Tejedora Metaphora

The Cabaret Connundrum

Izzy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:54:00 GMT

The Cabaret Conundrum

Part One: Warrior Princess
Spring 2009

   I love cabaret costumes. I love sparkle and glitter and flowy, filmy fabrics. I love slinky lines and tops that make me look like I actually have cleavage. I love thigh-high slits and tight, ornate skirts with cut-outs around the hips. I love 20-inch beaded fringe and pearls and sequins and crystals that shimmer under the lights. I love velvet mermaid-skirts and chiffon sleeves and beaded gauntlets and satin circle skirts and full-length evening gowns. I love rhinestones and gems and delicate jewelry and shiny tiaras.
   Yes.
    The Warrior Princess loves tiaras.
   I was never Daddy’s Little Princess growing up. I was Daddy’s Fishing Protégé and Mommy’s Little Artist. I was a tomboy. I would only wear frilly dresses when I had to and my hair was cut short until I was fourteen. On Free-Day Friday, I was that lone girl who forewent jump-rope and hop-scotch in favor of playing floor hockey with the boys. My first heroine was Jana of the Jungle with her groovy throwing-necklace and prowling tiger. I loved building forts in the woods or the snow, I could outrun most of the boys in my class, and I preferred action figures over dolls or Barbies. I was as likely to play with Ken as with Barbie, and my favorite action figures were Han Solo, Darth Vader, He-Man and Skelletor. Of course, I also dug the fact that Princess Leia wielded a blaster and killed Jabba in a shiny gold bikini, and my She-Ra, Princess of Power always kicked butt.
   For you see, within my power-propensity always lurks the princess. In high school, I was an All-State volleyball player and captain, as well as a cheerleader—another indication of this tomboy’s susceptibility to The Shiny.
    Mmmm…Shiny... Glitter. Sparkle. Sequined, beaded, encrusted—
    Focus.
   Anyway, as I was saying, I love my cabaret costumes as much as I love my tassels and textiles, and I love the music that traditionally goes with them—all of them. I love the deep, heady pulse of Tribal drums, the flirty bounce of Turkish pop, the mournful soul of Arabian flutes, and the guts of anything labeled “Gypsy.” I even love the chorus of “screaming cats on a coffee-grinder.”
   But the princess in me loves the sweeping, elegant orchestrated music of raqs sharqi.
There is only one problem. The moves that traditionally go with this music and this form of dress are about as sweeping and elegant on me as ballet was. In college, I was a jazz dancer, a tap dancer, a funk dancer, a fiery Latin ballroom dancer. I, of course, started with ballet. I’m very glad I did, because it gave me the posture and line and basic vocabulary from which to spring—OK, launch with all thrusters fired into the dance forms that truly suited me. The modern dance I studied was taught by my ballet teacher and was heavily influenced by that style, rather than some of the more robust, powerful styles, so I liked it, but I still had some of the same problems as when I was standing at the barre, trying to pretend I was The Swan.
   I do not possess the graceful flow of a ballerina. My grace is more in line with that of a great cat or a serpent. The undulation of powerful muscles rippling beneath velvety fur…the hypnotization of a serpentine body snaking through the undergrowth, spiraling into a tidy ball of latent energy, watching, waiting with forked tongue a-flicker, head weaving, glossy eyes focused with lethal intensity…coiling-coiling-coiling...for the strike!
   I am athletic, not voluptuous.
   I am energetic, not tranquil.
   I am powerful, not subtle.
   But dagnabbit, I am sucker for a Mohammed Abdel Wahad tune or a Jalilah’s Raqs Sharqi album!
   So of course, I have to ask--if this music speaks to my soul, why should I not be allowed to dance to it, even if I am not dancing in the style that traditionally goes with it? Dance is, after all, a fluid, evolving entity which…blah-blah-blah…[insert soap-box rant here].
   Of course, I am allowed. I can choose to dance to it any ole way my heart desires. But there are repercussions, and I’ve been reaping them for many, many years.
   Sure, I’m La Tejedora. I’m The Weaver. I’m the Warrior Princess, and I may appear brave and strong and unaffected with a sword in my hand or bounding around amidst swirls of fabric or cocking one eyebrow in an expression that says, “Yeah, bay-bee! Who loves ya?” But the truth is, I shed my fair share of tears and have more than once boxed up all my costumes with the intent of quitting after being lambasted for what I do.
   “That’s not belly dance!”
   “This is about sensuality and glamour. Belly dancers are supposed to be sexy. Are you going to do anything that corresponds with this theme?”
    “You don’t do it right,” uttered in a heavy Lebanese accent and said with squinty eyes and a curled lip. “You only dance because you are in little town of Colorado. You’d be nothing on East or West Coast.”
    “Too skinny, too muscular, too flat-chested...”
   “There’s more jazz in her than belly dance.”
   And some days, that’s true. I am a fusion artist. Always have been. I have never called myself a traditional Middle Eastern dancer—or a traditional anything, for that matter. I have an entire dissertation on what it is that I do and don’t do entitled “Tejedora” on my website. The only thing pure about my dancing is my heart, but that doesn’t seem to matter to some people. Some only see that I am wearing a bedlah and dancing to classical Egyptian music, but not dancing classical Egyptian style. Perhaps they missed the program note calling it, “Dance Orientale Tejedora Style” or “American Cabaret” or simply “Zill Dance.” Or perhaps they have other motives for their malice.
   Whatever it is, I have suffered a relapse into my former complex of fear, insecurity and self-condemnation because I “don’t do it right.” Give me a tassel belt and Tribal hair-ties and I’ll burn the stage up—not as a Tribal dancer, but as La Tejedora. Give me a 25-yard skirt and throw on some raucous Karsilima, and my soul will rocket out of my body with every movement. Put a sword in my hand and adorn me with a heavy-metal bra, and I feel armored against condemnations.
   But put me in a cabaret costume and take away my props, and suddenly I am rendered nekkid and vulnerable. Squeak! My shimmying turns into shivering.
   In a recent discussion, another dancer said, “Well, if you saw someone in traditional Japanese dress, dancing to traditional Japanese music, wouldn’t you expect them to be doing traditional Japanese dance?”
   I suppose that would be my initial assumption if there was nothing telling me otherwise, just as someone in Tribal costume advertises in the first seconds of stepping out on the stage, “This is not going to be traditional raqs sharqi. This is contemporary fusion. It may even be experimental.” This is why I’m a big fan of program notes, because education goes a long way. It’s why I also feel safer wearing the fusion costumes, whereas I don’t when I am wearing what is still considered a uniform of tradition—let’s face it, a tradition of which, in the grand scheme, I am pretty ignorant. I have never had the opportunity to study in Egypt, Turkey, etc., nor have I studied under a teacher from one of these countries of origin long enough for that style to truly become ingrained in my Western trained, martial artist, tomboy’s body. So I dance what I know and I dance what I feel. And that is all.
   This doesn’t change the fact that I adore my sequins and I can’t stop swooning to Alf Leyla wa Leyla no matter how many years I listen to it. Equally true is the fact that, over the years, I’ve developed a complex about cabaret, which wreaks havoc on me every time I try to don the glitz.
I suppose this is partly because it has been in those sparkly, bead-encrusted realms that I have received some of the harshest criticisms of my career. Those who have been the cruelest were bejeweled nightclub divas, glamorous traditionalists and foreign men who had really wanted me to linger extra time at a table, flirting with them in exchange for the waft of dollar bills. It seems that there is no room in the dance world in which they exist for someone who doesn’t abide by the modes of operation that they’ve always known.
   The Tribal world has not attacked me in such a way. Although I sometimes wear many of the trappings of a Tribal dancer, they seem to take note of the fact that I do not advertise what I do as American Tribal Style or even Tribal Fusion. Perhaps they can allow me my corner because theirs are modern, fusion styles too, and because they’ve had to fight just as hard to find a place to dance their dances. They are my grandmothers, my aunts, my cousins in dance. Because of the paths they have paved, I can do what I do outside of my own living room.
   I was a restaurant dancer for many years, so naturally I grew up among the glitter of sequins and the glow of multi-tiered chandeliers upon ornate carpets. The nightclub owners were creating a certain setting and it was my job to provide the kinetic element of that ambience. Although I had a lot of fun and it taught me a lot, I was never fully satisfied there. I was squirmy about the body-tipping and constantly found myself constrained and uninspired in my own dancing. The pieces I longed to create needed a stage, without hampering by passing waiters, derelict carpet fringe, or processions of newly seated patrons. I also got sick of my cabaret costumes. I ached for variety in what I wore, in my music choices, and in my dances.
   Oddly enough, it was the cruelty of cutthroat nightclub politics that spurred me from the restaurant onto the stage. I was blacklisted for a time, due to another dancer’s sabotage machinations, and so I had two choices: quit dancing or find another place to dance.
   The Dance lives in my blood and my bones, so there really was no question of what I would do. The only question was, “How?” I began producing my own stage shows in the small town to which I had moved, selling out our little theater time after time. In these shows, I finally had the freedom to do what I wished to do, and I shared that freedom with my students and fellow dancers. Our pieces ranged from the glitzy to the gutsy, from humorous to heartrending. They spanned modern, traditional and experimental, and left the audience with a better appreciation for the soulful, widely varied art that is belly dance.
   Occasionally, I would don The Shiny, usually out of a desire to have as widely contrasting numbers as possible. But more often than not, I found exuberance in the freedom of other unique costumes that didn’t feel like such a uniform advertising a specific genre—and one that had brought me such grief. I gravitated more toward the earthy and eclectic, and allowed myself the long-yearned-for treat of performing to any music that inspired me.
   My dance soul exploded! I finally began finding out who I was as a dancer, and also as a person. When I began taking martial arts, this only added strength and depth to the passionate way I had begun to express myself; conversely, learning to express myself truthfully brought integrity to my martial arts.
   And then my marriage fell apart. Everything contracted, tightened, and strained until it cracked and crumbled. For months, I couldn’t dance. I had to pull off my contracted gigs by sheer determination, and it registered in my movements and especially my facial expressions. That famous smile that even the critics could never deny grew forced and my eyes filled with bitterness, my playfulness withered into snideness. I was bitter and hurt and it showed.
But day by day, week by week, I healed. I am healing still. I have found love again and joy. Terpsichore came back from wherever she had frolicked off to, and with her, she brought some shiny new toys that I had forgotten by the wayside—my affinity for Bauble and Bling.
   Mmm…Bauble…Sequins and Velvet and Beads, oh my—
   Focus!
   As I write this, I have recently returned from Majma, the big, wonderful festival in Glastonbury, England. While I was there, some very typical things occurred, followed by several bolts from the blue. Maybe it was the the Henge, the Tor, the Egg, the Well, the Thorn. Maybe it was drinking the holy water and breathing the magik-laced air and treading the soil of Avalon. Maybe it was just time. Although we were at the end of winter here in Colorado, it was spring there. Trees were in bloom, the grass pulsed green, and flowers were shooting up everywhere. Another layer of change had been germinating within me for some time. The seeds had been planted long ago. They have blossomed in certain areas, but this one rough patch has remained plagued with weeds—the prickly type with roots that go deep. Every time I am convinced that I have eradicated them, they spring up again, the moment the rain clouds come.
   “That’s not belly dance!”
   “My teacher would be mortified!”
   “Cute and energetic, but not up to the caliber of the others on the DVD.”
   “Belly dancers aren’t supposed to bulge with muscles! They’re supposed to be soft and feminine!”
   Rumble-rumble-rumble…FLASH! BOOOOOM...
   Against all of the condemnations, I have made an effort to shrug off the “should” and “shouldn’t” restrictions so that I can simply dance. Still, my shows generally go the same way. My fusion pieces, my “gypsy-esque” pieces, and my prop pieces often provoke astounded, gushing feedback. “Wow! That rocked! Passionate! Strong! Powerful! Amazing!” And as for any mention of my straight-up cabaret pieces…
   Crickets chirping in the night.
   While I was in Glastonbury, it finally hit me why. It isn’t that I am surrounded by an entire world of Tradition Police and nobody can stand the fact that I am daring to bastardize eons of culture and dance history in my one piddly generation. I’m sure there are those who think that, but they are not the wide majority of my audiences.
   No, it’s that I’m dancing scared.
   I am afraid of that single comment in a hundred by someone who can’t see past the tunnel of what they’ve been taught, is blindly jealous and needs to cut me down, or simply doesn’t like my style and is malicious in the vocalization of it. I am terrified of being bombarded, blacklisted, or maligned once again. In spite of all the strides I’ve made against narrow-mindedness and my own demons, when it comes to cabaret, I have a lingering conundrum—I am still terrified of “doing it wrong.” Even deeper down, I’m just as afraid of success, of posing a threat—to someone’s competitive streak, their insecurities, their Story of what dance should be…whatever.
   So what now?
   I fantasize about performing some of my uber-fusion pieces in a glitzy bedlah and glam-hair.
   I fantasize about dancing some of my Oriental choreographies in heavy-duty, Tribal-ish gear, just to see how it feels.
   Most of all, I fantasize about dancing to one of those sweeping, elegant, orchestral songs that calls to my soul while wearing a shiny, elegant, bead-and-crystal-encrusted costume and finally, finally letting my hair down to dance the way I was born to, no matter if I hit a single one of The Classic Raqs Sharqi Points or not.
   I have realized that if I’m going to keep dancing in these glitzy costumes, I need to stop hesitating and holding back. I need to feel what I feel and allow the music to move through me, to move me from the inside. I need to just “shut up and dance.”
   I can hear one of my oldest and dearest friends now. We use that saying when we are too much in our heads about anything, not just dance. I have started adopting this mantra for whenever the demons start their grumbling, and for when I need to get out of the way of my Muse. She knows what to do. It’s not that my Oriental choreographies suck. They don’t. They may be non-traditional, but they don’t just-plain-suck. It’s that, compared to what happens to my face and eyes and to the very way my cells vibrate when I am dancing from the depths of my soul, uninhibited and unafraid…well, there is no comparison, and that is the biggest reason why my other pieces get such notice while my cabaret pieces get crickets.
   Shut up and dance.
   Just dance.

Part Two: Wearing the Tiara

   My problems with cabaret are not as simplistic as my fears of criticism and the sniper scars of my belly dance past creeping up to bite my fringe-laden butt. Some days I wish they were. But the reality is that the difficulties run much deeper. They are many decades old and they spring from my fears of being feminine. Soft, nice, pretty girls, after all, can be delectable targets, and princesses are notorious for needing to be rescued by some prince or knight.
   Unfortunately, I haven’t come by a lot of princes or knights in my time, and so I had to learn to rescue myself. I learned to be my own champion, my own source of comfort and pampering, my own breadwinner and door-opener. I learned to find the romance and excitement of life on my own, to channel my passion into my arts, and to find fulfillment in the wonders of the world. There have been many years in which I lived as my own man—the bacon-bringer, the protector, the handyman, the one who takes out the trash and ejects the spiders—because no body else was going to do it. But that takes a toll on one’s femininity, one’s receptiveness, one’s softness.
   So does becoming a Recovering Doormat. I have been the victim, the punching bag, the butt of the joke, the scapegoat. In reaction, I became the survivor, the fighter, and the tenacious, tempestuous growler who balls her hands on her hips, thrusts out her chin and says in a voice that is much too loud for the situation, "No! I won't! You can't make me! You're not allowed to do that to me!"
   I am learning new lessons these days—lessons that I have yearned to experience for years. Having delved into my own strengths and power, I am now finding great joy in learning to release, to receive, to open, to soften. For one who is accustomed to striding, it is a novel sensation to sway, stroll, sashay. I have rediscovered a love of flowy skirts, heeled sandals, sun-kissed, shaved legs, and pretty tops. I’ve remembered how luxurious my hair is when it’s down. I’ve found myself wanting to put a hint of makeup on just to go out to lunch—not because I am afraid to be seen without it, but because it’s fun. I crave scents and perfumed lotions and smelly candles and incense. I crave fruit and fresh vegetables, and have sought out the Farmer’s Market for the first time in over a decade. I swoon to mushy love-songs, singing and dancing in my kitchen as I cook. I crave walks under the stars and picnics in the shade of an enormous tree. Night after night, this body from which I exact such a toll is treated to massages and gentleness, rather than the constant onslaught of drilling, performance, practice and martial training.
   What happened?
   The Warrior Princess fell in love with a Warrior Prince.
   As a result of my blossoming strength, I experience freedom. I yearn to relax into my feminine nature, and I yearn to know the love of a masculine man, to let him be the man—to trust him to be a good man and to treat me as I deserve. My sweetheart calls me his Princess and his Gem. And he is absolutely a Prince among many frogs. He is a cop and a black-belt, a big, burly man’s man with a heart of gold, and he treats me as though he has never beheld anything more precious.
   “Don’t you think,” he writes in an email, “that maybe your problems with cabaret aren’t just about what other people think and traditions and all that stuff?” He writes this to me while I’m in England, bemoaning my cabaret conundrum. I don’t receive it until the next morning, after I’ve had an almost identical conversation with one of my dearest friends who traveled with me. (He is uncanny like that.) “I mean, cabaret is sparkly and pretty and shiny. Like princesses. And how often have you ever really been treated like a Princess?”
   Um...let me count...
   But these days, this Recovering Doormat doesn’t accept anything less from a man (which is probably why I have this one), and it is starting to weave itself into my dancing, as every powerful force in my life does. Suddenly, as a counter-weight to my powerful, independent striding and sword-wielding, I long to dust off my sparkly costumes and wear tiaras. I doubt I will ever be one of those subtle, supple dancers who can tell an entire tale in the slightest twitch of her head and one hip-tick. I am much too verbose and flamboyant for that.
But as my youthful dreams of intimate, soulful union with a man are rekindled, within them burns a deep desire to dance. For him. With him. About him. About the woman I am becoming. About the woman I have always wanted to be and finally feel free and safe and inspired to embody.

Part Three: In the Fishbowl

   “Oh woe, nobody likes my cabaret pieces,” I have lamented, time and again. “I should just sell all those glitzy costumes and give it up!”
   Now, I know this is not true. I know there are people out there who like them, just as there are people who don’t. There are just substantially more people who like my other dances better. And more importantly—I don’t like my cabaret pieces as much as the others because I can’t seem to get out of my head and stop worrying. My audience’s reactions simply mirror this back to me.
   For a brief period of time, when I was only dancing in small theaters in safe towns, I discovered the dances that were in my heart and soul. Why? Because I allowed myself the freedom to do so. I just danced and I loved every second of it. I allowed myself the freedom to experiment, to play, to question, to push the bounds and break through my own self-imposed limitations. I once did a sword piece without ever putting the thing on my head. I attached half-circle veils to a Persian coat and danced to a song from Celtic Woman. I tossed on my high heels and fused belly dance and swing dance to Sing, Sing, Sing! Why?
   Because I felt like it.
   And then my tassely-tushy got put on a DVD. Several, in fact. Seemingly overnight, people started paying me to come and share my knowledge with them and their communities, first across the country, then across an ocean. People Google my name. People favorite my YouTube videos. People write me fan mail. (Fan mail—me!)
   Suddenly, I don’t feel so safe to experiment and try out new things. Now I have a Reputation. What if I drop my sword on that new trick that isn’t fully comfortable yet? What if I trip over my skirt and almost face-plant when I’m supposed to be Miss Thang? What if I forget about the existence of dew in places like California that have moisture in the air, my cane slips out of my hand on the most simple of tricks and it is captured forever and ever on an IAMED DVD? (Ahem...)
   One of my problems is that sometimes I have the attention span of a pea. I get bored all too easily, especially with my own dancing, and am constantly in search of something new to try—a new style, a new prop, a new move, a new song, a new story to tell. I just don’t have it in me to dance in the same style time after time. I love it all. I want it all. But that means I am more of a Jasmine-of-all-trades and mistress-of-none. Suddenly, as I go through the growing pains of learning something new, my fumbling and stumbling occurs in front of the whole world instead of a little corner of a small town in Colorado where my friends and students love me.
   OK, OK, it feels like the whole world, and that is a very daunting thing.
   Take this whole cabaret conundrum. I’ve been banging my head against this wall for many years and I guarantee that there are many people who have said, “She should just really stick to what she’s good at.” And many famous artists do that. Take the musician who becomes famous for one thing, then branches out into something different on album three or four and suddenly loses the majority of his or her audience. If they don’t acquire new and adoring fans with this new sound, they can either play what’s in their heart today and risk fading into obscurity, or return to the old style and play those old songs that everybody loves so much.
   What is an artist to do?
   I think the best ones find a balance. Because there is the Artist and then there is the Entertainer. If I wish to experiment because I’m a learning, growing, evolving human being and artist, then I risk sacrificing the love of my fans—without whom, I may as well stay in my own living room “dancin’ for my own enjoyment.” (That ain’t it, kid, that ain’t it.) I also risk my hosts getting testy with me because they paid all this money and I didn’t live up to the expectation as I break out of my comfy zone on the stage. Let’s face it, you can only practice so many times at home or in front of your local buds before you just have to put it out there, and that is a totally different ball of wax.
   The words of Darshaan spring to my mind as I write this. We were at IAMED--not the second time when the dew got my cane. This was the first time when I had a billion (OK it was probably five) snafus with my sword balance because I had literally lost my groove by tying my hair too tightly. Afterwards, I was completely dismayed. My first invitation to perform at IAMED and, to my overly-critical, perfectionist’s mind, I had totally blown it. As I growled about this fact in the back room amidst dancer-friendly munchies and fluorescent lights and cool concrete floors, she tilted her head at me and said, as if it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world, “What’s wrong with the audience getting to see how hard it actually is?”
   BWONG...
   That got me thinking.
   That got me thinking for many moons. It brought to mind Struggle, the piece that occasionally gets passed about on the internet about the Emperor Moth’s journey out of the cocoon. It was one of those images to which I clung during my days of recovery after the crash. I suppose this is just another example of it. Although I might not have wanted to hear it that night, there is a very special place in my heart for Darshaan for saying that. I repeat it like a mantra now whenever I drop my props, trip over my skirt, or wince over the video of my supposed-to-be-elegant-and-floaty dance on a raised, poorly-lit stage while I was completely blinded by one spotlight and terrified of biffing it off the edge and breaking my neck. (Shijii.)
   Of course, nobody else knows that. They only see me falling short of the caliber they have come to expect, comparing me to my best self and to other dancers. I compare me to my best self too, cringing at the drastically different renditions of the same dance and smacking my forehead in disgust. Sometimes I forget that in one version, I was well-rested, surrounded by friends and family, and stable in my home life, while in another I was newly-divorced, jet-lagged, had undergone 36 hours of emergency emails trying to procure a flight that would arrive on time to make the show, bartered and begged in a foreign language to be allowed into the locked baggage terminal for my wayward luggage, raced across an airport toting a broken sword case and a 50-pound bag while having an asthma attack, and then arrived starving and on fumes four hours before the show, thanking God that my costumes and makeup had actually been stowed on the plane.
   You know, I still managed to pull off the 90-degree turn under my sword, as well as the new sword-on-the-small-of-my-back trick. Was I shaky and a little off? Absolutely. Did I struggle for every second of those performances? You bet. But am I proud of them? When I have my head on straight, it would make more sense for me to be prouder of those dances than of the ones for which I am so well-known--an easy night amidst a week’s vacation when I was just ON.    Swimming in the Great Fishbowl, bombarded with myriad eyes watching your every fringe-swish can have quite the hampering effect upon one’s Muse. Actually, the Muse is fine. It’s the Critic who places strangle-holds upon the Muse for fear of a bad review. And I guess that’s the choice. Do I play it safe and stick to dances I can do in my sleep, or do I constantly grow and create and learn and risk? I am just as much an Artist as an Entertainer, if not more so, so I will always find places to create what I wish to create, and allow those who love it to resonate and those who hate it to grumble.
   I just wish I had a thicker skin.
   This new blossoming “Star Status” has been an interesting experience for me. It has brought up many insecurities, as well as many curiosities. I wonder how many famous artists have succumbed to this type of fear and played it safe, when what they ached for was to branch off and experiment, to allow themselves the luxury of being a beginner at something, to grow and express their changeable nature instead of always having to cater to “what the masses have always liked.”
   I recently had a conversation with one of my friends who is one of The Biggies in our field. She expressed her frustration over the pigeonholing effect that has happened with her career—how she has become famous for a very limited number of things and that this is what is requested of her to teach and perform, time and time again. What she would really love to do is to teach something else, and definitely to perform whatever she wished. She can, of course, but she will risk disappointing her audience—the very people who keep her fed.
   So I am curious as to what will happen as I refuse to give in to my fears, experimenting with this rediscovery of Sparkle Lovin’, even though it is not the thing for which I am most well-known, in a style in which I am the most uncomfortable.

Part Four: The Night Sky

   Last but not least, there is the moon. Those who know me well know that I howl at it—not just when it is full, but in all its stages. For example, a half-moon gets a half-howl, cut off just at its pinnacle; a crescent gets an equally enthusiastic, but stunted, “Aroo—!”
   Starlight, too, is enthralling to me and I find few things more calming than to step outside in a place far from city lights and look up to see the night sky a-twinkle. I can gaze into the nighttime heavens for hours. I don’t have much interest in being able to name all the constellations; I simply love to stare and bask and sigh and wonder what’s out there.
   I do have my serene moments, and I find that the deeper I delve into this question of what to do with all my cabaret costumes, I keep being drawn back to the glow of the moon and the sparkle of starlight. I painted my bedroom walls lavender and the ceiling midnight blue with the intention of covering it in glow-in-the-dark stars. (The nagging leak in the roof has prevented me from doing that, but I still dream of it.) My kitchen is cream and sage green with fruit in dusty hues of pinks and purples—a sweet, delicate place with a hint of Tuscan villa in which to cook creations of love. The morning sunlight warms it, making it one of my favorite rooms in the apartment, but as dusk approaches, it takes on a much different quality. There is a high shelf above the tea and spice cabinet, painted the deepest blue-violet. I have strung white Christmas lights along the back wall which I leave up year-round so that in the evenings, I can come in to make a cup of tea with the illusion of starlight above me here in the middle of town. Even the Christmas lights that we strung in the season are still up, mingling their tender glow with the candles that I am constantly drawn to light.
   So what does all this have to do with cabaret? It is part of my search to find what I truly want to express while wearing those costumes. The power of the Deep Feminine is profoundly different than that of all those important lessons I learn in exploring the Warrior Princess. It is different, even, than these fledgling experiments into Princess-Period. It goes beyond my sudden affinity for wearing pink and putting on glittered eye shadow to go on a date, or allowing my sensual, flirtatious side to show in my dances, or letting a veil float instead of wielding it like a matador’s cape. It touches upon the regal Queen that the Princess will become. It touches upon the Priestess.
   Despite my tromping, exuberant, irreverent, swearing, goofy sides, She does dwell inside me and She yearns to be expressed, especially in my dancing. And just like the Warrior Princess in me longs for her tiara, the Priestess in me longs to be adorned with glittering stars and flickering candlelight. She longs for fabrics that are as filmy as mist and as soft as moonlight. She longs to unbind her hair and invoke the most powerful forces of life.
   I am not a bubblegum-bounce dancer, nor am I a bombshell dancer oozing sex appeal. I am far too intense for the former and too reserved and athletic for the latter. I am discovering another layer of what I am. I don’t quite know what it is yet. I only know that it is softer and more open than I am accustomed to being, full of sparkle and joy and sensuality.
   Mmm…Sparkle…Shimmer…Glimmer…Glow...
   I love my cabaret costumes. I love my raqs sharqi albums and my flirty sproing. I love my tentative, shy exploration into places in myself that have never truly been tapped. I love my striding, powerful Boadicea who brandishes her sword in the face of injustice and tromps all over fears, if only to silence them for a moment’s peace. I love the still, centered place of genuine power inside of me. I love my sword, my tiara and my priestess’ moonstone, and there are days when I love to wear them all at the same time.

**As this is yet another back-logged post, most of the results of this experiment are not yet posted on my YouTube account...but they're coming. *grin* My first try is up - Isistory Part 4 - Triumph (the zill piece and the drum solo). I originally did these two numbers at Majma in my roses & fringe Tribal outfit. You can see the cabaret version from Durango here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/izzytejedora

In Search of Terpsichore

Izzy — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 06:42:00 GMT

In Search of Terpsichore

Part 1: AGD (Angry-Girl Dances)

Fall 2008

I have misplaced my Muse.

When I was in elementary, I would get ready for school as quickly as I could so that I would have time to put on my favorite music and dance before I had to leave. In college, there were times when I took six hours of dance classes a day, then came home and played for several more hours with my newest joy--belly dancing. In the days when I worked a regular day job, the majority of my unoccupied hours would find me doing one of two things--dancing or writing. I have been yelled at and written up and chastised with the pounding of broomsticks for disturbing my neighbors because the urge to dance doesn’t believe in “appropriate” hours.

Now for the first time in my life, I have lost touch with Terpsichore, that Spirit of Movement, that Muse of Dance.

Dance has always been my saving grace through the most difficult and darkest moments of my life. “If it wasn’t for dance,” my closest friends say, “she would not be alive.” After my car wreck, I was unable to dance for a year and a half--forbidden to do so by my doctors, but even more so, by my body. Yet I longed to do so more than anything in the world. At first, I could waft my arms around a bit, flutter some veils, eventually pull off some fancy footwork. But belly dance? No way. And anything like my vigorous, Energizer Bunny self? That was out of the question. When I lost that ability and then miraculously regained it, I thought there would never be a day when I took it for granted again.

I was wrong.

Well, it’s not that I take it for granted. I just can’t do it. Can’t feel it, can’t enjoy it, can’t be moved. Literally.

When I moved out of my ex-husband’s house and began the process of getting divorced, everything that had once inspired me to twirl and leap and shimmy and bounce and smile and pop and undulate...it all just stopped. Like something that had once lived deeper than the skin, deeper even than muscle and marrow had dried up, gotten crusty and blown away like so much dust.

This has never happened to me before. Not in my most heart-wrenching, soul-weary, shattered days. Not in my most melancholy, nearly suicidal doldrums. Not in my most devastated states of despair and grief. Even during my recovery, while in chronic pain and confined to bed, I danced in my head, clinging to visions of the day when I would make it a reality again. I have bounded and spun and wafted to every good beat for as long as I can remember, and my darkest experiences have always driven me to dance like a fiend. It has been one of my primary healing and coping tools all my life. When baffled and troubled, I’ve always danced my way through, allowing the emotion to course through my flesh until I had figured out what to do.

But this time...I am at a loss.

As I write this, it occurs to me that perhaps I have still been dancing my way through it, just not in the obvious way. I have been still, sedentary, lying about in exhaustion, lounging about in contentment, purring in sunbeams and drinking a lot of tea. I suppose that is a dance in and of itself.

Being the Warrior Princess takes its toll, after all. So does being the Hummin’bird, the Prodigal Sun, and the Energizer Bunny.

When I moved out and got my own apartment, I had an insatiable, almost rabid need to surround myself with an environment that screamed, “ME! Me, me, me and ONLY ME! Raaaaahhhrrrrrrrr!” I set to work creating that environment, even though I didn’t own the property and it turned out to be a cockroach-infested, leaky, arsenic & mold dripping nightmare in a crack-head neighborhood. I had danced my way into an income that could sustain me as a single person again, but I am a belly dancer in Pueblo, Colorado, so my options for what I could afford were limited. That was all right. When The Recession hit, there were months in which I was relieved to sacrifice the state of my living conditions for leak-reduced rent. Of course, the state of the economy had also made moving out an impossibility, so I was stuck there for over a year. For the majority of time that I lived there, I was chased out of the bedroom by leaks or confined to a corner that barely fit the bed. Often, my dance room became the bedroom, and in the last days, I was dancing in a 5X7 foot space--but only after putting the coffee table up on the couch.

It didn’t matter much. Although Terpsichore may have inspired the choreographer of Cats to make a funny cockroach dance, She didn’t find the encroaching roaches from my neighbor’s apartment very funny and had vacated the premises within months, leaving me to fend for myself in a desperate search to find ways to put food on the table through the only career that permanent brain damage had left me--belly dancing.

I still had festivals and shows contracted. I was on the rise, this new starlette of stage and video, sought and brought by people across continents, across oceans.

There was only one problem.

I couldn’t belly dance.

I had already been working through a trend of gutsier, more vigorous, harder dances--a direct correlation of everything going on in my heart as I donned heavier armor, bore heavier loads, and prepared to finally leave my first marriage. But when I moved out, it’s like my entire creative world heaved a sigh of relief and then utterly collapsed in exhaustion. That summer, my body rebelled on me. All of my joints ached to the point of tears. They felt corroded, sometimes on fire. Every morning, I had to roll myself off the mattress, slink down to the floor and then haul myself up over the course of a couple minutes. Sometimes my boyfriend had to pick my up by the waist and set me on my feet, because I couldn’t do it myself. Dancing and martial arts were the last things I wanted to do.

To my utter relief, the three festivals I had through that time were with repeat clients--people who were understanding and supportive, some of whom I can call friends, one of whom I can call one of my dearest friends. I hit my annual week in Durango like a ton of bricks. Customarily, I would spend the first two or three days asleep on the hammock, hibernating in “my” room, twitching and drooling in the hot tub, catching up on my reading, snoozing and vegging, and honing the last rough spots out of my performance pieces. After this recuperation, I could then emerge to spend some long-awaited time with my friends, help with the production aspects, and do some vacationing.

But not this time. I arrived on fumes, drastically behind on numerous projects. I was also an emotional basket-case. I was already concerned about a close family member’s health when I received news that my oldest cat and first pet would probably not survive long enough to see me return. I hit the wall. This was the first year that Shirabella was not the main producer and we had been looking forward to finally spending some good quality time together, but it was not to be. I was a wreck. I am amazed that I was able to pull off the dances that I did. Of course, the Devdas Suite was tragic enough to suit my tastes, and Modern Gypsy was somber enough that I could pull it off. But the cabaret suite that was supposed to be my grande finale... Ugh. My heart just couldn’t be light and happy. Unfortunately, it was already in the printed program. I couldn’t change it.

When I watch the videos now, I can see the state I was in. I can see it through all of the shows from those first years after my divorce--the strain, the exhaustion, the pain, the anger, the grief, the bitterness, the barricade around my heart. It shows in the glint of my eyes, the brittleness of that famous smile, the twitchy, too-big, too-hard, much-too-much tension in my posture and movements. The arches in my feet fell, like they just couldn’t bear the weight anymore. Every step felt like I was walking on pebbles in my shoes.

There were moments when everything jived. But they were only moments, and very few people knew what feats of architecture and machinery went on beneath the surface in order to pull out the Izzy Smile.

What I longed to do was to rest. To sit in the park with the flickering sunlight shining upon my face through the leaves, sharing a picnic and lethargic breaths with a man who had long been my friend, and who had suddenly become so much more. I longed to hole up in my sunroom of an office, pouring out my thoughts and discoveries and feelings onto the page. I longed to sleep. I longed to cook comforting food and drink hot tea in the middle of summer. I longed to lay my head in a large, warm lap and feel the stroke of a loving hand upon my hair. I longed to cry. I longed to wear pink. I longed to let my hair spill over my shoulders and to wear soft, flowy clothing and to close my eyes, knowing that for the first time since I was five years old, I felt truly safe.

At the same time, I wanted to beat punching bags to a pulp. I wanted to scream and thrash and rend things to shreds. I wanted to throw things and break things and kick down doors.

But belly dancers don’t do that.

Belly dancers are supposed to be pretty. Even if they’re not smiling or sparkly, they’re supposed to at least maintain some sort of composure. I wanted to fling my body from wall to wall, bash my limbs against hard objects, whirl my clawed hands through the air, convulse with all the putrid, stifled rage surging up from my guts, and flop on the floor like spastic, sizzling bacon with the heat turned up too high. Then I wanted to collapse into a shuddering heap and bawl until I finally fell asleep.

What a sight that would have made at a belly dance festival...

So I did nothing. I didn’t dance. I didn’t run my katas. I just festered. I had no space big enough to accommodate the types of moves I ached to do, I had nowhere to put my punching bag, and the thought of coming unglued like that at the dojo was abhorrent. Every piece of music that I put on seemed at best outdated and hollow, at worst downright saccharine. Each time I tried to practice or choreograph, I felt like a fraud. The movements went against every gut impulse that sparked within me.

After enough time suppressing them, they finally stopped sparking. Terpsichore had left the building.

It was only toward the end of summer when my joints finally began to cease their endless screaming, and my ceiling paused its leaking long enough to give me a brief space in which to dance, that I finally struck upon inspiration. When I had first moved to Colorado, I was a splattered heap of heartbreak and bitterness, and had been stunned to find out I was capable of feeling deep rage. My roommate had a CD to which I desperately clung--Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes. I listened to it over and over, sang my heart out and did all sorts of angry-girl dances in the privacy of our living room when no one was around. That album was one of my lifesavers in those days.

After my divorce, I discovered the joys of Pandora, the internet site where you can create your own personalized radio stations. It was there that I remembered my old love of Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos. I ordered Little Earthquakes and ran to the mailbox every day, waiting for it to arrive. On my Angry Girl Music station, I added Pink to the list of seed artists. I began playing So What over and over and over. In the car, in the kitchen, in the office. And then I began to move. Finally, after months of being stymied, only dancing as much as I could force myself to by guilt and fear with the impending doom of each approaching gig, Terpsichore came knocking.

And She was pissed off.

In my head, I lip-synched Pink’s lyrics, changing them to, “So what! I’m still a raq-star!” intermingling thrust-kicks between snide, over-blown hip-drops and gargantuan booty-sways with my teeth clenched and my middle fingers flipped up. There were a thousand people to whom I sang this song and they all needed to be flipped off!

When I finally got my beloved Tori CD, I bounded up the stairs, elated to see that oh-so-familiar cover that had seen me through such dark days. I grinned an evil grin at the back cover and flipped some more people off. Then I put it in, melting down to the floor as the first strains of Crucify wafted through the air of my dance room. I was in Angry-Girl Heaven.

Movement flooded out of me. Morning, noon, night. It didn’t matter. I was once again a Dancin’ Fiend. All of those overpowering urges found avenues of direction upon which to explode, guided and encouraged and boiled up by the music. Spinning, spinning, spinning...clawing, thrashing, falling...arching, twisting, knotting...reaching and coming up empty-handed, having and losing...searching, searching, searching. Other songs came up to be noticed. 32 Flavors by Ani DiFranco. Stupid and Fallen by Sarah McLaughlan. Uninvited and Sympathetic Character by Alanis Morissette. It’s My Mistake by Michelle Featherstone. I danced before karate and after, I danced in the kitchen while cooking, I danced in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. For two weeks straight, I gave full reign to Angry-Girl. When I was in the shower or in the car, I sang at the top of my lungs. Anywhere else, I danced at the top of my body’s limitations and then some.

There was just one problem. The Northern Lights Festival was rapidly approaching and I had no idea what to perform. They wanted me to teach Warrior Princess and Stage Presence, two concepts that had been contracted before my divorce and my Descent into the Doldrums. Of stage presence, I felt bereft, and Warrior Princess--well, I felt nothing like one. Except when I had my Angry-Girl Music on, my body couldn’t decide if it was coming or going. One minute I was elated and in love, the next I was growling and snarling, then I was a weeping puddle, lashing out in the middle of it, only to fall into wide-eyed wonder at the very nature of life--which brought on a whole new wave of tears. I had taken to fits of insomnia and nightmares, the like of which I hadn’t seen since college and my recovery from the crash, punctuated by migraines and massive depression. Yet I was Venus Incarnate, wearing pink, frilly dresses and heels for the simple tasks of grocery shopping and gassing up my car--why? Cuz I wanted to.

In short, I was pulled in a thousand directions and I still had a job to do. All this dancing I was doing--I couldn’t use any of it on the stage. Not only was it so far from belly dancing that even La Tejedora couldn’t get away with it, but many of the songs were rife with profanity and coarse, raw topics unsuitable for family audiences.

I finally settled upon a Loreena McKinnett song I have always loved, and found a way to use some of the fervor raging inside of me--Descent to the Underworld was born. Although by no means one of my most technical of wonders, it allowed me to express what I needed to, and it was a thrill to dance with Ariellah, who was able to perfectly embody all of the aspects of the Ereshkigal within me in a fashion suitable for the festival--something I wasn’t even close to being able to do. Mine was all too raw and chaotic and uncontrollable for that.

Yet I am still an artist, and not one content to remain in the closet. I had been splashing paint around in my own home for months, but I still needed somewhere to display my creations. Something inside of me was screaming to be heard, to resonate with others of like mind, to share what I was learning, to benefit others who have felt the same type of pain in the way that these amazing female musicians had helped me through mine. My customary stage wouldn’t work, so I decided to create some more videos in the flavor of Feels Like Rain. I began to scout out locations around town, and put together outfits to suit the mood of each dance I wished to film. One of my friends agreed to operate the camera and we discovered through the process that she had a passion for directing. As we played, she began to give me more suggestions that helped to convey all these emotions that still seemed too big for a body of flesh and bone.

I returned to the Arkansas Riverwalk and began filming Precious Things. Wearing a pair of tight-fitting khaki cargo pants and a tank top that showed off my martial artist’s physique, I began dancing a dance that had been bursting to get out of my skin for decades. I blasted through the first recordings, only stopping to allow people to pass through. Without interruption, I probably would have one-shot it. My dance sandals had died and I tore my feet up spinning and spinning and spinning on concrete and brick until I was tiptoeing through the final shots. It didn’t matter. I needed to dance this dance.

We moved on to the fountain beside a bank parking lot on a weekend afternoon, ignoring the wolf-whistles and honks from passing cars. It was freezing cold in that fountain! Far colder than the one I had used for Feels Like Rain, as it is a pounding wall of water, and it was later in the year when we filmed this time. But getting into that fountain I had been drooling over since moving to Pueblo was worth every goosebump and shiver. We ended the day in triumph.

For our next session, we had planned to film Mother back at the Riverwalk, but upon awakening, I saw that the day was gray and dreary, not at all the sky I wanted. We immediately switched gears.

Little Earthquakes was filmed in my black gothy-dress at the gorgeous but dilapidated Mineral Palace Park. This park was once the jewel of Pueblo with a lake and boat launch leading to the island, and a groovy band shell and bridge, in addition to flower gardens, lawns, groves and a play park for the kids. The Mineral Palace itself has long since been demolished and now the freeway runs directly behind the band shell--highly annoying to anyone wishing for a sedate stroll in the park. Most of the people I ever see at the park are older, and I often wonder if they remember it as it was in its prime, if they have fond memories that they enjoy revisiting. It is a beautiful place, despite the cracks in the stone, the funky smell of the lake, the roaring of the semis. All of these things are actually part of what endears me to the place. It is not new and shiny, but I love it still.

In my days scouting out locations for filming, I stood upon the bridge for about an hour, watching a crane at the water’s edge. In all that time, it barely moved a step, occasionally stretched out its neck and then retracted it. I stayed still too, although not nearly as still as the bird. It was an exercise in patience and observation, and in stillness. This park has remained one of my favorite places in town ever since.

When we arrived there to film Little Earthquakes, it was chilly and gloomy--perfect for the mood. The birds flew in and out of their nests in the band shell, and the crows were out, winging across the water and lawns. I was touched at the cameo appearances they made, given the lyrics of the song. As the day progressed, the wind became stronger and stronger, and it became harder to get the shots we wanted. While filming the sequences in the covered walkway with the iron fence, a squirrel pelted us with little green nuts, allowing for a good laugh amidst all that gloom. (You can actually see one of the nuts falling through the initial shot at the walkway.) And of course, tangled veils and spins on a hillside are always good tension breakers.

The next day, a brief rainy spell arrived, forcing us indoors and stealing my dance room once and for all with the return of the bedroom ceiling leak. By the time that the sun came back out, our schedules would no longer allow for more filming. Soon, autumn had fully fallen, followed by winter, which finalized the cessation of the project.

But that didn’t mean I was no longer Angry-Girl.

Part 2: Isistory

Spring, 2009

With the arrival of spring, I found myself embroiled in buying a new house, among the other frenzied projects of 2009. Although my beloved’s gift to me was to turn the largest room of the house into a dance studio with huge windows and hardwood floors, this didn’t rekindle my long-awaited passion for dancing.

I was burnt out. The state of my body was even worse. I was back to chronic joint pain, insomnia, migraines, and constant fatigue. I was so exhausted that I even took the summer off from karate in an attempt to gain some semblance of a hold upon the wildly spinning state of my life.

The day after we bought the house, I left once more for Durango. This year’s event was quite different from last year. I did sleep on the hammock and I was able to spend much more time with my dear friends--time that wasn’t spent only gnashing my teeth and banging my head in frustration, although all of that gnashing and thrashing had done something to inspire Euterpe. The Muse of Music had visited Janet and her percussionist partner-in-crime Charlie. Not only had they completed the rough draft of the music they composed for my drills, to which we added my zills while I was there, but they had also composed a suite of songs specially written for me.

As I began to work with the suite by headphone, in the dark, in my little 5X7 dance space, I realized that I needed to tell the whole story of my most recent journey--from the Tempest, through the Tears, to the moment of Truth when one realizes that it is time to have a Come To Jesus talk with one’s divine inspiring forces, and the Transformation and Triumph that arises out of it all.

For Transformation, I knew that I couldn’t do this piece alone, and asked some of the local dancers who have been inviting me to Durango for six years to help me. I created the choreography and mailed them the steps, allowing them to interpret it as they would. I asked them to be the Four Elements who gathered around to remind me of all the different forces within me, beckoning me out of my hibernation cave and back into the world once more. We were all elated to get to work together after doing so many shows, and as I gazed up into their faces, into the faces of the two musicians who had made it all happen, that magic truly began to take hold of me. Something really did begin to transform that night, and I launched into the finale, the Triumph that had come about as a result of this journey, allowing me to once again smile and shimmer and shimmy.

Part 3: Sunrise

Summer 2009

Alas, the fairy tale upon the stage gave way to reality, and there was more work yet to be done before the transformation could truly grow lasting roots. All summer and into the fall, I couldn’t catch up. Within one month of moving into our new house, every appliance except one suddenly died, and even that one is finicky, on its last legs. At the same time, all three of our cats became seriously ill and my travel season slowed down. This was a relief, as I was barely holding on by a thread. But it also added to our financial tailspin, prompting me to teach as many classes as possible, to the detriment of my health. Zephyr, the Energizer Bunny techno-suite I did in Madison is a pure reflection of my drive to hold onto it all by little more than sweat, grit and determination.

But as the year came to a close, so too did my reserves.

I ended up with recurrent kidney infections, and experienced a resurgence of all those overloaded dain-bramage symptoms that hadn’t plagued me like this since the first years after the crash. Finally, I stood up from the couch one afternoon and my back seized. I had just finished a local workshop and show, which was the last straw for my body. It forced me to sit down and rest for two weeks before I had to prepare for my last travel gig of the year. It also forced me to reconsider my winter schedule. I decided to cancel everything except for my trip to Memphis and the 10 week session in Colorado Springs that we had already begun.

It was not a moment too soon. During my month and a half off, I began to re-calibrate, catching up on old projects that have been sincerely neglected, like updating my YouTube account and continuing to unpack after our move. Now that I actually have the time to rest, I find myself wandering around, wondering what to do with myself. I’m ancy and feel like I should be doing something more. I’ve forgotten how to rest, like I’ve forgotten how to dance. Not rehearse. Not practice. Not choreograph.

Just dance.

The show in Memphis was a turning point. Sunrise was all about my emergence from this long dark night, into the first glowing light of a new day, while Purification was my breath of fresh air. Apparently this dance had been brewing inside me for some time, because it was one of the easiest dances I’ve ever created. I wore my shell skirt with several intentions. First, it’s a cool skirt and it moves perfectly for the song. But also, because the first time ever I wore it was for Journey’s End. This was the last dance I created before my divorce. Just as Journey’s End was the end of one phase of my life and the beginning of this difficult path I have been treading ever since, Purification is the bookend to it. My last dance of the evening, Ghost of Stephen Foster after the Squirrel Nut Zippers song of the same name, was just pure fun, and that’s something I haven’t done in a very, very long time.

Since my winter break began, Terpsichore has come to play a few times. I created a playlist called “Love To Dance,” full of all sorts of songs in every genre that inspire me to move and that have no previous baggage or memories attached to them. Then I organized them into the categories of the Elements, after a suggestion from Mona N’wal after that oh-so difficult trip to Madison. I am hoping it will help my body catch up with my spirit. So far, it’s working. Not only have I begun to dance, even to belly dance, but I’ve also started to practice martial arts again too. The more rest I get, the more I am able to slow down and breathe, the more my body begins to rejuvenate from this rough road, and the more I am inspired to dance again.

Now that I’ve edited the Angry Girl Dances and have experienced several ways of bringing those sentiments to this stage upon which I have built my career, I don’t know if I need to film the rest of them. They are there if I need them. And others will be there if I don’t. YouTube won’t let me post them, so I suppose that for now, they will be discovered by those who are meant to find them. Either way, they are here for me.

I have missed dancing. I have missed karate. I have missed being able to move without the pain outweighing the enjoyment. Most of all, I have missed the desire to move. And so, as I begin this next journey, I begin it in search of Terpsichore. She’s in here.

Somewhere...

Here is a link to the videos mentioned in this post:

http://www.youtube.com/user/izzytejedora

Fusion Fiesta Playlist

Izzy — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:41:00 GMT

As requested, here is the playlist we used at the Fusion Fiesta workshop in Madison the other weekend. Mmmm...music, glorious music.....!!!! Wheeee! Enjoy!

Shishelai - Belly Dancing at the Cafe Feenjon

Chicky - Oojami, Bellydancing Breakbeats

Rakset Al Assaya - Hossam Ramzy - Kouhail

Thessaloniki - Acquaragia Drom - The Gypsy Road

Kasbah 3am - Mohamad Al Hasan Abo Abid - Think Global: Bellydance

Chalak Chalak - Devdas Soundtrack

Asena - Asena

Mademoiselle De Bucarest - Matelo Ferret - L’epopee Tzigane: Road of the Gypsies

Hungarian Dance - Songs From Hungary & Romania

Drum Solo Wassan Pharoun - Issam Houshan - Belly Dance Superstars IV

Tin Tin - Oojami - Bellydancing Breakbeats

Sulukele - Dalia Carella’s Shuvani

Tulum - Selim Sesler ve Grup Trakkya’nin Sisi

Moroccan 6/8 - Solace - Rhythms of the Dance

Laz - Omar Faruk Tekbilek - Mystical Garden

Bad Pumpkin - Kara Nomadica

Serpentina - Light Rain - Dark Fire

Tamra Henna Part 2 - Jalilah’s Raks Sharki 3

Ancient Ruins - Issam Houshan - Belly Dance Superstars 3

Besena Rovena - Roomana Dives - L’epopee Tzigane: Road of the Gypsies

Peace - REG Project - Bellylicious

Marahabat (Welcome) - Nour Eddine - The Music of Morocco

Zexra - Unknown - from a taped recording of an old LP that someone left at my house in the early 90s (if anyone knows the artist & album, I would be very happy to know!)

The Lantern - Beats Antique - Belly Dance Superstars V

The Mystic’s Dream - Loreena McKennitt - The Mask & The Mirror

Darban Jooth Na Boley - Solace - Satya

El Enab - Saad - Belly Dance Superstars V

Silk Route Suite - Sol & Sal - Hossam Ramzy & Rafa El Tachuela - Flamenco Arabe

Dissolved Girl - Massive Attack - Mezzanine

32 Flavors - Ani DiFranco - Not a Pretty Girl

The Cow - Commander Tom Vs. Marco Dux Baby - Bass Beats & Melody

Fingerdance - Billy McLaughlin - Fingerdance

Ordinary - Train - Spiderman 2