I was musing to my husband recently about musical choices, and how our troupe went from a good mix of folkloric and funky, to straight up funky, and is now trying to bring back in some of that folkloric. I compared funky music to dessert--you would have this really great yummy sweet unexpected thing to cap off the "meat" of the performance. He agreed and said that with the use of primarily funky music in recent years, our sets had maybe become a little one-dimensional. "It's like all you're giving them (the audience) any more is dessert!" And we all know what happens when we eat too much dessert. We get sick of it!
I know when Chris agrees, I am onto something. Heh He has a keen eye, and is not critical without constructive feedback.

This is definitely what I have been feeling in watching bellydance performances these days, as well. From haflas to festivals, it seems everyone wants to jump right to dessert, and is skipping out on the equally delicious, but far more hearty, main course. All night we are fed sweets after sweets after sweets, and it gets artistically nauseating before too long. And one starts to crave a nice juicy steak, hold the whip cream please!!

And there is something else to the dessert analogy: "additives and preservatives". So many of these sweet desserts are made up of artificial sweeteners and coloring. So little organic, natural expression is coming through. Everyone wants to clown it up so much, hoping to bury the chemical taste of contrived art under a heavy scoop of confetti and laughter. Why are we all so eager to jump to the easy sell, instead of getting to the root of the dance and just sharing it from our hearts? I think a lot of artists are truly afraid of being "boring"--and jaded audiences sure can be dismissive if they see anything that looks even remotely like something they have seen before. Blame it on television, blips and boops, the daily one-upmanship of the media.

I know I am victim of this mentality at times. Just the other day I was talking with some fellow dancers about how we often hesitate to adopt "yet another FatChance move" into our vocabulary, because we don't want to look too much like them or be compared to them constantly. Of course we want to speak with our own voice, and not appear to be banking on the work of another artist. Yet I have always felt that choosing NOT to do something because someone else is doing it can be just as limiting as choosing to DO something because someone else is doing it. In either case, we are allowing someone else's choices affect our own. We are locking ourselves off from artistic possibilities that are open to us, out of what? Fear? Jealousy? What is really at the base of these choices? Why can't we be humble in the face of others' great art, and if it is offered to us and we love it, why not embrace it? Conversely, if we are given something and it doesn't feel quite right, we should just as enthusiastically change that which needs changing to suit our true expression. And ultimately these questions should be asked! Is this new idea really "me" (or "us")? Am I doing this for attention/fame, or because it resonates with some integral part of my being? Why am I itching for change so much, when what I am doing and creating now is still beautiful and relevant and entertaining? Were the changes I have made in the past god choices, or do they need reevaluation?

I am rambling...

So I feel good in the music shift I have been making in my classes, and now pushing for in troupe. Everyone seems on board with the direction, and it feels really good to me. I think with our shift in costuming in the last year or so, as well, some more folky music really suits the aesthetic, and yet the modern twist/edge we put on it all is a nice surprise and keeps us contemporary for our genre. Getting back to the "classics" musically has also been inspiring to me in movement and choreography, which has felt a little stale recently and thus I have not been creating very much. I look forward to some nice juicy "steaks" topped off with the well-placed "sundae" in the coming year. :)

Well, it's been an up and down experience trying to plan my morning festivities for the inauguration.
First, Amy and Simon and I were going to the eastside to join Celise and Tyler and Claire to watch at their house.

Then Tyler got sick with a cold and it was off.

Then Amy and I made plans to take Simon to the Center House to watch on the Big Screen. Early morning, yes, but I was so excited!

Then dogs happened.

Not my dogs. Two other dogs...running down the middle of the street at midnight last night. No collars. I slipped on shoes and ran outside, Chris not far behind with a flashlight. We found them frolicking around on 1st Ave in the dark and freezing night. I called to them and a little black and white (French?) bulldog came tearing over to us, so excited. She leapt immediately into Chris' arms and wriggled and wriggled. The other one, a tan boxer, was skittish and would come nowhere near and continued to bolt on down the street and out of view.

We wrestled the wriggly happy little bulldog puppy back to the house, put her in the car, and went driving around the neighborhood looking for the other one. But no luck. It was foggy and dark and way too late to be driving around. We thought we knew the neighbor who the boxer belonged to, but after knocking on their door and explaining why we were on their porch at 12:30 in the morning, we found we were wrong. But they were grateful that we asked (they have a two tan lab mixes), and were understanding of our latenight knocking on their door.

Back home, we made some calls just in case there was a 24 hour solution for dropping off strays, but there wasn't. So we started trying to figure out what we would do for the night. We put up a doggie gate between the living room and the dining room, but Little Miss Wiggles (as we call her) was spriiiiingy, and could leap up to the top of the gate and clutch on in an attempt to get over to the other dogs. We tried some introductions one at a time with Miss Wriggles and the others, but she was very nippy-spazzy puppy. And in a house already full up on insecure female tension (it always is that way with Lucy here--the two bitches both want to rule), it wasn't going to work. Then I started digging around for the old crate we used when we first got Gretchen, and Chris dug it out from the depths of a dark dirty closet somewhere.

We lined it with a blanket and a toy and coaxed her in, and she settled right down. The other dogs were locked in the bedroom all night. A couple little whimpers, but mostly went to sleep. We were in bed by 1:30am, but couldn't sleep. We were amped up and inconsolable at the thought of the other dog that was out there in the freezing cold and running in the street...I think I finally drifted off somewhere after 2am.

*gotta go watch the inauguration on my TV now... back later*

Okay, I am back. That was awesome. *happy sigh*

Anyway, little girl Wiggles slept peacefully through the night. Our dogs were antsy at first but slept. Then I was up at 7:30ish to try and take her out to go to the bathroom, which she didn't do...until she got back in the house and peed and pooed directly in front of the TV. *snort* We set up an elaborate system of dog gate, open door from the upstairs room, towels, and a cart, to prevent little Miss from seeing the other dogs, getting over-excited, and hopping over the gate. So now the other three are content on the other wide of the "system", little miss is snoring and snorting contentedly asleep, and I am saying "Amen, and Amen, and Amen"...

See, three posts in three days? You can thank Asharah for this one.
Asharah posted in her journal earlier this year last year about "honesty" in dancing. And it just got me postin', so I thought I would post a bit over here.


I see a lot of contrived performances--in aesthetic and execution. I see a lot of inauthentic dancers. Dancers who are not being their authentic selves on stage. They are clawing and grasping at trying to be or do the next big thing. I remember one gal at a workshop I taught not too long ago saying she was going to take a hula class because she was excited about the possibilities of fusing it with her bellydance, but then she found out Unmata was already pretty famous for that, so she was going to try and find something else to study to fuse. I was stunned into silence.

That, to me, is the quintessential problem these days: reverse engineering fusion. So many dancers are shoehorning things into bellydance just to try and be new and different--rather than pursuing your bliss and letting that fusion organically flow in the process. The best of all worlds of classical or fusion bellydance forms is when someone is just dancing their own being and that which grows out of their experiences organically. Isn't that what we are always saying is a primary root of bellydance as we know it? Honestly and openly revealing something of ourselves in the dance, rather than trying to gauge what will get the best reaction or the most buzz, and chasing after that? Is not "dancing our stories" the very essence of bellydance?

This is part of why my troupe has taken a very conscious step back from the entire tribal "scene" in the last year. We were frankly exhausted with the frantic "lookatmeeee!"/"wannabeeee!" energy that flows through it so much any more. We really missed that familial warmth, the genuine baring of souls through dance, the meeting of like-minds, unaffected groove behind the community that drew us to it in the first place. We wanted to get back to our own roots and remind ourselves what we stand for, what we dance for, and what we want to communicate in our work; separate from the grasping expectations of tribal audiences who lately seem too easily bored and jaded by anything that has "been done". We didn't want to stay on that train of constantly trying to go to the creative well, and becoming artistically contrived when the genuine inspiration dried up.

So we slowed down, and it feels good. Really good. And our work feels more honest, more pure. We honestly haven't had any big new things come of it yet. We are on our own creative schedule. We turned our energy inward toward one another and the voice we want to speak with. We have been honing our most basic technique and revisiting our foundations to make ourselves stronger overall. And when we come back out "on the scene", if we have something new and amazing to show for it, great. And if not, we can at least be assured we are stronger, better, and being true to ourselves.

Asharah also posted a link to a blog post by Amy of Kallisti Tribal which explores her thoughts on "Fusion, Performance, and Skill," which I really enjoyed. Hope you do, too!

_____________

Original Post by Asharah/Abigail Keyes
"I appreciate an honest performance. One without airs, gimmicks, gratuitous costuming, or obvious trend following.

But how do you know when a performance is honest? How can you tell when the performer is genuinely enjoying herself without worrying about impressing the audience or whether her performance will be well-received?

I thought back to my skating days, when my mother and I would get annoyed at the skaters who were rewarded by their use of gimmicks and props, while the skaters will skill and musicality weren't always recognized.

In belly dance, I think gimmicks are also overused, and often point to a disingenuous performance. My friend the Oxford English Dictionary says that a "gimmick" is "a tricky or ingenious device, gadget, idea, etc., especially one adopted for the purpose of attracting attention or publicity." In this definition, there is an inherent intend to trick or mislead. In my mind, a gimmick in a performance can be used to distract the audience away from the fact that a dancer is not accomplished or secure enough for her dancing to stand alone. That gimmick could be the use of an unusual prop, wearing provocative or unusual costuming, using catchy music, or gratuitous humor. (This is not to say that I believe that anyone who uses a prop is doing so because they can't dance. On the contrary, I've seen many a skilled dancer use props in a manner that compliments and enhances her dance.)

Other elements that seem to tip off a performance that isn't wholly honest is gratuitous use of trendy or scandalous music, overly-revealing costuming for the sake of garnering attention, or scandalous movements. These things are also gimmicks, inadvertently placing skill and expression behind gaining attention or notoriety.

I think it takes a long time and a wise dancer to give an honest performance. The most honest and raw performances I've seen are from dancers who have either been dancing their whole life or who have been dancing for 20 or more years. It's difficult for a new performer to have the confidence and sense of self to give an honest performance. Many of us newbies are still focusing on whether our technique is correct or whether or not the audience cares or appreciates what we're doing, or whether or not our costume might... "malfunction." An experienced performer is so open on stage that she's not paying attention to these things - she isn't paying attention to anything, in the conscious sense. It's as if she's turning her emotional self inside out, baring her shadows for all of us to see, and she isn't worrying about whether or not we like what we're seeing. She just IS, and that's all that matters."

Yesterday was a glorious glorious inspiring day.