The Swamp

People have asked me why,

I mean WHY Danse Oriental,

Raks Sharki,

Middle Eastern Dance….

Oh heck, you know,

BELLY DANCE has become a major part of my life.
I try to explain and it usually goes something like

“Well, I used to be a ballerina but I got older and heavier and needed to find…

No wait, it really started back when I saw this really cool dancer perform at a local venue…

Ah,

No,

Come to think of it, it was when I was a kid and wanted to dance….”

Then I think a bit more and I realize it really stared with piano lessons when I was about six years old.  It was just expected that I would take them, once a week, diligently trudging through scales in my Thompson’s Piano Primer the rest of the week.

The attitude was that since my mother had played piano, as her mother before her….as all women did in our community, it would be a positive, productive pursuit and I would do well.

Why then, folks would ask me to play for them at parties; I could play for Sunday school and church.  It would be my mark of having an art and a talent.  Nothing was more wonderful than everyone gathering around the piano to sing hymns, like they did at my Aunt’s house for family reunions.

Except, I had no talent with the blasted piano. 
We are talking absolutely, NO talent. 

None. 

Nothing. 

And I really didn’t want any either.

It took 10 years of lessons off and on, including one year in college for my mother to finally admit that my eye to hand coordination just stunk.  Playing sports was another giveaway.  I mean, by the time I reached up to grab the ball, it had hit me in the head.  Likewise, with piano, by the time I’d figured out one cord, other pianists would be turning the page.

I looked like Rowlf, the piano playing dog on the Muppets. 

With my nose stuck to the page, deep in thought.  Plugging away, making some of the most ear bleeding music on the planet.  But that wasn’t the worst part.  The absolute HORROR of taking piano was when people would say “Play something for me!”.  Or worse “Our __________(group, club, church) needs a pianist, you can be ours!”  All I could think was “Are you CRAZY!”

I hated those moments.  By then, I hated the piano, but it was one of those things I was expected to do.  Not enjoy.  So I would do it.  Badly.  I hated sitting down and absolutely butchering a piece of music to the point that even my Sunday School teacher quit asking me to play for the little kids service.  Seems the only song I could play without slaughtering it was “Jesus Loves Me”.  Which even to 4 year olds gets kind of boring after the 1000^th time.  

But what I did notice with music was that if the rhythm was right, I could play a few cords, jazz it up and then dance around the living room.  Which is what I began to do.  The music sticking in my head and I danced wide open until I was out of breath.  But going back to plunk out a few more revved up notes and going back to being the ‘Greatest Dancer in the WORLD!”

You see, growing up like most little girls, I loved horses and I wanted to be a ballerina.  I would look at pictures in books, anything that came on TV and mimic whatever I saw. 

I even begged for dance lessons but that was met with deaf ears.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I found out that Mom had considered it, but classes were an hours drive away and expensive.  Besides, dancing was considered too vain and ‘sexy’, even for a 6 year old.  Piano was clearly what good women learned so they could contribute to the world in a positive way

Except my piano playing was the aural version of toxic waste.

Then it happened.  One Sunday night, while watching Ed Sullivan with my family, and secretly praying that he would have some kind of ballet dancer, out came something I’d never seen before.
A belly dancer. For years I couldn’t remember her name afterwards, and I later assumed it was Julianna.

 But now I realize it may have been Morocco.

(Who happens to be 61 in this picture)?

 It doesn’t matter.  Whoever she was, SHE was THE most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.  Even better than the ballerinas that I’d hoped for, because she was like liquid light.   Pure grace in motion.  Even when the drums were playing a seemly impossible rhythm, she matched every beat with her movements.  Somehow combining that incredible grace with the flawless mirroring of the music and percussion.

Not to mention those cool finger cymbals.
That image stuck with me through my teenage years with my ‘dance’ outlet getting to be a majorette in high school.  Yes, I had played the flute too, but it was almost as bad as my piano playing.  By then, I knew, the instrument had to be my body.  That if I heard music, I responded also without thought.  OK, I had to twirl a baton to do it, but by then, there was no doubt that my gift was dance.  I even got to go to camps where I actually got to move to music!   Much to the sorrow of my parents. 

Who by then had pretty much written me off as not being their child

Then in college, I was finally able to take REAL dance lessons, with every PE credit being a dance class.  OK, there was this one very bad attempt at trying to learn tennis, but again, my eye to hand coordination is so poor, the ball was rolling to the back net before I swung my racket.

Eventually I started taking dance lessons several nights a week also, my college classes not being enough.   Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Tap…. anything that was offered, I took it.  And not to my surprise at all that every class was so much fun I didn’t want them to end.

By the way, I didn’t major in dance.  I had been raised with a solid pragmatic streak, so I chose my second love, nutrition to be my source of livelihood.  Again, dancing was my joy.
Eventually, after college, I continued lessons, now dancing with a small community ballet troupe.  I was in heaven.  I was in Pointe shoes, I was moving to beautiful music and most of all, I could see my technique getting better with each passing week.

For those who’ve seen or heard  “Red Shoes” you’ll understand this.  I didn’t want to stop, wouldn’t stop, finally, couldn’t stop dancing.  The more I danced, the more I wanted to dance.  To the point of blissful exhaustion.  Every piece of music I heard, I danced to in my head, or turned it off. 

Then, one day, on TV, I saw a local dancer performing for a local AM TV show.  Yes, a belly dancer.  The dance was without a doubt, more beautiful than I remembered.  By the end of the week, I was taking classes from her. 

Granted, it wasn’t until many years later that I realized that she wasn’t a size 10, or 14 for that matter.   All I knew was she was gorgeous, graceful and ultra-feminine.  It was a pure joy to watch her dance.  And taking lessons from her made me feel gorgeous, graceful and feminine too.  Ironically, at the time I weighed only 100 pounds and struggled to keep my weight down for my side hobby of ballet.  I was this teeny, weensy weight obsessed ballerina type.  With these wide hips that stuck out on either side of me no matter how small I got, or how low my body fat went.    I was always fretting about how lumpy my dance ‘line’ looked because I had boobs and a butt.

This lasted for about a year, and I remember being told that I had a gift.  Finally, my wide hipbones were working for me instead of against.    My flexible ligaments had become a positive and my love of slurpy movement paying off for once.

As time past, life got in the way of dancing.  An illness there, a surgery here, changes in lifestyle, hormonal wipeouts, struggling to find the right ‘mix’ hormones to keep me from crumbling into dust.  Oh yeah, there was marriage, illness, death, job changes, stress, more illness, more death and stress and more stress.

Then one day, I found myself 80 pounds heavier, 15 years older and needing some creative outlet. 

No,

I simply needed to dance again.

I had to dance again. 

Somehow.
Ballet was out.  You’re an old lady at 30 and no excess weight is allowed. So was modern.  Jazz wasn’t my ‘thing’ and neither was tap.  Then I remembered by belly dance teacher.

I remembered that she was Rubenesque to say the least.  She was tall, voluptuous and exquisitely graceful.   She would have made three of me.  All I could remember of her was who beautiful she was and how much I wanted to move like her.   I wanted to be liquid light and dancing sound, just like her.

But it wasn’t until then that I realized she was ‘large’, and it was a major “ah HA!” moment.  That with this dance, it isn’t about the look of the dancer, but the quality of her dance.  That it can transcend the shallow.

So, before the end of the week, I had arranged to drive 3 hours several nights a month to take lessons in another town.  As serendipity would have it, my second teacher had been a college roommate with my first! 
Like with all good obsessions, this time around, I bought books, joined email groups, Internet forums and started attending workshops.  All the while meeting and interacting with other dancers.

I quickly learned that there was so much more to this dance than movement, femininity and gorgeous costumes. 

That it wasn’t about being cute and sexy.

Erotic or even exotic.

Or most terrifying of all– young and skinny.

It was something I could do until the day I died.  Just put my ashes in my dumbek.

Since that first lesson,
I’ve continued to learn and become a better dancer,

I also made good friends,

I’ve danced in a Moroccan restaurant,

I’ve directed a dance troupe,

I’ve performed in everything from Nursing Homes, church events to birthday parties.

I’ve refused bachelor parties, with our motto of ‘If your mama can’t be there, we don’t want to be there either.”

I’ve had weird-ass phone calls at 2am,
or 7am on a Monday,

Or Christmas Eve—
All wanting a belly dancer.
Which led to some interesting conversations.

The guy on Christmas Eve I actually felt sorry for, when he asked if I had any ideas for a new guy in town, I recommended Christmas Mass.

I’ve even had a phone message from an man with an Arabic accent wanting a “Troupe of Belly Dancers  in my hotel room TONIGHT!”

There was eight of us at the time.  Talk about ego.  Needless to say, I didn’t return his call.

I’ve danced in Toronto and Houston.

Florida and my living room.
I’ve racked up a Quebecer Customs officer when he saw my huge Scimitar in the luggage X ray.

I’ve been hit on by Moroccan Chef’s,

Algerian Dentists,
Egyptian Sheiks.
I’ve been stopped for speeding while in full costume by the cutest motorcycle cop I have EVER seen.

Ahem, but that is another story.
It’s been like opening a door thinking you’re walking into a room and finding yourself on another continent.

Passing through a city gate and realizing you’re in another galaxy.
It’s been the greatest healer in my life.  Finally being amongst those who shared my love of dance, and couldn’t stop dancing either.