The Lure of Belly Dance
I get cast as a "Polynesian Dancer" in Twelfth Night, and discover my life's career
March 1992
19 years old
We seven dancers clump on the stairs at the side of the stage, awaiting our turn to rehearse. I don’t see why the director makes us come to every rehearsal, much less why we have to stay for the whole thing when we’re only out there for two-and-a-half minutes to run our piece, and we don’t interact with the other characters at all.
We’re the Polynesian Dancers in this semester’s main theater production, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
You’re probably raising your eyebrows as you say, “Huh? There are no Polynesian dancers in Twelfth Night. That play is set in a fictitious version of Illyria. What the bleep?”
I know. But the director wanted the set to have a Polynesian feel because it would “give our modern-day audience a better feel for how an Elizabethan crowd would have viewed the exotic coastline of Illyria.”
Of course, not one of we dancers can pass for a Polynesian native, so the Costuming Director has been teaching us how to pencil on those specialized lines and shading that will give us more Asian-looking eyes from off stage. In order to audition for this dance, we also had to agree to dye our hair black, and we’ll have to paint our skin in bronzy makeup. We seven white-girls are gonna burn through a lot of makeup tins, because our costumes are skimpy floral hip wraps and tops that leave little to the imagination.
For now, here we sit — we moving background-scenery — chatting in hushed tones and trying not to fall asleep on the stairs as they redo the blocking for Fabian and Sir Belch.
Again.
That means it’ll be even longer before we get to practice our number. Not like it matters. Even after we’re finished, we still don’t get to leave. Ugh, tedious.
But it gives me the excuse to finish my Philosophy homework, as well as letting me watch the more experienced actors work. I was cast during fall semester as a “Reject Dancer” and the understudy for “Christine” when we did A Chorus Line. I hear this is quite the accomplishment for a freshman. But for this spring show, the cast is almost solely comprised of juniors and seniors.
Laurie is a senior as well. She leans toward me with her elbow on the step I’m sitting on to whisper, “Have you ever taken belly dancing?”
My eyebrows raise. “No. Why?”
She shrugs. “You just caught onto Polynesian so quickly that I thought maybe…”
I shake my head. “I’ve never even seen a belly dancer. Except, like…I don’t know, were there belly dancers in the James Bond movies I saw as a kid?”
She laughs. “Definitely. Well, you should take lessons and then take my spot at the Greek restaurant here in town. I perform there every weekend, but when I graduate, I’ll be moving back to Minneapolis and they’ll be without a dancer.”
“Huh.” Now that’s a life trajectory that would have never occurred to me.
“I’m serious,” she says. “You’re a really great dancer. This style seems so natural to you, and there are so many similarities to belly dancing. You have wonderful hips. It’s like they were made for it.”
This time, my eyebrows lift up into the overhead light bank. Then I give a little shrug and put my chin on my kneecaps, hugging my arms more tightly around my shins. If we weren’t in the shadows, I’m sure she’d be able to see my blush. But I’m also grinning ear-to-ear. It’s been half a year of ox-clodding in Ballet and nobody has once said that I’m a good dancer, much less called me great or natural.
I can’t wait until next year when I can switch out Ballet for Modern and finally take Jazz. I just know those will come more naturally.
When we’re finally called onto the stage to rehearse, I throw myself into the dance, giving it everything I have. Laurie is right. These movements are so luscious and fluid, and they just feel good.
They feel good on me.
The way my hip joints scream and lock up every time I try to get my legs in the air in Ballet? That does not feel good at all. I didn’t start that kind of flexibility early enough as a kid, and even when I took gymnastics in my youngest years of elementary, my hips and legs didn’t stretch that way. I certainly don’t have the tranquil, aloof sort of personality we’re expected to assume as we float across the floor.
Okay, as the swans float and I galumph.
Dance with your body, not your face!
Well, all my body says in Ballet is, “Ouch,” and “Umph,” and a groaned, jagged, “Hoiiiist—whumph!” followed by, “May I please crawl under the marley floor now?”
But these swaying hip motions and rippling hands…this is what I was built to do! Even my Ballet teacher’s eyes light up when she watches me perform the choreography she made for us after studying Polynesian Dance over the summer. I guess I really must be a natural at it, like Laurie said, because this feels right. I can do this in my sleep, and my professor hasn’t once told me to stop dancing with my face.
I guess she likes what my smile says about this dance.
So do I.
Over the next half-year, my life inexplicably became infiltrated with whispers of belly dance.
Belly dance…
Belly dance…
I randomly fell in love with big, flowy skirts, fringed scarves, and girlie crop-tops over the summer. I even sewed one of my own in the fashion of Star from my favorite vampire movie, Lost Boys. I mean, I had the huge, curly hair, it was still super dark, and it was only growing longer with every month.
Then at the start of my sophomore year, after moving into the on-campus apartments with three of my tech crew friends from the Theater Department, I came back from class one afternoon to find Julia sewing coins onto a fringed bra. She was the Costuming Major of our bunch, and she was making a Halloween costume for a friend.
The friend was dressing as a belly dancer because she’d taken some lessons over the summer.
Belly dancer…
Belly dancer…
When the friend came over for a fitting once the costume was finished, I couldn’t stop staring at it, at the way she moved in it, at the kinds of moves she tried out in the mirror. It truly was similar to that Polynesian dance we’d learned!
Neither could I get Laurie’s comments out of my head.
You have wonderful hips…
Like they were made for it…
You should take lessons…lessons…lessons…
So I did.
Yet again, the trajectory of my life shifted. This time, it swung a full 167 degrees sideways.
And it was good.
The 2007 video production that almost singlehandedly booted me from local-yokel onto the international belly dance scene.
RIP, Viktoriya. You are missed, darling!
Up Next:
If you’d like to stay here with shiny, geeky, happy dance, you’ll get to come with me to MY FIRST BELLY DANCE CLASS, and watch the tromping tomboy Fire Sign try on delicate spangles & sparkles for the first time.
If you want the full story of how I got into belly dancing, why it was so crucial to me, and why the martial arts I fuse into my dancing turned out to be just as crucial, we’ll actually need to head over to my NSFW publication, Bella & the Beast, for the pieces I left out of this DanceStory:
DYE JOB
—Part 1: PINK, GOLD, BERRY BLUSH - I discover the Stairway to Heaven in my freshman dorm room.
—Part 2: PAINT IT BLACK - When everything changed. (the black stain on my hair. and other things.)
—Part 3: WINE, BLOOD-RED, TEAL - Don’t drink the Koolaid. (I sew a big, flowy skirt like Star’s, and get a taste of what it’s like to be her.)
—Part 4: PURPLE, BLACK & BLUE - How a coin & fringe bra literally saved my life.
—Part 5: BABY BELLA DANCER - My first belly dance class, including the parts I left out on this publication.
Be warned. There be Beasties over yonder.
LINKS & REFERENCES
Our dance looked a lot like this, but…like…with less speed, skill and understanding. And alas, no guys.
Yes. You read all that correctly. That would be Yellow-Face they put us in. Now, granted, our dance department in northern Minnesota in the early ’90s did not possess a plethora of Polynesian natives, or at least a pack of non-white-chicks to assume these roles but…still. The topic deserves to be discussed.
While we’re at it, since we’re now diving into Belly Dance, as experienced by a clueless, 19-year-old white-chick in Northern Minnesota in the early ‘90s, the question of, “Is white belly dancing cultural appropriation—is it Arab Face?” became such a heated topic in 2014 that the online blog-war even caught the notice of the non-belly-world.
This war will take multiple posts of its own to begin scratching its surface, but the question is a really important one. The whole thing needs to be handled with great care, especially considering the history of belly dance, as well as the dance forms and cultures from which it originates.
Much more on that later.
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