Dance Musings Part 3

Last week I published a blog post that I wrote in February. Since I wrote that, I’ve been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. At that time I think I was overwhelming myself with the mammoth task of trying to study so many of the potential influences of MENAHT and African Diaspora Transcultural Fusion. 

It lead to me getting quite stuck and feeling pretty demotivated to dance.

What has inspired and intrigued me, however, by taking classes and workshops with Egyptian, Turkish and Moroccan artists, I am, of course, recognising movement vocabulary I already have in my body, that I have learnt through a US belly dance lens. I have always known that my Western teachers were inspired by MENAHT artists and dance styles and it is great to experience it from source dancers. 

Big shout out to Zara Abdulrahman for her regular workshops and haflas from Cairo (I'm still working my way through the course she hosted with Dandash, it was so comprehensive!) and Nawarra for the Moroccan Dance Congress (particularly loved Soumaya Ma Rose’s workshop), Raissa Lei and Kif-Kif Bledi for their work sharing North African dance styles and Ozgen for his  energy and passion for sharing different styles of Turkish dance. That’s just scratching the surface of what there is out there at the moment. 

I loved this interview with Nawarra and Karim Nagi - they discuss the search for an alternative name for belly dance to try and move forward from the term’s colonial past and the difficulties around what to call “this dance” - yet Karim emphasises that the dances (plural) of the MENAHT region number in their many thousands so why are we so insistent on trying to find an umbrella term for them? There are huge differences from region to region not only in the actual movements of the dances but in the local population’s cultural perceptions of each dance, even with regions in close proximity to each other. 

I have also been inspired and educated in discovering movements that are definitely not in my movement vocabulary. On searching for classes in what I thought was the hip-hop influence from these styles of US Fusion - I ended up taking some Locking classes / privates with the amazing Yaw Darko. I discovered that Locking isn’t quite what I thought it was and the movements were pretty new to my body! I love love love the music and whilst it was a lot of fun, for me it doesn’t quite sit with my current journey of developing and enriching the cultural context of the movement vocabulary already in my body. My next task is to investigate some Waving teachers… Recommendations welcome! I also learnt that I was incorrectly attributing this influence in my dance to hip-hop dance - these Black funk styles were hip-hop’s predecessors. 

Throughout the winter period of lockdown in the UK, together with my dance partners in Brighton, we took the opportunity away from the studio to have weekly discussions about how we wanted to continue with our dance. Along with dissecting and researching information from lectures and classes we attended and studying costuming elements, we also used the time as a virtual “book club” - and sharing knowledge from other research we were doing, such as on the Reda Troupe. Farida Fahmy’s site is an excellent resource. We’ve also been considering the name we perform under - more on that in a future post.

We’ve done a lot of going round in circles and knowing that we want to continue to dance, decided to return to the studio and re-learn a choreography I created a year ago with the aim of looking at it through this new critical lens of trying to understand the cultural connection of our movement. Some of it feels like Raqs Sharqi; there are some codified “steps” and short combinations that have come from my studies with US teachers; much of it is movement that is in my body and what the music was telling me to do. So I’m still not sure what that means and how I would describe the choreography! Watch this space!

I’ve also been taking the opportunity to have as many discussions as possible with other dancers about these difficult topics. It’s been so useful to help process my conflicting feelings to be able to talk to people who feel the same about things and also to those with different views on the subject. 

I’m constantly flip-flopping about how I feel about things. In my post published last week I mentioned using Transcultural Fusion to describe my dance style - not to sweep “belly dance” under the carpet but so as not to confuse the general public about what they are seeing - when most people’s expectations when they think “belly dance” is Raqs Sharqi. Yet the more I study - the more I’m understanding how much Raqs Sharqi IS in my movement vocabulary - am I therefore causing erasure by not referring to the source in the description of my dance style?

And it doesn’t mean not using the term at all… As I have a fitness business specialising in working with people who belly dance and many of the people I want to help identify as such, in order to be able to help them I need to use that terminology so they can find me! 

For me at the moment, the important thing is to find ways to educate my audience on the roots of my dance style. I’m planning some long-overdue work to revamp my website in order to promote and share source artists and other resources. When we finally get out to perform again, I’m going to be sure my flyers are as informative as possible and just keep talking to as many people as possible. 

In terms of my dance mojo, I’ve really had to take a step back and rather than booking on every single amazing class that pops up on my feed (so many fantastic opportunities now to study with source artists online!) I’m prioritising ones I know I will enjoy whilst continuing to train with Western artists that inspire me too. I have almost 15 years’ worth of movement knowledge stored in my body and I plan to continue discovering the cultural roots and enrich the dance vocabulary I use and teach.

I apologise if this seems a little incoherent and if I’m making any contradictory statements, I’m open to questions and corrections on any mistakes I have made. I’m hoping by sharing where my head is at and continuing to document my thoughts it will help you, if you are feeling as conflicted as I am! 

I would love to continue to hear your thoughts and feelings in the comments below or in a private message if you prefer. I really want to keep the conversation open!