totally different dancer than I was 8 years ago. I am a different person.

The naïve reader might read this and think, “My god, all that sounds awful! Why would you do that to yourself? This Suhaila person sounds like the Marquis de Sade!” First, nothing could be further than the truth about Suhaila. Yes, she demands that we work hard, in most cases harder than we’ve ever been asked to work. But she asks this because she knows we can. She sees the potential in every dancer and will do whatever she can to help that dancer realize it. I have seen her give, time and time again, exactly what each dancer needs, from compassion and support to tough love. I have seen her spend 10 minutes trying to get a dancer to articulate what a particular song means to them. I have seen her watch a dancer walk in late to a Level III workshop and demand that that dancer go and write a letter explaining why she would be allowed to stay in the workshop. I have seen her down on her belly on the floor, nose to nose with a dancer too terrified to move and unable to speak, and watched as she has looked in their eyes and whispered words of strength and compassion. At the end of every day of a Level III workshop, she leaves carrying the emotional burden of every dancer in the workshop. She carries our secrets and our fears for us, to free us to dance.

Anyone who thinks this format is about being able to squeeze your glutes has missed the point.

This format is about becoming the most fully developed artist you can be. Yes, it demands precise technique, but that technique is a means not an end. That technique enables you to express your artistic vision without technical limitation. But it is the artistry, the statement of the artist, the ability of each dancer to put herself on stage and say, “Here. This is who I am and what I feel,” that this format is truly about. And that is why I do it.

Renee Drellishak

Here’s a laundry list of things that I learned as a skater that I still use as a dancer.

• Always practice the basics.  You can’t land a double Axel without being able to land a clean single Axel.  (Just as you won’t be able to layer chest locks over alternating glute squeezes if your glute squeezes aren’t clean.)
• Your costume should reflect your music and the mood of your performance.
• Know where the judges and the audience are sitting.  Play to them.
• Respect your coaches’ knowledge, wisdom, and experience.
• You will have good practice sessions and terrible ones.  Both are par for the course.
• SMILE!  (We would yell this out to whoever was taking the ice at a competition, and inevitably, doing so would make them smile.)
• Wear more make-up for a performance/competition than you think is necessary.
• Make sure your hair is secured before taking the ice (or the stage).
• Always warm-up and stretch.  In that order.
• Quality equipment is expensive and worth the money.
• Don’t be afraid to fall (literally and metaphorically).
• Be an example for new and younger skaters.
• Choreography and improvisation are equally valuable.
• Be patient with your progress.  You won’t be able to accomplish every move right away; some things will take longer to achieve than others.
• Be aware of your personal space lest you run down a fellow skater (or dancer in the studio).
• Never become complacent with your progress.
• Buy and watch the videos of your performances.  The camera doesn’t lie.
• Gimmicks may get you a medal, but technique and skill are far more valuable.
• Be nice to your fellow skaters.  Cattiness and backstabbing will only bring you a bad reputation.
• Bend your knees and tuck your pelvis.
• Remember to have fun.

Do any of you have “past lives” that help you as a belly dancer?  What about those experiences do you use today?