Yshka
New member
Originally Posted by A'isha Azar:
I stand by my statement as written; no compromise. If that makes me a belly dance Nazi, so be it. I think we need more people who are willing to put their reputations on the line instead of letting people walk all over the dance. I have never said that there was no room for fusion or other styles of Middle Eastern influenced dance, only that there should be clarity in definition. Why is that so scary to so many people? I have a friend who says its because people are afraid that their style will have no provenance or legitimacy if they do not have a ready-made label. Myself, I would hope for a more honorable reason of some sort.
I acknowledge our differences in philosophy. What I do not acknowledge is the idea that we can call anything we want by the name of "belly dance", which in reality is a very specific ethnic dance form. If it is narrow minded to want people to just say what they are doing, then gosh, I guess I am!!
*applauds*
Dear A'isha, I couldn't agree more with your mission statement. I think your thoughts on labelling are absolutely right. If one proclaims to be doing bellydance, ME, fusion or whatsoever, let it be "authentic" bellydance, MED, or fusion.
I think the labeling issue at hand is merely about the fact that we don't want any style that is connected with MED to be labeled in the wrong way. I don't see why this should be a problem. I think we do agree that if it's bellydance, it is! If it is not, we just don't want it to be labeled bellydance, for the simple fact that it is not, or it is a fusion/spin-off style that is a style on it's own, which might have a connection with bellydance, but is not entirely bellydance.
(does this make sense?)
Thus, on the labeling issue, I think every BOB knows for his/herself, whichever style they dance, what the different dance styles are and which form in that style is the true form that they want to protect and represent in the correct way (so like, by being a BOB). I'm not talking about bellydance alone, but any style connected to it. We should call it what it is, instead of saying it's all bellydance.
Bellydance might be the westernized name used as a name for the entire collection of dances from the middle east, and it might be the term that we use in our acronym of BOB, but among "bellydance" as it is called in the west, are a lot of different, authentic and beautiful styles that do not deserve to be misrepresented or degraded in any way. That is IMO what BOB stands for.
I'm just saying we may use the word Bellydance as a collection-name, but not as a solid label for all dance styles collected under this name.
Sincerely hoping my comments make sense in the way I've stated them here, and working on a mission statement,
Iris
By the way I totally agree we should put a short, strong and explanatory mission statement on the back of our shirts. Damn, in my mind these shirts look better and better every moment lol
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