Recently, I’ve seen a few performances that seemed to be more about the dancer showing off a series of “tricks” than actually dancing, expressing, and emoting.  You know those performances… the one where the layback/backbend into a drop is gratuitously placed in the set, or the dancer does several drops in one performance (and I’m not talking about FatChanceBellyDance, or the other master dancers).  Or the one where the dancer is ticking, locking, and popping all over the place, but lacks any sense of expression or grace.  Or the one where the dancer shimmies her way through a 10 minute set when she could be accenting her very interesting music in very beautiful ways. So, you can move your body in fascinating ways, but what about that makes you a dancer and not a contortionist, acrobat, or just another entertainer?

Now, I’m certainly not saying that a dancer shouldn’t have a few tricks up her sleeve.  I love showing off my backbends, belly flutters, and shimmies. Those moves are crowd pleasers, and I’m totally aware of that.  As dancers we also must entertain, and frankly, it’s fun to show off our tricks.  But when the performance becomes all about the tricks and less about the dance, then I begin to wonder, “who is this dancer? What does she have to say? And why isn’t she showing us what’s really inside her?”

I think the use of tricks indicates a few things about the dancer: She’s afraid to dance as herself, and she’s hiding behind her “Wow Factor”; she’s not aware that dance can be an emotional outlet as well as a physical one; she believes that the tricks will gain her more recognition, praise, and attention (which, sadly, is often true).  What really bothers me is that after seeing a performance composed mostly of tricks, there will be a host of audience members lavishing praise on that dancer, telling them how amazing they are.  Seriously? Is that what this dance, particularly in the vein of that which we call “tribal fusion”, become? A series of crowd-pleasing movements set to electronica or neo-Balkan brass? I certainly hope NOT.

I ask of you, dear readers, that the next time you find yourself out at a bellydance show, ask yourself, “is this performer really dancing, or are they relying on their tricks?”  And a few tricks are fine, and some take great skill (balancing and layering, for example), but don’t let yourself be tricked by the tricks.  Each of us has so much to say when we’re on stage, and I believe that we must start saying it, even if that means that we won’t be as “impressive” to the layman viewer.  Dance is not a series of tricks set to music. It is moving art, and moving art can also be dynamic entertainment.

What you might not know about me is that this summer I have been facing a bit of an identity crisis.  The Asharah that you might hire to teach and perform in your city or at your festival is probably the Asharah of two years ago.  Angry and dark, and fighting.  But that Asharah has changed into someone softer, more delicate, and less discontent with the world.  What happens when you hire the Asharah two years ago and gets the Asharah today?  Do you appreciate the Asharah who is in your city now, or do you lament the fact that “she’s not what she used to be”?

At the end of the day, I am a belly dancer.  And within the genre of belly dance are a multitude of influences, styles, music choices, and costuming choices that I want to feel that I can explore and perform.  I want to feel free to change, evolve, morph, and experiment.

Like a rock band who has changed throughout the decades, playing different sounds, and eschewing popular trends, I want to feel as though I can follow my artistic convictions without being called a sell-out, or without my audiences thinking that I have betrayed them.

For if you are a true fan of an artist, you will change with them.  You will accept their evolution.  You will learn to appreciate and love their artistic explorations.  The Beatles of the early 1960s were not the Beatles of the late 1960s, but that does not negate the fact that I find all of their music entertaining and solid.  And of course my favorite band, Rush, sounds so different today than they did in the 1970s… and yet I love all of their work, partially because they have allowed themselves to change and mature.  (Not that I think that I am nearly as popular and amazing as the Beatles or Rush… far from it!  But hopefully you get what I’m talking about…)

I would like to state for the record that I do not consider myself only a “fusion belly dance artist.”  At the end of the day, I am a belly dancer.

Behind me I have years of training in oriental and tribal styles of belly dance.  If I choose to dance to oriental music, or a belly dance drum solo, don’t accuse me of “going cabaret.”  I have not “gone cabaret”; if you look beyond my costuming, you’ll see that I’ve always been cabaret (probably more cabaret than tribal, really) and I have always blended styles to create what I want to be.  I want to dance in a way that comes the most naturally and organically to me.  What comes most naturally to me will change from year to year, as it should.  A true artist is never satisfied with their current state.  As Bob Dylan said (he’s another artist who changed through the years), “He not busy being born is busy dying.”  So true, so true.

I refuse to be stuck in a box, or to keep myself in a box.  I draw inspiration from so many sources, so many dancers, so many artists, and so many musicians, and I want to feel free to pull from all of them when performing.  To call me a “gothic belly dancer” or a “tribal fusion belly dancer” is to confine me within a certain paradigm, a certain expectation.  And I don’t want to feel like I must live up to anyone’s expectation of who I am as an artist.

And… at the end of the day, I ask for you, dear readers, to do the same.  Feel free to change and morph and evolve… because that is how great art is made.

On one hand many of us paint ourselves as artists, as on par with the dances found in theaters and concert halls.  “Belly dance is just as valid as ballet or modern,” we say.  We say, “belly dance belongs on the stage next to other high performance art.”

On the other hand, we struggle with being entertaining.  Those of us who dance in restaurants and nightclubs must be entertaining.  The clientele isn’t paying for high art; they’re paying for a fun night out with their friends.

So… what are we?  Artists or entertainers?  Do we have to make a decision?  Or is it a matter of knowing how to be both, and being able to present an appropriate performance depending on the venue and crowd.  But if we tailor our performances depending on the client, are we compromising our art for the sake of entertainment?  Where do we draw the line?

For me… I consider myself more of an artist than an entertainer.  But, in being an artist, I can’t forget that I’m also a performer, and performance is entertainment.  How entertaining an audience finds a performance depends on the person and their expectations of what they’re going out to see.  But I won’t perform a piece solely for the purpose of entertaining the audience.  I don’t perform in order to elicit positive reactions from my viewers.  I have to love the song, the performance, and the piece itself.  Personally, I also no longer dance at private parties or do regular restaurant gigs, because those weren’t the right environments for what sort of dance I want to do.  Those audiences want to be entertained and to have fun, not to see something they might not understand.  I’m glad that I have taken those gigs in my early days as a working dancer; for one, they were great experience in dealing with apathetic and some times even rude crowds.  Those gigs also taught me that I’m not meant to be a bellydancing entertainer.  And I don’t see anything wrong with those performances or the dancers who take those gigs.  They just weren’t for me.

I feel most at home on the stage, in a concert hall, or at an event populated by other dancers.  Sure, this narrows my reach, but if I were to perform my style of bellydance at a private birthday party, hired by someone looking for a bellydancer, I think they’d be quite confused.  The private parties and Middle Eastern restaurants are not where I’m meant to perform.

I think it’s important for us to think about where on the spectrum between entertainment and art we want to sit.  We don’t need to choose a single point on this scale.  We can move between the two sides, and ideally, we should aim to find a balance between both that doesn’t compromise our personal vision.

How have you tried to balance art and entertainment?

Recently tribal fusion bellydancers have adopted a new kind of “vintage” look, using costuming elements inspired by the late 1800s to early 1900s, incorporating lace, ruffles, frilly skirts, and “Granny” boots.  This style also incorporates the use of Balkan Romany (Gypsy) music, carnival and circus themes, as well as Vaudeville and sometimes burlesque.  This trend is everywhere in tribal fusion right now, not only in the United States, but it appears that it has made its way to Europe and beyond.  And, I have to say, that I wonder if this new style that has taken the tribal fusion dance world by storm is even tribal style anymore.  And what are we conveying to the general public and those who know nothing about bellydance through the use of these vintage elements?

On my travels I’ve seen several troupes attempting this “vintage fusion” style of bellydance… but they’re incorporating props and costuming that I find somewhat inappropriate in a bellydance, particularly a “tribal” bellydance, context.  I wonder if these troupes and dancers have reflected on their choreographies, or prop, costuming, and music choices, and have they considered what someone completely ignorant about bellydance (especially tribal) might think of our dance style as a whole after seeing one of their “vintage fusion” performances.

I’d like to caveat this post by saying that when done well, “vintage tribal fusion” is beautiful and captivating.  There are several troupes who perform “vintage tribal fusion” elegantly and professionally.  The Indigo, Zafira Dance Company, Delirium Tribal Bellydance Company, and the Mezmer Society/Onça all pull in vintage and antique elements into their costuming, music, and dance artfully and tastefully.  I also like to break out ruffles and lace once in a while.  I have nothing against what I call “vintage fusion” tribal bellydance.

Aspects of “vintage fusion” that strike me as odd…

One element that I’ve seen often is the use of wine and whiskey bottles, sometimes empty… sometimes not.  Now, I have nothing against having a drink.  What does bother me, though, is when dancers, especially inexperienced ones, are on stage pretending to (or actually) getting drunk and stumbling around on stage.  From what I have observed, only very experienced and serious dancers can really pull off the use of wine bottles and alcohol in their performances.  It takes a certain amount of technical and performance skill to be able to pull that off without looking like a fool.  Otherwise the performance can look haphazard, lazy, and unprofessional.

Another element that I find a little bit odd is the wearing of undergarments on the outside as part of the costuming itself, such as frilly panties and bustiers.  Maybe I’m “old school”, but my mentors told me that even though our costuming might be revealing at times, we should never wear anything that still looks like underwear.  It seems to me that the resurgent interest in burlesque has influenced this trend, and I have nothing against burlesque… but I often wonder what someone new to bellydance might think if they saw a troupe in underwear-like costuming.  They’d probably wonder, “what does this have to do with the Middle East, and what does it have to do with bellydance?”  If I didn’t know anything about bellydance except that it’s something I’d seen at a Middle Eastern restaurant, I would probably be very, very, confused.

Something else I’ve noticed amongst the less successful attempts at “vintage” style bellydance performances is that there has been more emphasis on the comedy, acting, and slapstick than the dancing itself.  Again, I have nothing against theater or comedy… but if you’re going to call yourself a tribal style bellydancer, please make tribal style bellydance the primary element of your performance. The playful, flirty quality often found in “vintage fusion” isn’t very tribal, if we’re using American Tribal Style bellydance as our standard of what defines Tribal style bellydance.  Posing and being cute with a wine bottle isn’t tribal, and it’s not bellydancing.  Dance first… then add the theater once you have a good foundation in bellydance. So, if you’re going to play with “vintage fusion” bellydance, be aware that what you are doing might not be tribal anymore.  It might be something entirely new and different.  And please focus on the dance first.

From the point of view of the outsider…

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?

The importance of training and self-reflection.

As an artist and dancer I’m not against experimentation and pushing the boundaries of bellydance.  I have been fusing bellydance with other dance and movement influence for years.  I am, however, passionate about fusion with integrity. What that means to me is that in order for your artistic experimentation to be successful, you must spend time in the studio training, drilling, and focusing on the dance.  If you want to continue to call yourself a tribal style bellydancer, you must make your primary focus tribal style bellydance, not acting, slapstick, comedy, costuming, props, or music.  Also, as you’re preparing a performance, take the time to reflect on it and ask yourself, “What message am I giving the audience by dancing to this music in this costume with these movements?  Is that something I want to convey?  Why am I putting these influences together in the way that I am?”  It’s also completely acceptable to have a good time on stage.  So much of why we dance is because we find joy in it, but there is much joy to be found in the dancing itself, and you don’t need a frilly costume and a bottle of wine to enjoy it.

Well, for one thing, it’s better for body alignment, and keeping the feet close together underneath the body keeps the center of gravity focused in one place, rather than two.  It’s a lot easier to dance and keep your balance if the feet and thighs are together.  Really.

For another thing, keeping the feet together looks more elegant, poised, polished, and dancerly than keeping them wide.  If the thighs are open, it also gives off a less modest appearance, and belly dance is, at least in its more Middle Eastern forms, an inherently modest dance.  Pointing the toes also finishes the line of the leg, whether or not the dancer is bare foot, in shoes, or in boots.  And for tribal and fusion dancers, more and more we’re wearing costuming that reveals the feet and sometimes even the thighs, and if the legs aren’t together and if the feet aren’t pointed and elegant, the whole performance can fall apart and just look bad.  A dancer could be performing beautiful torso isolations with a radiant smile, but if her feet aren’t poised, and the thighs are apart, the feet can distract from the whole presentation.

This revealing of feet and legs seems mostly to be happening in troupes trying the tucked-up skirts, striped tights, and boots like the Indigo has been wearing over the past few years.  I’ve seen dancers perform can-can inspired kicks with loose feet, and frankly, it looks unprofessional, unpolished, and lazy.  I’ve seen dancers in skirts tucked up in the front with their legs wide apart, nearly in a squatty position, performing interior hip circles, and other hip work that looks raunchy and overtly sexual when the legs are apart. I’ve also seen dancers in the “garter shorts” style of costuming that also have been dancing with little awareness of what their feet and legs are doing, and those costumes are even more revealing than the skirts and tights inspired by the Indigo.

If we bellydancers are to present to the general public that we’re professionals, that we’re not dancing to be sexual, that we’re just as respectable as a ballet or modern dancer, then we need to pay attention to what our feet and legs are doing.  Sure, you can get away with your feet a little bit wider apart if you’re wearing a classical American Tribal Style 20-yard skirt with pantaloons underneath because chances are, your audience isn’t even going to see your feet.   However, even underneath a skirt and pantaloons, the feet should always be pretty and not an afterthought.  The thighs should be close, which brings an elegant line to the whole body.  And the upper body should be lifted, opening up the solar plexus, heart center, and collarbones.  I would like to see every tribal and fusion dancer pay more attention to their lower bodies, and how that affects the entire performance. The legs and feet are our foundations, what connect us to the ground and the stage. Bellydance, while it is about isolations in the torso, should never neglect the legs and feet.

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?

What I think is just as important, if not more so, is the dancer’s music.

By this I mean that the songs in a dancer’s set should complement each other, through mood, tonality, instrumentation, and/or style. I wouldn’t use the first song from my “Darkest Dance” performance and put it together with the song I used at Tribal Fest 8.  The two songs have completely different moods.  The Darkest Dance performance was introspective, flowing, and an overall feeling of loss and sorrow.  The Tribal Fest 8 performance is loud, angular, in-your-face, and angry.  These are two completely different moods and putting them together, at least for me, would seem artificial and forced.  The songs you choose to dance to, if you’re dancing to more than one, should flow well together.  The more sets you put together, the easier it will be to tell whether a song goes well with another song.

The order of the songs is also important.  Personally, I like to use the model of the classic American cabaret set as a template for my own sets.  If I’m allotted 10-15 minutes, this usually means I’ll start with a fast opening song, often with finger cymbals, then I will have one medium tempo song, followed by a slower song that has the feel of a taqsim and is a bit introspective, and I’ll end my set with a song that has the feel of a drum solo and/or has a lot of energy.  This template is time-tested, and can be applied to performances that don’t use Middle Eastern music. If I’m allotted 6-8 minutes, I’ll start with a slower song and end with a song that has that “drum solo” feel.  Or, if I have songs that are short enough, I’ll start with a fast one, have a slower one in the middle, and then end with a high-energy song.

Personally, I don’t like to end my sets, no matter how long they are, with something slow, languid, or introspective. It’s rare when I see a dancer who can end her set with a slow or quiet song and make it work.  Typically, you want to leave your audience excited and energized, and the last song in your set will probably be what they remember the most about you and your performance.  Of course, this isn’t a “rule”, but just a guideline, and it’s what has worked for me.

Your set should progress like a good story: it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It shouldn’t be just a collection of songs that you just happen to like.  Take some time to listen to your prospective set and make sure that the songs flow together, that transitions from song to song aren’t jarring, and that the set reflects a particular mood, feeling, or character.  It’s important to look at your performance as a complete unit: costume, make-up, hair, music, and mood should all go together to make a cohesive whole.

For me, one of key elements that holds together my performances is my costume.  This, of course, doesn’t mean that I need to spend thousands or dollars on a beautiful, fancy schmancy costume, but it does have to be tasteful and appropriate for the music, themes, mood, and venue of the performance itself.  A costume doesn’t need to be expensive or very ornate; it does, however, need to add to and complete–but not distract from–the whole performance.

Tribal fusion dancers are met with a unique dilemma in that because we’re not performing a traditional folk dance, there isn’t necessarily a “proper” costume to wear that is appropriate for the music that we use.  Whereas oriental and folkloric bellydancers can look back at the Middle East and see what dancers wear when performing to a particular piece or style of music froma particular historical period.  A long Saaidi dress for an Upper Egyptian cane dance, a bedlah for a full orchestrated Egyptian solo, a Khaleeji dress for a Saudi Arabian gulf dance, and so on and so forth.

Even American Tribal Style (ATS) dancers have a set style of costume to wear, created and refined by Carolena Nericcio and her troupe FatChanceBellyDance:  Wide pantaloons, 10-year (or more) tiered skirt, tassel belt, choli, coin bra, and a turban (or head wrap or headdress).  ATS dancers can always refer back to FatChance for costuming ideas and standards.

That said, there is a sort of “basic” tribal fusion costume, which pulls from the standard ATS costume: Coin bra, belt made from an ethnic (often Afghani or Rajasthani) textile base with tassels or yarn strands, pantaloons or Melodia pants, and the hair is usually up and accented with flowers.  Personally, I think this works pretty well for most tribal fusion presentations.  There is a lot of artistic freedom a dancer can take within those costuming elements.  These costume pieces also work quite well for most of the music that is commonly associated with tribal fusion, which often fuses ethnic Middle Eastern and South Asian instruments with electronica beats and accents (sometimes called World Beat or World Fusion music).

What I mean by having my costume be an element that holds together my performances is that I aim for my costume to reflect the mood and style of the music to which I’m dancing and the overall impression of the performance itself.  I’m not going to wear in a gypsy-style skirt and a Turkish vest if I’m performing to gritty, crunchy electronic music.  The two just don’t go together.  The gypsy-style skirt and the Turkish vest work much better with traditional Turkish or Eastern European music.  The crunchy electronic music, in my head, paints images of silver, metallics, industrial accents, and dark colors, so I would choose a costume that has those elements.

Personally, I like to have costuming pieces that are versatile and modular.  I make my costume bras so that they go with several of my belts, and I buy costume pieces that go with other costuming that I already own.  If you are a dancer who’s just beginning to build her costuming collection, the “basic” tribal fusion costume that I described above should be adequate… but as you begin to find your voice and try dancing to different pieces of music, you will have to put more time and thought into your costuming.

It’s very easy to look at what other dancers are wearing, particularly the “big names” whose photos are all over the internet, but what they’re wearing might not work for what you’re planning to perform.  It’s important to remember that your performance is a complete package…

Next up: Creating a Cohesive Performance – Music