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.

One of my new favorite photos, taken by Sarah Wright. Here I'm performing my sword solo at The Orient Express in Seattle.

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.

Katrina and I performing at Spice Box. Taken by ELD Images.

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.

Doing one of my favorite things: sword soloing at Spice Box with Skin Deep.

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.

This Saturday, July 12th, we’ll be in the Mercer Island Parade. It’s a short parade, and Western-themed, which makes it a bit odd that we’ll be there in full tribal regalia. But who cares if awesome coin bras and giant skirts you could lose a small family in don’t match with lassos and cowboy boots?! It’s a small parade, but we’ll be there (it starts at 10 am).
We’ll be performing next at the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival on Saturday, July 19th on the indoor stage at 12:44 pm. Yes, you read that right — 12:44, not 12:45. We’ll be performing with Ishq, the live Middle Eastern acoustic band we’ve been working with, and I think it’s such a great dynamic to perform with live musicians, which means it should be a great show.
In August we’re the half-time show for the Rat City Roller Girls roller derby bout on August 16th. Now this show I’m really looking forward to. Our set is wicked fun, and how can you beat roller derby and belly dancing? You can’t. Don’t even try. No, seriously. Don’t.
We also just found out that we have an hour on the Education Stage at the Puyallup Fair, again with Ishq, at 7 pm on September 11. It may be tough to follow the sheep and milking competitions, but I think we can pull it off.
I’ve been putting a lot of effort into my costume pieces, with my biggest effort going to the coin bra you can almost see in this photo. I’ll post more detailed photos of costuming creation, especially since I plan to do a lot more.
So if you’re in the Seattle area, you have no excuse. Find a show to come to and zagareet us on.

The first style I tried out was Egyptian Cabaret with Alexandra. She teaches the class at Bally Fitness in Redmond on Thursday nights, so I figured there would probably be a good cross section of types joining in, and I was right. I was simultaneously hooked and dismayed right from the first class: we were doing hip circles, a super-cool belly dance move right in the first hour, but I watched in the mirror and thought, “I’m hopeless. How the hell do I do this? I look like an elderly snake with a broken back trying to get it on.”
But I stuck with it. Alexandra is such a great teacher and so patient, with a really vibrant teaching style and sense of humor that makes you really want to stick with it. So I did, through two more sessions, and eventually moved into her Intermediate class where we learned zils, those little finger cymbals. Now those will make you feel like a real belly dancer.
But I’d been looking up belly dancing styles on the net and I kept finding these belly dancers all dressed up in the most incredible outfits — jingly coin bras, huge skirts, tassel belts, coins everywhere — and I had to know what it was. I was shamelessly attracted to a style of belly dancing based solely on the costuming, I admit it.
The style turned out to be American Tribal Style, a form of improvisational belly dance that focused on the group all performing synchronized moves based on a leader/follower method. Despite looking completely choreographed, the moves are actually done improvisationally, with the leader queuing the move so the followers will know what to do next.
I knew right away I wanted to try this style, so I looked up Katrina of Skin Deep, a local troupe of two and a dance studio that teaches the style. I began taking her classes in Issaquah on Friday nights alongside my Cabaret classes on Thursday until I found myself doing both level one and two in both styles.
Having been working on level two for a few weeks now in my ATS class, I know for sure that I want to actually stick with this and find people to perform with. Fortunately, my teacher Katrina is looking to expand her troupe and has added a level three class specifically for those who want to move into performing. These students will either form a student troupe or move up into Katrina’s Skin Deep troupe, so I’ve made it my goal this year to do either of those two things, whichever comes first.
And I think I’ll do it, too. Somehow I managed to be halfway decent at this whole belly dance thing, and at a weekend workshop recently, the Cues and Tattoos Festival in Seattle, my teacher introduced me to her dance partner as the student she’d been “raving about.” I still have a lot of work to do to be performance-worthy, but I’m definitely getting there.
And of course, being the fiber and sewing geek that I am, I’ve already gone way too deep into the costuming. Fortunately we wear this stuff in class so it doesn’t go to waste. The tassel belt you see in the photo is one of a couple of items I’ve made for my belly dance costume. The belt uses an old Uzbekistan pillow covering that I added a belt to and homemade tassels with beads to. It’s layered over a green fringe belt, which is in turn layered over a silk sari petal skirt and a blank floor length skirt. I’ve already made a headpiece that I have yet to take some pictures of (coming soon) with flowers, shells, and more, and I’m working on some tribal hair falls with cowrie shells and wild colors to add to the headpiece.
So wish me luck on this whole plan to perform this year. If it all goes well, I may have some videos to post.