A Tomboy's First Tentative Sparkle
My first belly dance costume
In case you missed this one over on BELLA & THE BEAST, or if it’s been awhile, here’s an excerpt of what brought me here. Skip on down if you’ve already read it:
October 1992
19 years old
Sophomore year of collegeRenee has come over to try on her Halloween costume… She beams, turning this way and that to admire the effect in the mirror. Every one of her curves is accentuated by the embellished bra and the rows of silver coins with black fringe around her hips.
She tries out a few moves. My eyes pop open to see the effect. The fringe swishes. The coins jingle. The I-Dream-of-Jeanie pants are slitted at the side-seams, joined by more beads at her knee. Little flashes of her thigh peek through as she lifts one side of her butt up and down. The fringe and coins fly and then pop…
Bing!
That faerie godmother wand jabs me between the eyes, once again speaking in Laurie’s voice from the day we sat on the backstage stairs, waiting for our turn to rehearse that Polynesian dance.
You’re a really great dancer. This style seems so natural to you… It’s like your hips were made for it…
Made for it…
Made for it…
I glance down. My hips aren’t nearly as curvy as Renee’s, and I don’t have half her boobs. But the wand jabs me again.
DO IT. ASK HER NOW.
“So…” I hedge closer to Renee. “Do you actually know how to belly dance?”
“I took some lessons over the summer, but my schedule is just insane this semester. So I had to drop.”
“That’s too bad,” I mumble.
…When her everything springs free of the bra, my gaze snaps away and my cheeks burst aflame. We’re all Theater Majors here, but I’m still not used to the way everybody strips down in front of everybody else, everywhere, no matter if they use the same bathroom or not.
The hip belt jingles onto the counter and the genie-pants hit the tiles. There in all her glory, wearing nothing but a lacy purple thong — the kind of underwear I have only ever heard of, but never seen — Renee reaches for her jeans and wriggles into them.
She’s the kind of girl — the kind of woman I’d always wanted to be but never had the guts. Her strides are bold, her footsteps not delicate at all. It’s like a cross between a jock-walk and a runway model stride, but with…
Well, with those hips.
They roll with an ease that speaks to all the overheated, juicy, vigorous things she does with them, yet it’s not at all for show. That’s just how she moves. She’s confident. Radiant. Unapologetically alluring.
There is power in that. You don’t mess with a woman like Renee.
Bing!
…you should take lessons…
I put my gaze back on the floor.
Seriously. Do NOT ignore me.
My eyes fly heaven-ward, and I huff at the bippity-boppity wand in my mind. It started poking me on those stairs with Laurie during Twelfth Night. Then there was the flowy Star skirt and crop tops I couldn’t get enough of all summer. Now it’s these belly-jingles, and the Muse of Dance just will not let me be. All right, already! I get it! I’ll ask her. Sheesh!
Renee puts on something I’ve only ever seen in movies — a lacy bra that is part of a matched set with her thong. Now I unhesitantly scan her from the corners of my eyes.
Leaning against the doorframe, I trace infinities with a toe across the metal divider between the bathroom and the hallway in which I lurk. “So, uh…” My gaze lifts to take in the final glimpse of Renee’s gorgeous torso before she pulls on her tank top. “Where did you take these lessons?”
Her head pops free of the shirt and then snaps toward me. Her curls swish over one eye, adding mischief to her arrow-sharp gaze. Her lips curve into a smirk. Her eyebrows flash twice.
One of mine lifts as I mirror her smirk…
November 1992
Three weeks after my first belly dance class
Hala has invited me to perform with her troupe! That means extra rehearsals to learn the actual choreographies, instead of just the basic moves. Today it also means a shopping trip to find the supplies for a costume that will match what she and the other girls already have.
I have never shopped at Cimarron before. It's the kind of clothing store that rich ladies and elegant women come to. In fact, that's exactly how I'd describe the woman behind the counter and every other patron in this place, including Hala.
Everyone except me.
The technically-still-teenaged, tomboy writer-geek, belly-dancer-wanna-be. Good thing I'm also a theater-nerd, so I toss on my best imitation of Hala's cool confidence as I follow her through the maze of circular racks stuffed with shiny, sparkly, flowy clothing: evening gowns and pants suits, sequined sweaters and cocktail dresses. She bypasses them all and goes directly to the back corner.
My eyes widen.
I am now surrounded by lacy panties, negligees, and pushup bras.
With a flick of her hand, Hala commands in her Lebanese accent, "Remove your coat.”
I glance down at the heavy gray wool of the winter jacket I found last year at the Army-Navy outlet downtown. I love this coat, but I suddenly feel like the lead-hoof ox again, especially under the slitted eyes of a chic lady carrying a plum satin-and-lace dress to the counter.
When I undo the big metal buttons of my coat and set it on the brocade-covered chaise lounge, I fidget in my oversized sweatshirt and leggings — also gray. The heel of my grungy right tennis shoe taps a few times against the toe of its mate. They're wet from the snow outside in the parking lot. As always, my right big toe has worn a hole through the cloth.
"That too," Hala says, waving at my sweatshirt. "I must see your body."
"Okay," I mumble, and peel it off to reveal a white-and-blue, long-sleeved t-shirt, even more oversized because I inherited it three years ago from my first boyfriend. Since Mr. All-Star Quarterback was six-foot-two, the thing hangs down to mid-thigh on me. But it's one of the only casual long-sleeve shirts I have, and it keeps me warmer than a t-shirt or tank-top.
Hala scowls as she approaches me with a bra. It has black lace and red embroidery on it. "Do you have another top under that?"
"No. Just my bra."
My unadorned, fleshy-toned bra. One of three. All the same. Utility, not elegance.
Her hand flutters again. "Pull that tight."
I grab the cotton of my shirt and draw it behind my back, standing there like the chastened prisoner at attention.
Hala holds the bra up against my chest, gives a hum of consideration, and says, "Perhaps." She holds out the hanger and its fancy, molded garment for me to take.
I do.
She comes back and forth with several others, only two of which make it to the "perhaps" pile growing atop my coat and sweatshirt. But then she gasps from the far side of a rack. Bustling toward me with her bright eyes and smile a-glow, she holds up another top before I can get a good look at it. Within half a second, satisfaction floods her gaze. "Yes. This. Go now." A shoo toward the dressing room. "Try this."
"Okay."
Behind the silky curtain, I examine what she chose: a velvet bustier in black, emerald, ruby, and gold. The stretchy cloth has boning sewn into it like a tiny corset with eye hooks down the back. The cups are separate and fitted. I wriggle out of my tomboy top. After much hooking and scootching and tugging and hoisting, I get the bustier on and dare to look in the mirror.
It fits me perfectly.
For a few moments, I stare at it. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of clothing I've ever worn. Such a tiny thing. It just covers my ribcage and barely covers everything above. I give a little bounce to see if I'll shake myself out of it when I move the wrong way. Nope. Everything stays put. (Not that I have much to shake, but still.)
I try harder. Huh. The bustier is so well-made that I can't jiggle myself loose, even with a ridiculous thrash of my torso and shoulders — nothing like the delicate shoulder-shimmies Hala taught me.
"Well?" she calls.
"It fits."
"Show me."
I gulp hard. Grabbing the curtain, I peek only my head out to see if anybody else is around. One elderly lady and her younger companion chat on the other side of the store with the sales clerk, so I open the curtain. Hala comes forward to scrutinize me. Her finger circles in the air. I turn. Turn again until I'm facing her once more.
"Move like I showed you." Her hands and shoulders waft. "Show me."
My eyes fly open again. Edging back farther into the dressing stall, I give another shoulder shimmy, then waft my own hands a little. I pop my foot forward and bounce my hip up and down. Then I go back to normal and shrug with my hands out like, "Well? What do you think?"
Her beam of approval brings out my huge goober-grin, because her reaction is nothing like what I get in dance classes at the university. Man, I love this belly dance thing!
Hala steps toward me and places one finger under my chin to lift it until my eyes raise from the carpet to meet hers. "Beautiful," she says, and I blush extra-hard.
I get the feeling she's not only talking about the bustier.
Over the ensuing weeks, Hala taught me the troupe dances for our upcoming performance at a local retirement home, and she made a costume for me to wear.
After our stop at Cimarron, we went to Claire's for more jewelry to add to the fancy brooch she had found for the bustier. I also left the shop with a pair of black-and-gold velvet panties to wear under the skirt she planned to sew. We found fabrics at Joann's, which she transformed into six long, rectangular panels — black glitter-dot framing the center panels of black chiffon, front and back, to which she hand-sewed sequins that matched my bustier.
It was one of the sweetest, most generous things anybody had ever done for me, and remains so to this day.
By the time I joined the troupe, our class and rehearsals had moved from the stage above a high school gym, to the cafeteria of a middle school. This room was a utilitarian, shiny-clean expanse of white tiles and white walls, but it was quiet there. No pounding feet, squeaking tennis shoes, dribbling balls, shrill whistles, or yelling coaches to compete with. Only the heavenly strains of ouds, drums, and crooning in Arabic, accompanied by the tinkle of coins and Hala's commands.
When she invited me to dance with the troupe for the news crew scheduled to interview her about the class and our upcoming performance, I could barely contain my elation.
Hala had us all come early so she could help us with our makeup. Once finished, I gawked at myself in the mirror. Once again, I didn't recognize the face staring back at me, but this time I loved what I saw. The way she outlined my eyes — they had never appeared so lustrous and vibrant before.
As we stood side-by-side in the mirror, I didn't sigh in disappointment that someone else's makeover theory didn't look nearly as good on me as it did on their big, round, blue eyes. My eyes were nearly the same almond shape as Hala's, and brown as well.
I finally didn't mind that the bottom half of my hair was still darkest brown from that disastrous dye job last spring. That meant it was nearly as dark as hers and Diana's.
Diana was a year younger than I was, a recent arrival from Greece where she had spent much of her childhood. She was my partner in the dances and my new fast-friend. We went each week to a local nightclub that had eighteen-and-over admission on Thursday nights. There we spent hours nursing a Coke and copious amounts of water while burning up the dance floor as a dynamic duo.
In the troupe, we quickly became Hala’s lone pair of back-up girls. One of the other ladies had to bow out of the group and another moved away, so by the time we prepared for the news crew, it was down to Hala with Diana and me.
To top off the afternoon, my teacher held out the fancy paper bag from Cimarron, now stuffed with my complete costume. She had also finished a costume for Diana. As we stood before the mirror in our matching makeup and coordinated costumes, I felt a whole lifetime of misfit-dom begin to slide off my shoulders. It allowed me to push them back and open my chest, to stand taller and look at myself in the mirror without scorn and without flinching away.
I looked at those two beautiful, smiling dancers as well, and let their glows ignite my own.
I had finally found the birds of my type of feather.
**To learn more about these dancers, check out the comments in the video on YouTube.
I still have pieces of that costume. I also still have the skirt panels of Diana's matching black-and-silver one. When she quit dancing, I inherited it. The holographic-silver of that glitter-dot is still among my favorite pieces.
Ahhhhh, the days of large glitter-dot. How I miss it. Now I only ever find them in tiny dots, which don't give nearly the same POW as the originals.
Alas, the bustier died two decades ago, gone the way of the Velveteen Rabbit. I wore it until the velvet rubbed off and tore through along the boning. I used the brooch until it broke. Diana's fringe bra eventually fell apart, too, and both of our stretch-sequin belts stretch no more.
Her black one now crowns a full waterfall of black panel-skirting, including my original chiffon and glitter-dot, and I still have my gold belt, but I haven't figured out what to put it on. It lives in the supply box with the other large trims. My original gold chain necklace with the flat, stamped gold coins lives in the bin with the other heavy metal accoutrements for recycling.
I've never had the heart to give away any of those cherished pieces.
I don't know that I ever will, as long as I breathe.
That most generous gift from my first teacher, sewn by her own hands, was such an act of love and belief in me. But in the eight weeks I got to study with her, she gave me so much more than shiny fabric and jingling metal. She gave me a glimpse into an alternative of femininity so different from the ones I had grown up with. She gave me an alternative in dance, too, and in the new modes of my self-expression that would be born of it.
A glimpse was more than enough to take full root.
By the end of my first class I was hooked. Belly dance felt right. It felt ME.
By the end of my first month, I had been salvaged like a Phoenix from the wreckage-ash of everything that had burned down around me amidst the violence and terror I had recently escaped. I had found something I truly wanted again.
This new passion had hauled me, shaking and shimmying, out of the abyss of repressed memories and desolation. It also derailed me from numbing myself out with alcohol, which I had taken to doing more and more as my sophomore year began. It gave me a reason to jump out of bed each morning with excitement and enthusiasm that had been missing in my heart for too long.
By the end of my second month, I was a belly dancer and nobody could turn me away from it. People tried. A lot of people. But the trajectory of my life had taken a 222-degree turn. I barreled down this new dance path and refused to relent, no matter how many people tried to dissuade me, detour me, boot me off it, or throw up road blocks.
The path disappeared multiple times into the toolie bushes where I lost my way. It took me screeching off the edge of several cliffs, which forced me to mend myself and claw my way back up on the other side.
But it's worth it.
The Dance.
It saved my life, and it made me who I am.
I’m definitely still a tomboy. But that’s not all I am. A sparkly, girlie number from the 2010 show in Durango, CO.
Up Next: IRON WILL - THE MOVIE I WAS ALMOST IN. I become a professional belly dancer instead.
© 2021 Hartebeast
RELATED POSTS
To read about me:
Stealing fifteen minutes to pretend I was a Solid Gold Dancer every morning before school
Ox-Clod harrumphing in Ballet
Swirling yards of fabric around like Loie Fuller and the Vaudeville Skirt Dancers
Learning Modern Dance
Taking the suggestion to learn belly dancing because I caught onto Polynesian so quickly during Twelfth Night. (Yes. You read that correctly. Polynesian dancers in a Shakespearean play, I bleep you not.)
Following my first belly dance teacher around and around like a wagging puppy dog tail
You can find all that in the DANCESTORY Section of this publication, or start at the first tale and follow the links to read them in order.
Also. There were a bunch of references in this story that you would only recognize if you read my DYE JOB SERIES about why having my hair dyed black for that Twelfth Night play had such an impact on me, and how my discovery of belly dance literally saved my life. But to do that, you have to cruise over to my NSFW publication.
Be warned, there are Beasties over yonder!
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