Am i good enough to start performing at restaurants?

[Aniseteph]

So the egyptians had hieroglyphs, hierosonic singing bowls as can be found in various museums. Incredible knowledge of astronomy and the stars. "Hiero" means sacred by the way. sacred glyphs, sacred sound, is it really such a large leap to believe they didn't have sacred dance.

That leap takes you from historical fact into Making S*** Up territory. If you feel you must make that leap, what has that unknowable dance got to do with belly dance? The reality of belly dance? Reality as in what was going on in that restaurant, the global phenomenon that produced all your DVDs, in the clips you posted, in the social form which is alive and well in the ME? As in the reality that you are clearly pretty clueless about? Nothing.

Show me the belly dancing alchemists. Seriously - hubby is a chemistry geek and likes that stuff, and it would Bring Us Together. Gah,I want a pic with the dancer in the alchemists cell so much now...


:think:

If we are playing "my made up feelings about belly dance that are obvious if you think about it": Belly dance is the cosmic feminine balance for Morris Dance, as any fule kno.

 

[Tiziri]

Every word of this

This is altogether awesome, and you have a far stronger stomach than I do, ma'am. As for

"His narcissism and political differences with the rest of the Golden Dawners aside, Crowley was not an idiot. Although I do see he's appreciated more on this side of the Pond."

I would add that Crowley was unabashedly and very openly anti-Semitic, so much so that there is a lot of apologia and redaction with apologia by later followers. Which should make his take on Kabbalah somewhat suspect. Those who built on his foundation...if you have something tainted to start with.... And Manly P. Hall, who wrote (also available for download) "The Jew Does Not Fit In," might have had his own struggles around that. Neither of them were idiots, but there is some doubt about credibility and objectivity for both on certain issues, yeah?

I don't care what people believe, really, but if they're using it to spar with people and justify...whatever this is, and there is definitely some distasteful subtext to much of what has been said...as factual, well, sources do need to be considered (and I pulled so many punches in what I said.)

 

[Sophia Maria]

Esmerelda, here is a different way to think about all this. Technique IS freedom of expression. When your body, your muscles, know how to execute a move perfectly, with intention and crispness, or smoothness and flow, you are free to lose yourself in the music and not have to think about every move you make, or plan 4 steps ahead or worry 'did I do that hip drop or chest slide with grace and precision?' Dancers of this art form to not train toward 'sameness'...they train toward more and more freedom of expression. In allowing yourself the time and work to be precise, know the history of the art, learn the moods and nuances of the music, you open new worlds to yourself. Technique does not box you in...it sets you free.

Again! You said it perfectly again!

It is perfectly fine to use any form of dance in order to feel free, connected to yourself, or connected to a higher power. However, that is for private use. It's objective relevance is debatable, but it is perfectly fine to feel a spiritual connection to dance. I do too. But don't use spirituality to explain the supposed "ancient" bellydancing history. There is not nearly enough proof, and at that point it is unfortunately only wishful thinking, or worse, "wishtory".

When you are performing in public, it is a different matter. You started with the question "Can I perform in restaurants?" When you perform at a hafla or student show, people pay specifically to see you and to support you. Even if your technique or showmanship may need refinement, they are there for you. In a restaurant or other similar paid venue, people usually have NOT paid to see you and if they do not see someone who impresses them with effortless technique and ENGAGES them socially, they will ignore you. Even though you may be totally absorbed in the music and enjoying yourself, they did not come to just watch you connect with yourself. Being ignored is painful, and I don't want you to have to go through that unnecessarily. It's just like many social interactions, in fact. One cannot expect to simply walk down the street and have people admire you and appreciate your talents and personality. You have to engage them first, make their day a little brighter, then in turn they will appreciate you.

And I repeat what Kartane said so well. The reason we go to umpteen workshops and spend hours perfecting minute details of technique is not to be a mindless bellydance drone. When you learn all this technique from the best, your body absorbs it like a language. Eventually, you will be nearly fluent in that language and you will be able to say perfectly what you want to say.

 

[Aniseteph]

Also, probably 90+ percent of the people on this discussion board could not care less about your personal beliefs about mysticism, and telling them to "research it" does not prove any points, or make your case any stronger.

This. Soooo much.

You can BELIEVE whatever you want -- you can believe in the tooth fairy. Just don't go on a discussion board with dentists and start accusing them of not doing research when they look at you askance and say WTF are you talking about.

I've been looking for a good analogy all day - THANK YOU! (mind now content and at rest. )

No offense UKers, but I thought this kind of thing was a product of the failure of the American educational system. Part of me feels slightly less at ease knowing that there are other parts of the world with just as bass-ackwards thinking.

Yeah, you don't have a monopoly.

 

[EsmereldaDancer1987]

Im not bothering anymore with this forum, like you have said you have already made up your minds. I did tell you i had a very different perspective and world view on this, i never said its true its what i choose to believe as it resonates with me and feels true to me. I haven't dismissed the book by Lexova, it does take a few days for it to be delivered from amazon you know. I did ask the tooth fairy to deliver it but she wasn't available as i dont have a spare loose tooth lying around :'(

Please do either move this thread or close it completely because i haven't got the time to carry on defending my chosen beliefs against hostile defamations. I have a life in the real word too lol

Ciao, Questo forum è pazzo!

 

[Munniko]

Please do either move this thread or close it completely because i haven't got the time to carry on defending my chosen beliefs against hostile defamations.
Ciao, Questo forum è pazzo!

Nobody was attacking your beliefs they were attacking the things you were presenting as fact of Belly dance. I could care less what you believe in for awhile I was a strong follower of Shinto so I really do believe what ever floats your boat in your belief system.

 

[LilithNoor]

Ciao, Questo forum è pazzo

Well, thank God that's over. I don't know whether to be happy or sad that the UK bellydance scene is now so far developed as to be breeding its own trolls. Feels like we've come of age!

On the plus side, this thread has highlighted a new teacher I will be checking out, and what looks like a rather nice restaurant if I'm ever up that way.

And as an extra bonus, having repeatedly referred to said restaurant as a rather naff eating place with no understanding of bellydance culture, the chances of bumping into the OP as a dancer there are mercifully slim.

 

[Roshanna]

Well that was... eventful...
I've never seen a flounce in real life before

I kind of feel like some of the non-WTF bits of this thread could be compiled into a pretty good advice article for baby dancers, if anyone felt like sifting through.

 

[bomu samba]

Now you can play flounce bingo!

ETA - and I am sifting through all the good advice and creating a mini good-sense guide!

 

[Aniseteph]

Yay, flounce bingo! But I can't be the only one who started mentally playing pre-flounce bingo as soon as the "show us your clips then" card was played.

A more informed person would have called us the Belly Dance Police - I believe that is the correct procedure.

 

[Pleasant dancer]

Hey gang, in the UK do you not have universities that try this stuff? I know locally a lot of universities here recreate this "ancient wonders" as senior engineering projects. IU had a stonehenge for a while in the 80s which was pretty cool. (My school just built a giant trebuchet, which wasn't as cool. Impressive, but not as cool.)

Yes, in short, we do. Lots of projects,many of them made into documentaries (well the funding has to come from some where!).

I did my own MA thesis on student belief in popular archaeological claims, comparing an USA survey done undertaken by Prof Feder with a survey I did myself at my own University with British students.

 

[Kashmir]

Wow! Take a day off and this thread has exploded. Probably someone has already covered this but I don't have time to read to the end and come back.

Hello Kartane, one of my belly dance influences whose dvd's i bought as titled as a bellydance dvd is sadie. When i type belly dance into youtube the first videos that arise are sadie with 24,000,000 views. I have about 30 dvds entitled learn belly dance, not gone through them all yet lol but the ones I have watched are general belly dance, they don't go into the history or culture to the extent that the members of this forum do they just go through different moves and techniques. If what I'm learning as belly dance isn't in actual fact belly dance, why do so many people call it belly dance lol you must be able to understand my confusion?

1: Views does not equal quality.
2: Views does not equal truth (although most of what Sadie does would be considered "belly dance" by those who know what it is).

Back in the Chinese Cultural Revolution educated specialists were considered bad. In fact any peasant or soldier could do the same thing. So with the wisdom of untrained peasants they built a bridge. It fell down.

In the West we are also entering an age of ignorance where the beliefs of the masses are accorded far more weight than they should be. Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion - but they are not entitled to have their opinion taken seriously unless they have solid reasons for their opinions. Their feelings, flashes of past lives, drug induced hallucinations, mental illness, wishing are not solid reasons to be accepted as "real".

So if lots of deluded, ignorant people who don't know what "belly dance" is start making YouTube videos and then other people see these and use them to define what belly dance is and they start making videos - that doesn't actually make it belly dance. I tend to avoid youTube partly for that reason. So much crap.

Just because people believe does not make it real. On this forum you have access to many experienced real dancers and teachers. You choose not to listen - fine. But it still does not make belly dance the spiritual practice of long dead priestesses. And exactly how do you think this dance was propogated into the current day when none of the Egyptian dancers for the last hundred years or so practiced this? Did people from Atlantis appear and re-teach it?

 

[Kashmir]

lol the only thing about pseudomystisicm is that it's only pseudo until you've studied the actual science behind it and then it's very much part of an enriching reality.

Science is a system that develops predictions (hypotheses) then finds ways of testing them. The testing must be repeatable. It must be able to disprove the hypothesis - one negative and it's gone. Testing must be statistically robust. And anecdote is not “testing".

So tell me able the science behind it?

 

[Darshiva]

Now you can play flounce bingo!

ETA - and I am sifting through all the good advice and creating a mini good-sense guide!

Share when completed, please.

 

[Zumarrad]

Yay, flounce bingo! But I can't be the only one who started mentally playing pre-flounce bingo as soon as the "show us your clips then" card was played.

A more informed person would have called us the Belly Dance Police - I believe that is the correct procedure.

Well this is the fascinating thing. I don't think she knows enough about belly dance to even know that there IS such a thing as the BD/ethnic police. Like I said, I don't think she's read anything published after 1987. In the world ever.

This does remind me of that question Shay and Sellers-Young posited at the end of one of their articles (I've forgotten which one!), which is: what IS it about belly dance that makes people so desperate to apply it to their fantasies even in the face of hard empirical evidence to the contrary?

 

[Ariadne]

Now you can play flounce bingo!

I love it! I immediately started going through to see if there was anything I hadn't actually heard yet. I found one.

 

[Aniseteph]

I don't think she knows enough about belly dance to even know that there IS such a thing as the BD/ethnic police.

Quite. BD police is at least an intermediate level concept. I still feel vaguely cheated.

This does remind me of that question Shay and Sellers-Young posited at the end of one of their articles (I've forgotten which one!), which is: what IS it about belly dance that makes people so desperate to apply it to their fantasies even in the face of hard empirical evidence to the contrary?

It is strange isn't it? (You do realise the answer is that it's because it comes from the ancient goddess knowledge hard-wired into our mystic feminine somethingorothers, don't you? )( Nooo!!!! joke, stop hitting me!!!)

 

[SeeJaneDance]

This does remind me of that question Shay and Sellers-Young posited at the end of one of their articles (I've forgotten which one!), which is: what IS it about belly dance that makes people so desperate to apply it to their fantasies even in the face of hard empirical evidence to the contrary?

This is the first time in three days I've actually felt comfortable posting a response to this thread... But I think the answer to THIS question goes back to what Tiziri said a couple pages back. There's still so much "mystery" surrounding belly dance (this, in hindsight, is not what she said at all, but she went into the Orientalist visions that were skewed by racism and ignorance, and that's what I'm mostly referencing), people don't understand it, or just assume it's sleazy; and then half the people who do understand it fuse it with something else and make it something different and then present THAT to the GP as "belly dance", so that the GP gets confused. And then they start seeing all these things presented at Renaissance Festivals, and on competition style reality shows, and truth isn't really represented in either of those venues. So the truth becomes what makes the most sense in your head at the time, even if it's not really based on anything concrete, beyond someone shaking their hips to some bagpipes, or contorting in front of painted pyramids. I think the only Westerners watching Dina and Fifi on youtube are other (or aspiring) belly dancers.

 

[Kartane]

Now you can play flounce bingo!

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: Now that is about the funniest thing I have seen in ages!

 

[shiradotnet]

I have to ask...

Folks, if a new student showed up in your classroom and mentioned that she believed belly dancing was a temple dance from ancient Egypt, and that she hoped to use the technique in her personal spiritual practice, would you use the words "ignorance", "pseudomysticism," and "troll" to her face, and ridicule her faith until you drove her out of your classroom? If a Christian student said that she thought the shepherd women did belly dancing to celebrate on the night that Jesus was born, would you ridicule that?

Or would you courteously explain the history of the dance as you know it, refer her resources on belly dance history that you feel are credible, and respect her spirituality?

Is this kind of piling-on really the first impression we want to make on a new member who (until now) hasn't had contact with "the belly dance community"? Does anybody really think the aggressive tone reflected in many of the posts on this thread would be perceived as persuasive or educational? If YOU were the one being disagreed with, would you be inclined to try learning from people who called you a troll, and referred to your inspirations as ignorant?

Like many folks here on the forums, I try to educate newer dancers on the facts supporting the history of our dance. But I do wish this thread had leaned more toward kindness and less toward ridicule.