Two and a Half Years of Belly Dance (So Far)

Posted: April 14th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Belly Dance | Comments Off

Nearly every girl my age growing up was into some kind of graceful display of athleticism. For some — and it seemed most — it was gymnastics. I think I might have been the only girl in my little world who had no interest in gymnastics whatsoever, no matter how much my friends gushed about how awesome it was or how great they were at it. For other girls it was ballet, and those girls seemed born to wear a cute little pink leotard. I had two things going against me when it came to this stuff — the first was that I was ungraceful, ungainly, and clumsy. Looking back at pictures of me as a kid I wasn’t particularly big, but I was always taller than other girls my age and always felt like a giant compared to them. I was forever tripping over my own two feet.

The second was that I was a raging tomboy. My grandmother tried in vain to get me to wear dresses as a kid but I’d have nothing to do with them. I have a distinct memory of telling my dad once, when I was around five years old, that I wished I was a boy because boys got to do way more fun things and had cooler toys. Looking back, I remember the pained expression on his face as I think he wondered exactly what kind of daughter he was going to be dealing with as she grew up.

So it’s a little weird that decades later in my late thirties I’d have any interest at all in dance, something that not only didn’t interest me for most of my life but actually bored me. But when I moved out here in 2007 I needed something physical to do and literally on a whim I thought, “belly dance. Sure, that sounds fun.” I figured I’d take the eleven-week class I saw advertised at the local fitness place, probably hate it, and never go back again. I’d never been exposed to belly dance. I’d never seen a belly dance show. I had no cultural or ethnic ties to any regions in which belly dance is prevalent. My knowledge of it was limited to exotic costumes and crazy shimmy moves, but I figured that if there was one thing I had in abundance it was hips and that I may as well put them to some good use.

The first class I took was an Egyptian Cabaret/Folkloric class with a teacher I enjoyed. At the time I didn’t know it was Egyptian Cabaret/Folkloric — I didn’t even know there were different types of belly dance at all. I bought a little hip scarf and showed up at the fitness center in my yoga clothes feeling pretty silly. But what did I care? There were lots of women in the class and even though the huge mirror at the front where my awkwardness would be on display was daunting and oppressive, I’d already paid. And like I said, I could just quit if I ended up hating it.

The first class was awkward. I almost stopped going right there, and to this day I still have no idea why I stuck with it. I think it was stubbornness — if I try something and I’m bad at it, it only makes me want to work harder to be good at it. I was awkward, my whole body moved in ways that just didn’t seem logical and it certainly wasn’t doing what I was telling it to. But I stuck with it and gradually over the weeks I was able to do small things like isolate my hips or isolate a rib cage movement. I didn’t feel like I was really dancing yet, but I was moving a little more gracefully than when I arrived.

After doing the series twice I discovered that I was enjoying the small bits of gracefulness I was developing in my body but not really enjoying the dance moves themselves. A few of them here and there were interesting but the dance style was coy, cute, and not really fitting my personality even though the teacher was fun and energetic and I enjoyed learning from her. In searching out additional videos to learn from online I saw that there was this thing called Tribal Style belly dance, and when I saw the costuming I gasped — now that was more my style. Big, multitudinous skirts, fluffy tassels, tons and tons of coins and bits and baubles and jewelry. It was exotic in a stronger, earthier way than the sequins and cuteness of Cabaret belly dance. I didn’t even know what the moves were like but I wanted to try it. If they did shimmies and isolated hip movements, that’s all I needed.

I found out that there were a few Tribal Style teachers to choose from in Seattle and also found that the troupe of one of those teachers, Troupe Hipnotica, performed regularly. So I went to one of their club performances to check them out and I loved them, so I took a class from Adrienne Rice, the troupe leader. While I liked her style it was hard for me to make the drive to West Seattle so I looked for something closer, and that’s how I found the studio and troupe I’m a part of now, Skin Deep.

Once I started taking classes with Katrina and the small group of students she taught at the time in Issaquah on the East Side — a much easier drive to make — I felt like I was in a groove that fit closer with my style. And I was getting better, helped along by the fact that the classes were nice and small and located in a little wellness center, not so intimidating as the classes in Bally Fitness. But despite improvement I still didn’t really connect with the fact that I was dancing, something that, if you’d told me I’d be seriously doing it now, I’d have laughed at you about years ago. Me? Dancing? No. Not possible.

But I completely, utterly surprised myself by totally falling in love with it. All my life I’d had issues with my body image — I felt too big, too curvy, too pudgy, too tall, too awkward, but here was a place where all of that was considered an asset and not the liability I tended to think it was. Women of every size and shape took classes, and if you stuck with it long enough you started to see that you could look, at times, just as graceful as “real” dancers. I remember moments looking in the mirror and watching myself finally be able to isolate my hips and do a graceful taxeem and thinking, whoa, those are my hips doing that.

I eventually reached the point where I knew I wanted to join a troupe, preferably Katrina’s troupe. I was learning American Tribal Style belly dance, a unique style of dance that’s group-improv-oriented, and I was having fun dancing with other women. Katrina was on to me and invited me to start dancing with the advanced students in her Seattle studio (much closer than west Seattle), and then in late 2008 invited me to join the troupe. As I continued to perform with the troupe around Seattle and dance with other students in classes, I thought that I’d enjoy eventually learning to teach it as well. So when Carolena Nerriccio of FatChanceBellyDance — the inventor of American Tribal Style belly dance — did her General Skills workshop in Seattle I jumped at it. Fifteen hours of dancing later I got my certificate, and since then I’ve had the opportunity to occasionally teach at the studio, something it turns out (to my surprise) I really enjoy doing.

I was reminded of this whole crazy road when we danced with our advanced students this year at Cues & Tattoos 2010. It was their first big performance and they danced to the same song that I danced to when I did my first nerve wracking public performance as a student. I remember thinking back then how crazy it was that I was not only dancing, but doing it in public. Where people could see me. I had terrible stage fright, and now — though I’m not completely over stage fright — it seems nothing to be able to go out there and dance in front of people, sometimes by myself when I do my sword solo.

Recently one of the animators at work asked if he could film me doing some simple poses, like pointing, for the female model he was working on. I’m the only woman in our little company so it was a natural request, and I laughed and said I hoped I didn’t look awkward. “Why would you?” He said, “you’re a dancer.” That was such a strange thing for me to hear — someone else calling me a dancer. Sure, I dance, but I still find it funny to think of myself as an actual dancer. I think the same thoughts when I dance with our students in class. I still enjoy Level 1 classes and occasionally a new student will tell me how beautiful they think I dance, and I’m always amazed that they’re talking about me. When people compliment me on dancing they seem to think I was one of those girls who grew up naturally drawn to those graceful displays of dance and athleticism that I was never a part of.

That’s not to say that I think I’m a great dancer. Yet. I think I’ve reached the point now where I’m finally over most of my feelings of awkwardness and can finally focus on honing my skills, gracefulness, and stage presence. It’s certainly a point I never, ever expected to be at or to enjoy as much as I do, and certainly something I never expected to discover in my late thirties. But my closet is filled to the brim with costuming accessories, skirts, coin bras, tassel belts, and my calendar is packed with new dancing opportunities all the time.

I still have the occasional flashes of self-consciousness when I see pictures of videos of my performances, but the small breakthroughs where I recognize improvement and can say wow, that looked good are more frequent, such as my sword solo at The Orient Express last month. Sword work is sort of my new personal project in belly dance, something I really love doing, and it gives me a specific focus with which to work on gracefulness, poise, and presence. My goal this year is to research other related dance forms and come up with some new moves and things I can do in sword solo work that I can call my own.

With belly dance being the only form of dance I’ve ever studied to date, it makes it even harder to think of myself as an actual dancer. I always say that I can’t dance outside of belly dance, and I still feel that’s true to some extent — I just don’t know what to do with my body when it’s not doing the set of moves I’ve learned. And I think that’s continued to hold me back mentally in considering myself a dancer. But in my pursuit to broaden my dance horizons I took a workshop at Cues & Tattoos this year from Rena Orellana, a flamenco dancer formerly of FatChanceBellyDance. I’d seen flamenco dance and had been drawn to the qualities that seemed similar to belly dance — earthiness, attutide, strength — but even stronger. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it.

I loved it. All the things I love about Tribal Style belly dance were there and emphasized. I had taken lots of workshops in other people’s dance styles over the last couple of years but in nearly all of them I felt awkward and out of place. Hip hop moves? Yeah, they look good when other people do them, but not me. But here I felt at home! I loved what I saw when I watched in the mirror and thought yep, I want to do more of this. My schedule doesn’t ever seem to allow for all the time I need to do all the personal projects I want, but I knew right there that I want to eventually study flamenco dance more seriously. And that’s a huge thing for me — to be trying other dance styles and be interested in pursuing them further brings me closer to that state where I feel like I can call myself a “real” dancer.

There’s still lots and lots for me to work on, and that’s what makes this little endeavor of mine so much fun. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be here two and a half years later, but I expect to be here a lot longer, improving and learning more. And hopefully being even closer to saying I’m actually a dancer.

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