Aisha Azar
New member
Dance etc.
If you choose to think your audience is ignorant, then yes, I am calling you arrogant. No matter where the audience is in the world, we need to be aware that we never know who is in it and what they know. therefore, we treat them all as equals. Ballerinas go on the stage assuming that their audiences have some understanding and appreciation of their talents and what they are offering. I worked with Leonard Fowler for a few years and he was sure of it! Middle Eastern dancers need to learn to do the same thing, instead of assuming ignorance on the part of their audiences. If you can't do that, then you have already treated them with as little respect as possible, so why should they care about you? As for the rest of what you are saying, I have already explained the situation as it was 15 and even 10 and even 5 years ago in comparison to what it is now. I can see the progression and I can also see that many dancers ARE taking the responsibility to clearly define what they are doing for their audiences. this is a definite step in the right direction and I am not going to thumb my nose at it.
There is no PART that LOOKS authentic. It is a thread that runs through every breath the dancer takes. Even less educated dancers can often spot it. It is not something that can be separated out.
Who are you calling arrogant............. they must be a very different GP in your part of the world, if they can tell the difference. You are fighting a losing battle if most of the dancers who post on here persist in calling things BD, that you insist that the GP knows are not.
I can tell you that all my dance teachers call fusion and tribal bellydance, including the native egyptian. But of course, not being members of the GP, they wouldn't know what they are dancing would they........
Do you think restaurant owners will ever advertise "Live American oriental performers" instead of bellydancers. Do you think you have the slightest hpe ever of YouTube, Britain's Got Talent, or the host of amateur dancers to drop the term bellydancing.
you have to go with the flow and work out what you can achieve by education.
I am one of the few people who still knows the difference between uninterestd and disinterested. I feel that the loss of the distinction between the 2 is a loss in clarification of meaning, but there is no point in my fighting it, the difference is lost to ordinary conversation and will soon be simply archaic. We move on we have to accept common usage.
Same with bellydance as a term. If it's only you and yours who are making a distinction, (oh and I forgot your arab friends) it's time to move on and into the real world. go for something you've got a hope of winning.
I think one of my teachers dances with a western style. She thinks she thinks she's going for authemtic egyptian. At what point would you say that she's bellydancing. Would it be possible to say, that for parts of a dance she's bellydancing and for other parts, she's not..... And what if some of us disagreed about which parts looked authentic.
If you choose to think your audience is ignorant, then yes, I am calling you arrogant. No matter where the audience is in the world, we need to be aware that we never know who is in it and what they know. therefore, we treat them all as equals. Ballerinas go on the stage assuming that their audiences have some understanding and appreciation of their talents and what they are offering. I worked with Leonard Fowler for a few years and he was sure of it! Middle Eastern dancers need to learn to do the same thing, instead of assuming ignorance on the part of their audiences. If you can't do that, then you have already treated them with as little respect as possible, so why should they care about you? As for the rest of what you are saying, I have already explained the situation as it was 15 and even 10 and even 5 years ago in comparison to what it is now. I can see the progression and I can also see that many dancers ARE taking the responsibility to clearly define what they are doing for their audiences. this is a definite step in the right direction and I am not going to thumb my nose at it.
There is no PART that LOOKS authentic. It is a thread that runs through every breath the dancer takes. Even less educated dancers can often spot it. It is not something that can be separated out.