By Kathryn McKenzie, City People Writer Published: May 7, 2008
It's hard for Hilary Jernigan to hide her love for art.
"I knew as a freshman in high school that I wanted to be an artist," she says. "My passion was in art."
Jernigan teaches art I, II, III and IV at Greenville High School and is a working artist herself. Much of her personal love for what she does is shared with her students by showing them the endless possibilities and variations that art can bring.
"I'm a non-representational artist. A lot of my work is purely compositional. It doesn't have subject matter," Jernigan says. Non-representational art focuses on shape, color and space.
To incorporate her medium and to help the students grasp the concept of non-representational art, Jernigan brought in another art form into the classroom -- dance. Jernigan says that with the help of dance, the students were able to see the pure concepts of composition.
"I have real passion for modern dance," she says. "So overlapping those two concepts was to me, very natural ... and I wanted the students to see composition in modern dance and composition in modern art is very similar."
To teach the concept of compositional art, Jernigan paired up with a teacher from the Fine Arts Center, Jan Woodward, to teach a unit on dance and art.
"The kids drew from watching the dancers," Jernigan says. "We sent artwork over to the Fine Arts Center and the dancers created some original choreography off of the artwork. Then when we got together, they did the dance for us and the students continued to work off of the dancers choreography, so it was a reciprocal process."
There's always an aesthetic beauty to Jernigan's medium and she recognized that about dance, as well. Both art forms deal with shapes. "It's all about shape, a lot of positive and negative space," she says. "Dance is a composition that's always changing and moving. After college, as my work began to mature more, I began to see that relationship.
"The first time I really saw wonderful modern dance was when I watched Alvin Ailey's dance company, " she says. "The composition was so moving and shocking. It's three-dimensional art constantly changing, it's kinetic art."
Plus-size dancers are crowd pleasers By MIKE WILLIAMS Published Tuesday, May 27, 2008
HAVANA — Barbara Paula looks nothing like a classical ballerina, but when she speaks of dancing on the stage, her face glows with confidence.
"I always wanted to be a dancer, but I was heavy and never had the opportunity," said Paula, 30, who weighs 275 pounds. "Becoming a dancer has changed my life 120 percent. It's given me confidence and helped me emotionally."
Paula is a member of Havana's Danza Voluminosa, a group of plus-sized women who have become a well-established and respected troupe on the Cuban arts circuit. Their performances draw large audiences and favorable reviews, challenging stereotypes about beauty and the arts.
Founder and choreographer Juan Miguel Mas, 42, came up with the idea in 1996, drawing on his own experience as a heavy-set dancer entranced by modern dance.
"The first performance was received with a lot of expectation and reservations," he said. "The house was full and some people laughed, but others applauded. At the end, there was a big debate about whether it was appropriate for the stage and whether it was aesthetic or not. But we have continued, and we are breaking down barriers."
The group has become quite popular in Cuba, its members' girth something of an anomaly in a country where food is expensive, rationed and at times scarce. Members of the six-woman troupe weigh between 200 and 300 pounds. Their art is also experimental, somewhat unusual in a country where many artists hold closer to classical and indigenous forms.
Mas scripts dances that follow classical themes, infusing touches from African, modern, jazz and Caribbean dance. He also creates plots around the challenges and discrimination faced by the overweight, who — as in other countries around the world — often endure exclusion, teasing and insults from a young age.
And sometimes the performances are whimsical, including a parody of the classic Swan Lake.
"The idea is to expand dance and culture, creating respect for diversity," he said.
While most modern professional dance troupes are filled with lithe, muscular bodies swirling and twirling around and above the stage, the movements of the heavy dancers are, by necessity, more earth-bound.
"It's slower," Mas said. "There are gestures from pantomime but also some from ballet, depending on the characteristics of the play. The aim is to always make an intense visual presentation."
Mas says he has heard of other troupes of obese dancers in places as far as Moscow and London, but most seem to have put on a limited number of performances and none has continued for long or reached a professional status akin to what Danza Voluminosa has achieved in Cuba.
The group has official sanction, conducting practices and performances in the National Theater, and Mas receives a government salary for his work with the troupe and other activities.
But the dancers typically work regular jobs, squeezing in rehearsals and performances around the demands of their daily lives.
"We practice twice a week most of the year, but before a performance I lose track of how many hours we rehearse," said Paula, a homemaker. "After we perform, I feel such an excitement and happiness."
Expanding from his work with the overweight dancers, Mas also runs workshops and seminars, sometimes for visiting international groups.
Some of his work combines yoga and dance, and some of his seminars use dance as therapy, helping build self-esteem.
But the Danza Voluminosa troupe remains his main focus, an unexpected success that has been accepted with enthusiasm.
"This January we shared the stage with three thin dancers in a production called Alliances," Mas said. "We looked for alliances between these types of bodies, in the end creating one body with the bodies of six dancers. It was a call for respect of our differences, not just between body types."
With more than 30 dancers trained over the past 11 years, Mas keeps his regular company at six performers and enjoys no shortage of interest from women wanting to join the group. He also has no problems scheduling performances.
"Most of our dancers are afraid to appear in public the first time, but their confidence grows when they see the audience's reactions," he said. "And while that first audience laughed at the idea, now it's different. People come now to the theater with expectations to see a serious work. It's serious and professional."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Danza Voluminosa, a Cuban ballet troupe, fat dancers win respect Published: 29 July 2007
Formed a decade ago by Juan Miguel Mas, this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raising the self-esteem of heavyset people.
The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 286 pounds, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence. Her body is a riotous celebration of weight - of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.
"I always liked to dance," said the dancer, Mailin Daza, who weighs the equivalent of about 130 kilograms. "I wanted to dance in the classical ballet, but my mother told me fat girls could not dance. I always dreamed of being a ballerina. With this group I feel I am a ballerina."
While the troupe is not the first to employ larger dancers, its popularity comes as a surprise in a country known for its muscular, lean dancers in every genre from classical ballet to salsa.
Mas, a choreographer and dancer who moves like a pampered cat and weighs 136 kilograms, acknowledges that he often uses the stereotypical humor of his dancers' proportions to bring in audiences. The troupe is well known for its parody of Swan Lake and it engages in hilarious renditions of the Can-Can.
But Mas and his troupe are serious about dance, and once the laughter dies down, they are capable of performing moving pieces that drill into the universal themes of love, death and erotic longing. The audience forgets the joke and begins to feel the dance, he said.
"We use humor to get the public in," he said. "Then we can hit them with something stronger."
Mas, 42, also choreographs pieces on themes like the tragedy of gluttony, love between obese couples, the prejudice that fat people face and the psychic toll of obesity.
One of the troupe's recent successes is called "Sweet Death" and tells the story of a woman, rejected by her family, who tries to commit suicide by eating huge quantities of candy. The work has surreal elements, the dancers using their bodies to create furniture in the performance. Another piece, "The Macabre Dinner," explores gluttony.
Mas says it would be a mistake to think that his work is intended to glorify or sanctify obesity, or even to deliver a moralistic message that one should not discriminate against the overweight. Rather, he says, the troupe's art tries to face the reality of obesity while giving larger people a chance to express themselves through dance, a chance they are denied from youth in most dance classes. "Although we are obese and dance, we are against obesity," Mas said. "We are always trying to lose weight."
But something strange happens when the troupe takes the stage. Classical and modern dance often give the impression of human beings flying, freed of the earth. The female dancers are like nymphs, the men like Greek statues. They soar, spin, leap and reach for the sky.
Because of the size of the dancers in Mas's troupe, however, the work of Danza Voluminosa conveys something more earthy and human. Fat people move differently, he said, and the choreography must change.
"We are more mountainous," he said with a smile.
The dancers' movements are often slower than those of their slender colleagues. These dancers favor limbs swinging in pendulous arcs and wavelike motions that seem to ripple through their bodies. They seem to grip the floor rather than to abandon it, keeping a low center of gravity, often crouching or dancing while kneeling or lying on the ground.
And when their dance becomes frenetic, the sheer weight of the dancers thudding across the stage conveys an excitement akin to a stampede, something out of control and wild, yet made of human flesh and blood. It can be a riveting sight.
Mas says he has borrowed from the work of Martha Graham and José Limón but also incorporates moves from African dance, jazz dance and the folkloric dance of the Caribbean, often with West African roots. "I use whatever I can," he said.
For the dancers, working with Mas has changed their lives. Several said they suffered from constant embarrassment and guilt over their weight before they began dancing. But dancing has taught them to accept, if not love, their bodies. They also say that after a performance they feel self-esteem that is foreign to most them, having suffered from the gibes of their peers since childhood.
Barbara Paula, 29, weighs about 125 kilograms and has been dancing with the troupe for five years.
She says it still feels strange at times to be on stage, as if she is constantly discovering the potential beauty hidden inside her body, which for years was a source of shame for her.
"It's something new," she said. "I don't have this complex anymore that because we are obese, we cannot dance, we cannot walk in the street."
The reaction of audiences here in Cuba has been immensely positive. The government now lets the troupe practice and perform in the National Theater of Cuba.
Mas now receives a state salary to continue his work. The dancers who have been with the troupe for years say that the when the group started in November 1996, they faced ridicule and laughter. But these days people take them seriously.
"We have always had those who laugh at first, but by the end of the show there is a standing ovation," said Xiomara González, a 43-year-old mother of two who gave up her job to dance and weighs about 80 kilograms. "And this is a beautiful thing, a very beautiful thing."
Source: Cuba News Headlines (Original Source: By James McKinley Jr., International Herald Tribune) *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A montage of clips from Danza Voluminosa's performances
Almost behind every successful Egyptian Style Dancer is the name "Raqia Hassan".
I had the opportunity to meet and take a class with Raqia when I was invited to perform in a Gala show in Stockholm Sweden Belly Dance Festival ..June 2000. She made a great impression on me. I want to share with you a question/answer article I wrote for a Middle Eastern Publication.
Layla: Raqia where were you born?
Raqia: I was born in Cairo and my father was born in Alexandria.
Layla: When you were a young girl in school , what type of student were you?
Raqia: I was a very good student, very quiet and honest.No one needed to push or beg me to do my homework. I wanted to do things right.
Layla: When did you begin dancing?
Raqia: When I was 4 years old, I started to move to the music. I rememember when I was young and sick in bed and suddenly I would hear the music ..and I would move to the music, even in bed while I was sleeping" she laughs.
Layla: Did you know as a little girl that you would become a professional dancer?
Raqia: Yes , many times and I'm sure others feel the same. If you love dance, the dance is always with you. It's in your blood. All Egyptians have dancing in their blood but some know their fate will be a life of dance.
Layla: Who inspired you the most as a young girl?
Raqia: When I was a young girl, I always wanted to go to the movies, the cinema. I always liked to watch the dancers. Samia Gamal , Tahia Carioca, etc. There were many good dancers during this time.
Layla: Who was your favorite?
Raqia: Nemat Moktar. Her movements were fantastic, it was as if she were singing.
Layla: Were there any obstacles which you encountered with your dancing career? For example government, boyfriends , your parents etc..?
Raqia: No, No. Nothing stopped me! I had a free life. I started dancing in a small group when I was 14 years old. Everyone around me knew how much I loved dance and no one tried to stop me.
Layla: What was it like dancing for the famous Reda dance troupe?
Raqia: It was a great experience for me! All this experience really helped me with what am doing now.I learned ballet, folkloric and gained alot of experience being on stage! I learned much from Reda, as he dealt with us as dancers. This is where I also learned my vocabulary! I learned a lot.
Layla: You were also a solo dancer for the Reda Troupe. What was the difference between dancing as a solo artist as opposed to dancing with a troupe?
Raqia: At 17 years old , I started to be a solo dancer with the Reda Troupe. But it is not for everybody. At this time I was very gifted with moving my hips and so he used me. I was the first one.
Layla: In your opinion what are the elements that make up a good choreography?
When a dancer has good form with her arms, good posture in general, a good smile and personality.. it executes the choreography well. But before everything else, a dancer must have a good ear for the music. Too many dancers don't have "the ear' and this is not good. When a dancer has a good ear for the music, the choreography will come automatically.
Layla: What is your opinion concerning choreography verses improvisation?
Raqia: I prefer choreography when it doesn't look like choreography.
Choreography should flow from the dancer and look natural. It should be a secret of the dancer that her music is choreographed. No one should notice. As a master teacher I have an eye for great detail, and my eyes cannot help capture the mistakes that a dances makes during her performance. And sometimes this makes me very tired. But when a performance is good it is as though I am in a dream.
Layla: What should dancers never do in front of an Egyptian audience.?
Raqia: A dancer should never sit, lie down or roll around on the floor. This is Turkish style but not Egyptian. I feel a dancer is a queen and a queen never sits on the floor! She should always stand up with a majestic posture. This is the Egyptian way.
Layla: Some dancers remark, "I dance for myself when I perform". What is your opinion about this remark?
Raqia: Never should a dancer dance only for herself. She can dance for herself at home in front of a mirror. When you are on stage you can dance some from your own feeling but mostly for the people. Some people really go out of their way to see you. How can you dance just for yourself? Can you just forget your audience? Never!
Raqia is a generous teacher giving of herself completely. I remember fondly during a class in Stockholm Sweden, she boldly walked over to me and put her foot on my foot to keep it down during a combination. She said "okay, now move the other foot" I did so. She replied "There, you've got it!" That's Raqia ..hands down simply the best!
CAIRO (AFP): Some 80 professional dancers from around the world have gathered this month at a luxury hotel overlooking the pyramids in the Egyptian capital Cairo to take part in an intensive dancing workshop, aimed at improving their technique and offering them style tips.
From Kazakhstan to Brazil, Italy and Indonesia, lovers of oriental dance flock to Egypt to pay homage to the cradle of this ancient art.
"If you haven't danced in Egypt, you are not a real dancer," said Raqia Hassan, Egypt's most famous dance teacher who organizes the winter workshops and who is also responsible for the Cairo Dance Festival held every summer since 2000.
"It is absolutely necessary to be trained here. Egypt is the source after all," said Nadia Sement, a French oriental dance instructor attending the workshop.
With colorful sequined scarves jingling around their hips, the dancers who each spent 1,000 euros (1,437 dollars) for the workshop, train vigorously for eight hours a day and listen to lectures on the dance's history in the evenings in order to truly capture the spirit behind the moves, the organizers said.
And cursed be those who reduce the ancient art to a simple form of seduction or who dare call it "belly dance", says Carolina Vargadinicu, who goes by the stage name Morocco.
"That would be a false, colonial and racist interpretation by the West," says the 70-year-old New Yorker whose family roots lie in Romania and who has been dancing professionally for 47 years.
Legend has it the dance was originally an ancient fertility rite. And while Egyptians like to trace it back to the Pharaonic times, the dance actually comes from India and was brought over to Egypt by gypsies.
In Mexico some still believe that the dance has the power to help fertility, says Grinnelli Sandoval who runs a dance school in Ensenada in Baja California.
"I have some students who have been sent by their gynecologist, because the movements help massage a woman's internal organs, which helps support the uterus better for childbirth," she said.
The workshop has also drawn local creative talent eager to showcase the accessories that must accompany the perfect dancer.
Displays of shiny, sequin-studded or pearl-embroidered costumes hang on display next to stands overflowing with music CDs and dance DVDs, and posters of the dance legends.
Not only has the golden age of the dance, embodied in the legendary Samia Gamal or Tahia Cariocca, long gone but foreign dancers working in Egypt are subject to strict restrictions aimed at keeping the art in Egyptian hands.
For Raqia Hassan, the dream would be to set up an oriental dance academy granting recognition to an art that she feels has not been given its rightful dues.
Published: 11 May 2008 Written by: Mona Madkour, AlArabiya.net
Renowned male dancer Tito Seif performs at a Giza hotel
CAIRO: As tourist season approaches, Egypt's professional belly dancing association has reported a surge in the number of professional belly dancer applications, including for the first time, from men.
The men who applied for permits already work as belly dancers on an unofficial basis, the head of the permit committee of the Egyptian Actors' Syndicate, Sami Nawar, told AlArabiya.net, adding that many have feminine- or gay-sounding names.
Nawar said the syndicate – which he descried as a "respectable" organization – would reject applications from men on the basis that it violates the social norms of the country, and said it would penalize male dancers.
"The syndicate will never encourage them [male dancers] to become part of the social fabric and will not play a role in creating controversy about how religion accepts what those men do and wear," Nawar said.
Male belly dancing, a centuries-old Egyptian tradition, is making a comeback despite suppression by government and religious officials due to its association with homosexuality, news agency Bloomberg reported.
Male dancers were in fact preferred by 19th-century Cairenes who thought women should not to expose themselves, it said, adding that from 1834 to 1849, women dancers –ghawazee -- were banned from the city.
Male belly dancing all but disappeared in the 1950s during the reign of Gamal Abdul Nasser because it smacked of monarchical decadence.
A BELLY dancer thrills the judges on Britain's Got Talent tonight - and catches the eye of presenter Declan Donnelly.
Sophie Mei, 19, tells hosts Ant McPartlin and Dec backstage how she turned to the Middle Eastern dance six years ago.
Speaking at the Manchester auditions, she says: "I've always loved dancing but I've never been that comfortable with it, and then I saw some belly dancers and I found out my curves could be useful for once."
As she steps on to the stage, Dec can barely keep his eyes off her.
And Simon Cowell is also transfixed by her curves.
Fellow judge Amanda Holden jokes: "Is it a yes or a no, Simon?" before Sophie has performed.
An insider said: "Dec was completely gobsmacked when he met Sophie and couldn't keep her eyes off her.
"He really wants her to do well in the competition."
And student Sophie, from Sheffield, is not the only one to win the judges' approval this week.
Grandad Leonard Henry Bennett, 72, impressed them with his strongman act.
Britain's Got Talent is on at 8.05pm on ITV1.
Note: The judges obviously haven't seen a professional bellydance performance before... but I'm glad that bellydance is getting some publicity, at least. :)
"Whatever Lola Wants" impressed critics at the Dubai International Film Festival
DUBAI (Reuters): No bombs. No bloodshed. No bin Laden. Belly dancing is the theme Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch says can best communicate the Arab world to the West and reconcile cultural differences.
"Whatever Lola Wants," Ayouch's story of an American woman who encounters Arab life through belly dancing lessons, premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival this week, impressing many critics.
"I think belly dancing is one of the two things that the Americans and the Occidentals know most about the Arab world, along with bin Laden," Ayouch told Reuters.
"It's so much better to give the image of the Arab world through belly dancing than Osama bin Laden... it's all a question of misunderstanding and it's not because we are different, we can't talk or understand each other," he said.
Ayouch hopes Lola will make it in Hollywood.
"I want the American people to see this film because I want them to get the chance to know another side of the Arab people," Ayouch said.
"Most of the movies I have seen in America about the Arab world are always talking about the same matters -- terrorism, bombings, arms, fighting -- but what Lola carries back with her to New York is belly dancing," he said.
In the Hollywood-inspired feature, New York postal worker Lola, played by Laura Ramsey, falls in love with a handsome Egyptian, played by the Moroccan Assaad Bouab.
When they break up, she decides to travel to Egypt to win him back, but instead finds herself pursuing a deeper passion: dancing.
Having been introduced to the sensual art by an Egyptian friend in the United States, she meets the legendary but fallen belly dancer Ismahan, played by Carmen Lebbos, during her expedition to Cairo.
Lola convinces Ismahan to teach her, and the two women develop a relationship of self-discovery and redemption.
"It's not a film about belly dancing, which is just an organic link in the film, but it's about an exchange; one giving a passion for dance and the other, a passion for life," Ayouch explained.
Co-written with Jane Hawksley, the movie is the director's first venture into Hollywood-style English-language cinema.
Born and raised in Paris, Ayouch is renowned for "Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue" (Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Street), a powerful portrayal of Casablanca street children, which won an award at the Amiens International Film Festival in France.
About a year ago my boyfriend said at dinner: "I have two things to tell you. One, I love you. And two, I want you to lose weight! Is it just that you don't know, you don't care? Is it just that you can't stop eating? Do you binge eat? Do you KNOW how you look?"
You'd think at 46 I would have developed enough self-esteem to get up and leave. I had put on, in 5 years, around 15 pounds. Not 60 pounds or 30 pounds, but 15 pounds.
I stayed around for another miserable year of locking horns, of his sly comments about how much butter I was allowed to eat and if I "got outside" that day. Finally, I bailed. The night I broke up with him I was going through a closet and found my zills. I held them and wept, remembering a time when I didn't obsess over every calorie and every mile.
I took off all my clothes, put on my silver belt and tightened the zills on my fingers and thumbs. I stuck my belly out. WAY out.
I danced through the house and felt it all come back, felt all the pain releasing, ebbing from my belly in an invisible wave. I felt the joy in my body, the pure innocent joy of being alive, returning.
Margaret Cho remarked in her latest DVD that belly dancing is a perfect way to heal from food disorders and body dysmorphia.
I agree with her. I believe the physical act of celebrating the belly and hips is incredibly affirming, and to free the belly frees the pain and the joy. We hold pain in the belly, especially when our bellies are disrespected. In the act of a simple hip circle, the belly opens and pain moves out. When the pain moves out, the memory of pure joy returns and the dance animates us with our birthright of self-celebration.
Thank you to everyone who dances, who talks about dance, who teaches dance, who loves dance.
It’s time to set the record straight, everyone. So here it is: belly dancing is not a significant facet of Middle Eastern culture. It’s a dance, not a lifestyle (not according to most Middle Eastern people, anyway).
I’ve had one too many people ask me if I belly dance when they hear about my religion or ethnicity. Belly dancing is something that is present in some form of another in most Middle Eastern cultures, but is not really a part of our identity. And I assure you, nowhere in the Holy Qur’an does it say, “Thou shalt belly dance.” But because of Hollywood’s old Orientalist glamour, images of belly dancing have become almost synonymous with the Middle East.
I can’t help but get irritated when someone assumes that s/he and I automatically have something in common because s/he belly dances. The truth of a real-live Middle Eastern woman belly dancing seems to validate all those silly images that come into one’s head about spangly costumes and the Dance of the Seven Veils. Belly dancing has a host of sexualized and savage images attached to it, and if Middle Eastern/Muslim women confess to belly dancing (for exercise, as a career, for fun, or whatever), those images get attached to us, and we no longer have individual thoughts or lifestyles. We don’t take care of our parents or our children, we don’t have jobs or have opinions about health care reform, we just belly dance. Like it’s all we do, all day. This is why it’s insulting when someone thinks s/he knows what it’s like to be a Middle Eastern/Muslim woman because s/he’s taken a belly dancing class or read a book about it. The image of a Middle Eastern woman belly dancing seems to take away from our identity: it erases who we really are, our different nationalities and ethnicities, our emotions, our day-to-day existence.
Now, let me assure you: my problem isn’t with the dance itself. Belly dancing is a great way to connect with one’s sensuality, to exercise, and to appreciate the body that God gave you. Nor is my problem with non-Middle Eastern women (or men) belly dancing (or with Middle Eastern people dancing).
What bothers me is the adoption of a caricatured Middle Eastern identity through coin-bedazzled bras and Middle Eastern stage names like “Amina” or “Vashti.” If you’re a non-Middle Eastern performer, why give yourself a Middle Eastern stage name? What’s wrong with a name that reflects your own ethnicity or interests? Is it not “ethnic” or “exotic” enough? Besides, how would you feel if someone else used the name your parents gave you (that perhaps also belonged to your grandmother or aunt) as a stage name for an act that most people in your culture consider shameful if done publicly? (Cultural lesson: in most parts of the Middle East, belly dancing is often a cover for illicit activities.)
Similarly, dance troupe names like “Desert Queens” or “Daughters of Scheherazade” serve the same exoticizing purpose when these troupes are full of non-Middle Eastern women set in a non-Middle Eastern setting (like Austin, Texas, for example, which hosted a Belly Dancing Convention last July).
I take offense at the presentation of Middle Eastern “culture” through things like transparent veils, coin necklaces, and henna tattoos because reducing the Middle Eastern experience to some jingly coins and a scimitar takes the humanity right out of us. Elements of Middle Eastern/Muslim stereotypes are irreparably attached to the use of swords, snakes, and veils. These props serve to reinforce the idea of Muslim/Middle Eastern women as dangerous, sexually arousing, sexually submissive, and just plain different from women in the West.
Performers (Middle Eastern or non-Middle Eastern) highlight these images when they (Middle Eastern or non-Middle Eastern) balance swords on their heads and give themselves henna tattoos. The inclusion of these props is often used to authenticate a Middle Eastern experience, making the performance or venue more like the “Mysterious Orient,” in which Middle Eastern women are acquiescing sexual props and Middle Eastern men are brutal and dangerous.
Why is this acceptable? These practices (other than henna for holidays and weddings) aren’t even Middle Eastern: Egyptian performers borrowed the ideas for these spangly suits from Hollywood in the early twentieth century. And no Middle Easterner just walks around all day with a sword perched atop her head. Belly dancing doesn’t even traditionally show off the stomach: a scarf is tied around one’s hips (over regular, concealing clothing) to emphasize the movements. So how did we get to sparkly bras and coin jewelry?!
Because sex sells! Early colonial performers knew what their (often Western or male) audiences wanted to see: sexuality. A pretty girl dancing sensually for the male gaze. Using veils in performances reiterates this: sashaying a veil under one’s heavily-painted eyes is done to entice and enchant, and is associated with the traditional face veils that upper-class (and thus inaccessible) Turkish, Egyptian, and Iranian women used to wear before (or during) colonization.
The problem is that belly dancing is permeated with all of these negative Orientalist dancing harem girl images. Can one belly dance without the coins, the henna, and/or swords? I think so. A long time ago, it was all about the scarf tied around the hips. It’s not flashy, but it’s sincere.
When filmmakers make movies about dance on stage — be it ballet or modern — the results are usually a bit of a let down: The backstage drama winds up with more (and better) stage time than the performances.
But when it comes to social dance, Hollywood deserves a fair measure of praise. Movies that incorporate or revolve around social dance are distinctly of their own time. And without movies to show how people danced at a given moment in history, the style of that era would exist only in photography and memory.
Imagine the extreme frustration that would befall today's grandparents if they could only show their grandchildren photographs of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. A still image of those two slim figures tapping out a duet or waltzing together across the room would show the style of the day and the surroundings, but none of the quality of the movement.
Of course, the average couple going out for a spin on a Friday night in 1949, the year that "The Barkleys of Broadway" opened, couldn't possibly dance as well as this professional pair. But Fred and Ginger represented a standard of elegance and — given the cornball plots to fill the time between the dancing — enough romance to send the audience into flights of fancy.
In the modern era, perhaps the greatest film to capture social dance is "Saturday Night Fever" (1977). The scenes in the Brooklyn nightclub give us glimpses of lively group dances, some of which are interrupted by the flashy stylings of the local hotshot, Tony Manero, played by the exceptionally gifted John Travolta. Though his home-grown style looks spontaneous on the dance floor, the rehearsal scenes let the viewer in on the trick: Tony and his partners practice quite a lot. What he creates in the studio pushes the form forward when he takes it public.
But "Saturday Night Fever" is also brutally realistic about life, love, and sex. These young women and men don't know where they're going, and only the boy who can dance — the artist — can see a way out of the borough. The film uses the vehicle of dance to show how modern society was changing and expectations were expanding, which makes it much more than a film about dance.
The plot of "Flashdance" (1983) brings high and low dance into a culture clash. Exotic dancer Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) wants to get into the local ballet company. Lacking ballet technique and a rule-abiding temperament, she breaks in by way of attitude. The dance that is captured here is more about strip dancing than fox trotting, but her workouts and the culminating audition scene are examples of a jazzbased style that was popular at the time. And whereas in "Striptease" (1996), Demi Moore also had some creative, moody stripper acts set to popular Annie Lennox songs, nothing beats "Flashdance" for that infamous gush of water.
By contrast, social dance is at the center of the plot of "Footloose" (1984). A sleepy small town, in which the most important church pastor has forbidden dance, is disrupted when the sexy, daring Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) arrives from the big city. He leads the high school students in a reasoned protest in favor of a prom with dancing.
Ren gets the girl and the prom, but the fun part is watching his buddy Willard (Chris Penn) learn how to dance. The teaching starts from the need to understand rhythm and then to have the confidence to create something personal. At the prom, the exuberant dance moves suggest that the rest of the teens — who have previously not been allowed to dance — have been secretly practicing, too. There is partnering, individual showing off, and even a littlebreak-dancing, which considering that the Midwestern town depicted was almost lily-white, was probably not entirely accurate.
But the '80s were the era of breakdancing — and any film about dance needed it. The film "Breakin'" (1984) brought jazz and breakdancing together. "Beat Street" (1984) emphasized the role of the DJ. Neither film may live large in the annals of cinema, but their purpose was to capitalize on the interest in a new urban dance form. By putting breakdancing at the center of the action, the filmmakers gave a national audience to something that was only emerging in cities. And they gave modern films about street dance, such as "You Got Served" (2004), a jumping off point to incorporate the explosion of gang culture.
Though films such as "Grease" (1978) and "Dirty Dancing" (1987) became hits within the musicalfilm genre, both look back to other eras rather than explore the contemporary. "Grease" opened only one year after "Saturday Night Fever," but how different the happy version of the '50s looks in comparison to the grittiness and reality of Brooklyn in the late 1970s. "Dirty Dancing" took a retrospective look at 1963 in the Catskills, but launched the new (and supremely annoying) song "(I've Had) the Time of My Life" onto the radio.
As different as all these films are, the one element connecting films about social dancing — be they retrospective or of their time — is the idealistic message that dancing is a sort of healing activity. It can bring families together, elevate one's social standing, and open minds. And if that's true, we could use a little more of it — in film and in real life, too.
Have you read an interesting dance-related article you would like to share with readers of this blog? Feel free to send me the article and/or the link via the email address above, citing the source.
It's hard for Hilary Jernigan to hide her love for art.
