Yasmina
New member
Ok guys, this is what's on my mind:
I had a workshop a couple of days ago with a very-well-known American instructor. She used a breath-taking Egyptian baladi song to teach us a choreo and during the break she came to me and said that I should try not to forget to smile all the time because I apparently forgot about my facial expressions and let myself go a little bit. ("You know, you don't wanna end up on a photo looking like you're about to cry or having a facial expression that could be interpreted wrongly - you wanna be on the picture with a nice innocent smile").
The girl next to me heard this and said "Yeah, it's funny how you make those faces" and imitated me by making porn faces and licking her lips. She added "People already think that bellydance is all about being sexy and seductive and we don't wanna contribute to that". I was extremely extremely hurt and offended, since I would never ever in my life try to look porno-sexy on purpose and the last thing I would like to do is "damage the name of this dance" (two things I was accused of).
After this I tried to put up a nice smile, and this really really didn't work for me, because I paid so much attention to my facial expression that I forgot to dance. I ended up feeling very unnatural and also very not-sexy. The instructor gave me a nice approving (innocent) smile.
Later on, she was explaining a move, and she warned us not to touch our body with our hands "because the dance is already sensual and we don't want to cross the limit" (meaning that by touching our body we cross the limit of approved sensuality).
Ok, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ALL ABOUT? Maybe I need to change my teacher, but in his choreos he lets us touch our body all the time, we touch our hair all the time and he tells us to feel sexy all the time. Is having problems with this a Western thing?
Please note that I'm not offended by the fact that she corrected me (ofcourse it's possible that I have a very ugly distracting or disturbing facial expression while dancing, but I don't think that this is different from my general facial expressions - I shoud check, maybe I look very ugly when I feel sad or sexy or whatever, but in this case what can I do? I can't "choreograph" my face, right?). I was offended by her reasoning: apparently she thought that I responded to the music on a sexual manner and this being shown in my face, was a clear offense to the dance.
I had heard that there are a lot of people having problems with the sensual nature of the dance, but isn't this just denial? The dance IS about being sad, sexy or whatever, just like life is.......right? :think: This instructor is thought of being highly qualified and she gets a lot of praise and she apparently thinks differently. Have I been missing something all this time?
I had a workshop a couple of days ago with a very-well-known American instructor. She used a breath-taking Egyptian baladi song to teach us a choreo and during the break she came to me and said that I should try not to forget to smile all the time because I apparently forgot about my facial expressions and let myself go a little bit. ("You know, you don't wanna end up on a photo looking like you're about to cry or having a facial expression that could be interpreted wrongly - you wanna be on the picture with a nice innocent smile").
The girl next to me heard this and said "Yeah, it's funny how you make those faces" and imitated me by making porn faces and licking her lips. She added "People already think that bellydance is all about being sexy and seductive and we don't wanna contribute to that". I was extremely extremely hurt and offended, since I would never ever in my life try to look porno-sexy on purpose and the last thing I would like to do is "damage the name of this dance" (two things I was accused of).
After this I tried to put up a nice smile, and this really really didn't work for me, because I paid so much attention to my facial expression that I forgot to dance. I ended up feeling very unnatural and also very not-sexy. The instructor gave me a nice approving (innocent) smile.
Later on, she was explaining a move, and she warned us not to touch our body with our hands "because the dance is already sensual and we don't want to cross the limit" (meaning that by touching our body we cross the limit of approved sensuality).
Ok, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ALL ABOUT? Maybe I need to change my teacher, but in his choreos he lets us touch our body all the time, we touch our hair all the time and he tells us to feel sexy all the time. Is having problems with this a Western thing?
Please note that I'm not offended by the fact that she corrected me (ofcourse it's possible that I have a very ugly distracting or disturbing facial expression while dancing, but I don't think that this is different from my general facial expressions - I shoud check, maybe I look very ugly when I feel sad or sexy or whatever, but in this case what can I do? I can't "choreograph" my face, right?). I was offended by her reasoning: apparently she thought that I responded to the music on a sexual manner and this being shown in my face, was a clear offense to the dance.
I had heard that there are a lot of people having problems with the sensual nature of the dance, but isn't this just denial? The dance IS about being sad, sexy or whatever, just like life is.......right? :think: This instructor is thought of being highly qualified and she gets a lot of praise and she apparently thinks differently. Have I been missing something all this time?