This is a post I saw on Tribe.net the other day that got me all fired-up. I think it's a really important issue that the belly dance community should have a broader dialouge about.
I'm posting the original post and my response to it.
New tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance"
topic posted Wed, September 16, 2009 - 8:43 PM
by Nefabit
Hello!
I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to join our brand new tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance", which you can join here!
tribes.tribe.net/highersta...ellydance#
Since this Tribe is about feedback, and furthering ourselves at an individual level, I thought it might be an appropriate place to mention this new tribe, since it's about furthering and improving the dance itself.
To give you an idea of what we're about, here's the introduction:
Welcome!
This tribe is for bellydancers who wish to work together to raise the standards in bellydance. Some of our goals include getting bellydance out of venues like nightclubs, separating burlesque influence from bellydance, discouraging skimpy costumes and provocative choreography, and increasing the overall image of bellydance.
If you are tired of being turned down for events or dealing with the stereotypes that belly dance is not family appropriate, or somehow lesser than arts like ballet and modern, this tribe is for you.
Why is it that the oldest dance in the world is also the most misunderstood? Ballet, for instance, is only 400 years old, whereas the roots of bellydance are estimated to have originated 6,000 to 8,000 years ago in Babylon and Egypt. Yet ballet is well known and highly respected all over the world. When the word ballet is mentioned, one envisions a highly trained dancer in a beautiful theatre. When one envisions bellydance, many different things come to mind, from ill-trained dancers in a in sleazy nightclubs, to some of the finer troupes in respected venues. We need to work together to raise the standards in bellydance, and escape the stereotypes and misconceptions that bellydance has acquired. It is time for bellydance to be portrayed and understood for what it really is. Every dancer is an ambassador to this art form, and it is every dancers responsibility to educate the public, and our students to the best of our ability.
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And this was my response:
Re: New tribe "Higher Standards in Bellydance"
Today, 2:35 PM
by Dreacakes
I can't seem to find this new tribe though the search bar, so I'll just put my thoughts here.
To me, the concept of raising the social respectability and dance standards of the dance is both a positive and negative thing.
On the positive side, it would be nice to make it easier to find very skilled teachers who met a certain expectation at all times. Also, it would be nice to see belly dance in broader venues. The social stigma can be quite hindering, I know this well from personal experience. I was formerly a dance major in college, and was met with some very condescending attitudes from the dance department faculty regarding my studies. They tried their best to try to make me focus more on Modern dance, and I refused, instead changing my major to Womens Studies and focusing on my belly dance studies there. It would be nice if belly dance was taught on the college level and was respected alongside ballet and modern.
And goodness, wouldn't it be nice if men didn't get that sleazy hungry wolf look in their eyes and make suggestive comments when you mention that you're a belly dancer??
However, I think is problematic to use ballet and modern as a template for the dance's evolution. One of the main reasons it is exhaulted, and other dance forms like bellydance are looked down upon is multilayered. Much of it has to do with racist imperialist notions of middle east women that began hundreds of years ago. And today, the superior attitude of the Ballet and Modern dance world are also partially due to ethnocentrism.
Also, I don't wish for belly dance to be like modern and ballet. I studied both of those dance forms as a child and I did not emotionally connect with either of them. I love belly dance because it is more informal and community-based. Were it to transition into being the type of dance you only watch in stuffy, fancy theatres where the tickets cost $50, I think it would lose it's soul. When you exhault an art form to only the reach of the few, and make it's standards beyond the reach of the common person, it becomes like an antiseptic piece of art that hangs on a sterile white wall.
In ballet, only people with certain genetic features (like the shape of the bones in their legs give them amazing turn-out, and tall skinny bodies, etc..) are allowed to dance professionally, and those girls go under ridiculous pressure to conform to a certain beauty ideal and end-up starving themselves much of the time. Also, I don't believe that ballet is a very healthy dance form. It is rough on your body and causes injuries because of it's insane standards, and because of this ballet dancers only have a short career in performance. In this way, I think that belly dance is superior because it is on the whole very healthy for the body. Modern is a little better about this, but the professional modern dancers are still intensely limber and strong super-athletes, and since it is related to ballet, they share similar values. Also, the culture of modern and ballet encourages very bad dance habits, like dancing on injuries, rough stretching, and pushing the body beyond it's limits, and I don't support that. That kind of crazy competitive culture is not something I want to see in belly dance.
I, for one, am a 30-year-old woman who has short tendons, which even after years of dance practice has left me still very stiff. I also have tendonosis in several places, which could be the result of pushing my body to stretch beyond it's ability for years.
I love that even though I'm not a spring chicken, and I will never be able to a Rachel Brice style back bend, that I can still be a belly dancer for as long as I like.
I think this notion of "higher" art forms is something that we need to challenge, instead of just molding our dance to the dominant cultures notions of what is "real" art. We are just buying into the cultural stratification of art. Dance should be about community and connection. That's why I fell in love with belly dance. I love that any one can do it, and it's something you can see in a hall, a club, on the street, or in a theatre.
Also, I think we need to break out of this unhealthy virgin/whore view of women that our society as a whole has. Showing your stomach in public and moving your hips around is seen by dominant Judeo-Christian society as slutty and morally suspect. Again, this is their problem, that we need to challenge, not buy into. Women should not be harshly judged for shimmying their hips while wearing a coin bra. Nor should burlesque dancers be judged. Putting down burlesque to raise ourselves up is not a healthy strategy. And belly dance and burlesque *do* actually have some things in common. They are both dance forms that were used by women at different times to make a dime by exploiting the pockets of leering European and American men. The difference being that belly dance has a long history outside of that culture as well, where as I don't believe burlesque does? (I'm not an expert on burlesque dance, I admit- anyone is allowed to school me on this)
What I'm trying to get at is that I don't believe in promoting belly dance as this nice, squeaky clean conservative art form just so we'll get accepted by a culture that seems to have only two boxes for women's sexuality to fit into.
I am all for getting belly dance more widely recognized as the kick-ass art form that it is, and not one of the weird stereotypes that uninformed people have about it. I'd also like to see it taught on a college level (I'm working on that by aiming towards a PhD).
I just think we all as a community need to steer the dance form in a direction of healthy growth.
cheers!
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I'd also like to share an amazing quote I recently discovered:
"The folk, or communal, dance is a dance to be done; a dance in which the joy lies in the doing; and a part of the joy is in the unified purpose that moves a group of persons intent on the same end....the folk dance you see on the stage has already made the transition into art dance, for it has become dance to be seen." -La Meri
