Introduction To Tribal

A couple of weeks ago I went to a bellydance class taught by a local teacher here in Wellington. It’s been a looooooong time since I danced, folks. Last time I danced was like three months ago, and Sharon couldn’t make it to class, and Renee was subbing, and she did all the dirty yoga moves and said “This one’s for Chiara!” and then we all did a big bhangra thing at the end and everyone hugged and kissed me and I cried and cried. That was the last time I wore my skirt or my hip belt or ching-chinged my zils together, boom-boom-baladi-boom-bal-a-di, the last time I thought “Step on the one and then twist” or “Upper back upper abs lower abs, upper back upper abs lower abs.” I didn’t bring a single pantaloon with me to the Southern Hemisphere, not one little fringe. I’ve told various people that I dance and one time in the Maple Lodge I not only balanced a full (open) bottle of wine on my head but also showed a couple of the girls a couple of moves out in the hall, but that’s been it for me. I had a couple of names of bellydancers here but what with one thing and another it was several weeks before I actually got it together to look them up, and another week or so before I bought a pair of yoga pants and found the dance studio where the lesson was going to be held.

I started bellydancing in 1999, when I was still living in Claremont, California, about to leave my first job out of college and move up to Seattle for grad school. I think I was annoyed at myself for being fat, and wanting to exercise but hating (as always) the gym. I’m trying to think if one of the “web diaries” I was reading gave me the idea to look into bellydance; actually, yes. Back in the day, when I read the then-nascent Hissyfit forums, someone who turned out to be this smart lady mentioned something about bellydancing, and I thought hey! It’s got belly right in the name. Perfect!

My first teacher was a woman named Catharae (which I always heard as Cathode Ray, which is actually a pretty great name for a bellydance teacher) and she taught her class in a corner of a hippie crystal shop in a strip mall on Foothill Boulevard. I wore my blue skirt and a gigantic denim button-down shirt over it to the first class. That summer I was in a Fourth of July parade with her and some other students, having to borrow every single aspect of my costume. Later I bought a pair of black pantaloons that are still the only pair I own, that I’ve worn at least once a week under various wraps and skirts for the past seven years.

I wasn’t very good but I’d had a decent amount of dance before: I did ballet for many years as a kid and I’d done a modern dance class in college, so I had some tiny idea of what I was doing, had some context for when Catharae would say things like “Move on the horizontal axis!” and “Rotate around your center!” I liked it enough, I guess, that I asked for a recommendation for a teacher in Seattle for when I moved, and I have just been doing it ever since.

I went to class once a week with various teachers at various times for about five years; conscientious about going but never really getting that into it. I was in the Solstice Parade a couple of times, and did a performance at MedFest another time. I never watched any videos or educated myself very much, and hardly ever went to haflas or other performances; I never even built up anything resembling a costume wardrobe, figuring that since I never performed I didn’t need anything other than very basic practice gear. It was a fun thing I did once a week and I liked a lot of the people I’d see at class, but that was about it. I didn’t really care that much about dancing, frankly, didn’t think it had that much importance in my life.

Enter tribal. I started doing Monday night classes once a week, and felt like I’d finally found a style and format and even a community that I really liked. Eventually, after spending about two years in Basics II I made it up to Intermediate, and that was two hours a week. I found that using my body joyfully on a regular basis was an excellent consolation for the harsh mercies of celibacy, and as I began to get to know some of the girls in class a little better it came home to me very strongly that I had fallen in amongst a really good group of women, from whom I had a lot to learn and with whom I had a lot to enjoy. I began to see that I had some dance strengths in addition to my many weaknesses, and started seeing moves in my head whenever I heard certain songs. Monday nights became sacred to me and I always felt awful, unbalanced and grumpy, whenever I had to miss. I got a couple more bits and pieces of gear and realized I looked better and felt more comfortable in my long skirt and pantaloons than in jeans and a t-shirt.

In February I started a Level I Suhaila-format class with Renee, which brought me up to three-and-a-half hours a week. Were I in Seattle right now I’d be going to Nomaditude practice a couple of hours a week too, getting more into it, I hope, going to workshops and building up my costuming and makeup skills, learning more and more what my body can do, what my dance is about. One of the big pains of leaving there to come here had to do with my having been able to perform only once with my brand new troupe; one of the great joys was finally being at a level where I could perform.

So that brings me to going to a new class at 7:30 on a Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago. I was more than a little trepidatious about the whole thing, because after three years of Monday night classes, I pretty much know how I like class to go. I mean, yes. Always something to learn from everyone, etc., etc., but I am much more a fan of the you-will-work-and-educate-yourself-and-get-it-right-and-you-will-turn-on-the-one-and-not-on-the-two-dammit-and-you-will-hold-your-posture-and-look-good-even-with-tears-streaming-down-your-face school, as opposed to the let-the-goddess-inhabit-your-spirit-and-just-feeeeeeeel-the-music school. Different strokes for different bellies, certainly, but that’s what I like.

This reminded me much more of Catharae’s classes and the other early teachers I had. It was really hard not to compare and contrast, to accept what the teacher and the other girls had to give me and not to have a constant running commentary in my head the entire time (“Is that on the eight or the six? I don’t know how to do cabaret snake arms! What does “serpentine” mean? What’s chiftitelli again? I want to bicycle shimmy, when are we going to bicycle shimmy?”). The cabaret style feels really unintuitive to me and I felt stiff and awkward, not getting my arms right, not being able to express the fluidity and grace I wanted. I missed Sharon and Renee. I missed Monday night and Sunday morning. I missed Third Thursdays at the Capitol Club. I missed all the girls in class and in troupe. I missed the giggling and grab-assery that featured so prominently in class the last couple of months I was in Seattle, and the deep calm I always felt when I walked into the studio and put my stuff in the corner and signed in and knew that for the next two hours I was going to use every part of my brain, and every part of my body.

The teacher, L., complimented my posture and isolation, which was very flattering, although mostly I knew that it was because I’ve just been dancing longer than the other girls in the class. We talked about her experiences with tribal dance and the Gypsy Caravan workshop she attended, and the Rachel Brice one I’m going to go to in Melbourne in a couple of weeks. I was putting my jacket on and getting ready to go, wondering if this class was something I wanted to pursue or if I should just concentrate on yoga while I’m in Wellington, when she asked me to teach a tribal class.

I hemmed and hawed and equivocated, saying that I was nowhere near ready to teach, that I was a student and had literally just started performing, that I didn’t know enough and couldn’t do it and wasn’t sure it was right. Over coffee last weekend she asked if I’d do it again and I agreed, after a lot of dithering and caveat emptoring on my part, that I’d do a two-session Introduction To Tribal class on a couple of Wednesday nights and see if there was any interest in it amongst her other students. There was, and so last night after work I bought a iPod-hooker-into-stereo-cord thing and put on my yoga pants (oh for a pair of slash loons!) and thanked heaven above that I had a tribal mix I’d made for Anna right there on my iPod.

I’d already been L’s six-thirty class, along with all the other girls who were going to be in my class. Per some frantic email discussion with Sharon and Renee I had decided to spin the class as just another dance student sharing what she knows about her favorite style of bellydance. I got up in front of the class and explained about posture (thinking about the time that Renee came over to me and told me to tuck my pelvis and I had to say “I AM tucking it. That’s just my butt sticking out”) and all of a sudden there I was in front of the class facing the mirror, and there they all were wearing facial expressions familiar to anyone who remembers her first dance class, the kind that mean I WAS NOT AWARE I HAD MUSCLES IN THAT LOCATION. We did rib slides and hips circles and taqsim and maya and even a tiny bit of double maya right there at the end. I said “Bend your knees and tuck your pelvis, put your shoulders down and open your chest” about eighteen times. I asked how people were doing and worried that they hated me or they hated rib slides or they hated life itself and that it was my fault. I talked too fast and made a couple of stupid jokes (“This is bellydance for people with control issues!”).

The hour went by quickly and I think we all had the same look of terrified concentration on our faces the entire time. It went reasonably well, my inexperience considered, and I look forward to next week when we’ll do a couple of fast moves. L wants me to do a longer six-week session with her Wednesday night class, but I think that would stretch me a little too far at this point in my dance education, frankly. I don’t want to give people uncertain information or encourage bad habits, and I certainly don’t want my own dance weaknesses to translate into a poor opinion of tribal in general. I’ll do my class next week and be grateful for the opportunity and the challenge, and then get back to the business of getting to know the dance community here, staying as involved as I can so that when I go back I’ll actually be able to continue on with learning and to dance with my troupe again.

I will say, though, that at the end of class last night I got the nicest compliment: “That was really helpful! I can’t believe you’ve never taught before!” It’s only for two nights but I never imagined that I would be in the position to hear those words; just one more gift given to me by this dance that I love more every time I trust it enough to take a chance.