clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2012-07-30 11:42 am
clevermanka) wrote2012-07-30 11:42 am
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Belly Dance United "Divas of the Decades" review
I have seen some poor bellydance performances in my life, but I have never paid to see a supposedly professional bellydance show that so embarrassed and offended me as did the Divas of the Decades show produced by Belly Dance United for part of the Fringe Festival on Saturday, July 28.
The show opened with a group number that wasn't awful (certainly not as awkward as the opening number for the Fairies production last year), but group numbers don't work unless all the dancers are willing to put in the time to dance as a group. Since Belly Dance United isn't a troupe, there is no group cohesion, and the movements weren't smooth or in synch. It looked like the first troupe rehearsal after everyone has the basic choreography down. Unless dancers are willing to put in the time and energy to pull together a group number (and this takes months and months of drilling and honing and perfecting), group numbers simply shouldn't be attempted. It shows all the dancers in their worst light, which is hardly the way to start a show.
Saucy Nancy started the solos and nearly had a costume malfunction for her entire piece. I was so distracted by the fear that her right breast was going to fly out of her costume at any moment, I didn't pay much attention to her performance. Since her music was from the 1910s, the recording was scratchy and I couldn't understand the words, nor was I familiar with the song. I did occasionally catch some words that made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I admit I was so traumatized by her breast nearly escaping her costume (Had she practiced in this costume at all? Why wasn't she wearing a bra? What would she do if her boob actually popped out?) I didn't pay much attention to the music or her dancing (which didn't involve much bellydance--it was more bouncing around with a red feather boa). When I got home, however, I looked at the program--the song was Black Bottom by Ma Rainey. Now, if one looks at the lyrics and reads even a little bit of the history of the dance that inspired the song, one might get the idea that perhaps this is not an appropriate song choice for a white woman to use for a general audience bellydance show. Saucy Nancy, however, does not share my opinion on this score since she seemed blissfully unconcerned (or unaware) that she was showing the audience a very large portion of very white top.
Nicole English was next, and also failed to perform any bellydance (good or bad), although she did provide the audience with one of the most bizarre costumes I've seen on a bellydance show stage: a red fringe dress, red pants, black heels, and translucent purple cape that looked like a cross between a graduation gown and a drapery valance. This was topped off with a blonde wig and floppy feathered headband that I assume was meant to look flapperish, but the cumulative result made her look like a quail attending a Red Hat Society function. After her beaded hip sash fell off in the first two minutes of her performance, she was left with a costume that had no ties to bellydance of any genre whatsoever. Upon reflection, I suppose this is appropriate because her dancing had no ties to bellydance of any genre whatsoever, either. She spent a lot of time strutting around the stage, removing a white fur cape (?) from her shoulders, then depositing it in the wings, then walking around with her white fur fan, which she deposited in the wings, only to pick it up again near the end of her performance. In between those actions, she waved her arms about with the cape. I assumed she was attempting to mimic Isis Wings. Maybe? Maybe not. It was hard to tell what she was doing, other than anything but bellydancing. At least there was no danger of accidentally exposed flesh with her costume.
The third dancer was Holly. Holly dances with a particular style and she dances very aggressively. Her moves are strongly influenced by hip-hop and modern styles. She is very, very lean and cut, and her style of dance matches her body. Unfortunately, she incorporates few bellydance moves into her style, other than a (spectacular) hip shimmy, and after a while, her dancing becomes repetitive. As a minimalist dancer, myself, I am not one to criticize someone for keeping her dance simple. Holly, however, appears to choreograph her pieces so strictly that she doesn't allow for any emotion. There's no connection to her music or the audience. Her music was Ella Fitzgerald's Blue Moon and Fever (musically, both fine and unoffensive choices), but it seemed as though she simply found ways to fit her style and moves to the music, rather than letting the music guide her dance choices.
Then Saucy Nancy returned to the stage and this is where everything fell apart for me. Up until now, I was rolling along with the show, thinking at least it would be fun to see the competent dancers and roll my eyes at the inexpert ones. But Saucy Nancy's music came on and I just froze. It was Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit. I was horrified, angry, embarrassed, sick. I thought at first that I would get over the initial shock and disgust and settle into a bearable emotion, but no. By the time she reached the end of the song, I was nauseated. My stomach hurt and I was sweating. It was horrible. Inexcusable. I was ashamed. I wanted to stand up and apologize for stupid white people everywhere. She followed that up (yes, there was a song after that) with All of Me, but honestly I had a hard time watching her and I couldn't even bring myself to fake-clap when she exited the stage.
Good bellydancers, responsible bellydancers, respectful bellydancers--when we use Arabic music, we try very hard to avoid dancing to songs that are religious, about death or war, or are otherwise inappropriate for a public performance. I cannot fathom the levels and layers of ignorance, disrespect, and hello white privilege that went into a white person choosing to bellydance to Strange Fruit in a general audience environment with no political context or framework. Then to follow it with a love song was a final slap in the face.
I was so thrown by that performance that I wasn't able to appreciate Zoria Kali's* performance to two songs by Ruth Brown. They were fine. I'm not familiar with Ruth Brown's work, but the songs themselves were fairly straightforward love songs. Zoria was the only performer of the evening who I felt successfully pulled off a decade-appropriate costume. It was a bit cutesy and vaudeville-esque, but it was creative and there was not even a hint of costume malfunction.
Holly took stage again after this, and for a moment I was confused that we'd skipped a decade. But then Aretha Franklin started playing and I realized that yet again, someone had ignored the actual styles that dominated the sixties in favor of leather fringe, bellbottom jeans, and long scarf headband. Ah, well, that's a personal thing. Holly's dancing was, again, Holly's dancing. While every isolation and pop was perfectly timed to the music and rhythm, there just wasn't a lot of soul. The irony of a soul-less dance to Aretha is notable.
The third music fail of the evening appeared with Nicole's performance of Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves. I'm not going to go into all the problems with the term "gypsy," just suffice to say it's not a word that any informed bellydancer should use. Dancing to this song is problematic, to say the least. There are a few dancers who might be able to get away with it (say, those who've extensively studied Rom culture, or who are Rom themselves) and use it as a statement piece. I can see how an educated and compassionate dancer could do a heartbreaking interpretive piece to this song. Nicole falls into none of these categories, despite what she might potentially claim via her PhD studies. She evidenced this by taking off her skirt in full view of the audience for the second half of her performance, basically a disco number to a Diana Ross song, that included several high kicks that presented her crotch to the audience (a huge taboo in bellydance). At least she was wearing pants.
Tamira performed to a melange of Whitney Huston songs that were cut and meshed with no observable reasoning. Her costume was incomprehensible (a layered level dress with some sort of floor-length handkerchief skirt underneath, no means of hip definition, and Isis Wings), and her dance lacked technique, style, or connection to the music. I can't even describe to you how she danced, because everything was camouflaged by the costume. She reached new heights of inexplicableness, though, when she left the stage for a good fifteen seconds or so, only to come out for her last minute of the performance wearing a different pair of Isis Wings, with which she proceeded to do all the moves she'd done with the previous pair of Isis Wings.
Blessedly, due to timing issues, we were spared an intermission where Nicole was supposed to give a fifteen minute dance lesson. We were also spared Tamira's second performance to a Mariah Carey/Celine Dion piece.
As with the Color Fairies production I attended last year, Kadija had only one number. This is most likely because she's the newest dancer of those involved, and I want to say that she's improved quite a bit since I saw her in November. She performed to clips of two Britney Spears songs (including Toxic, which, frankly, I've considered dancing to, should I ever get hired to perform again at a birthday party or something) and a Beyoncé song. Although her costume seemed to be something she would wear to dance class, she looks like she actually attends said dance classes and learns from them. Given a nudge in the right direction, and a consistent teacher, I think she could be a fine dancer. She has good posture and the beginnings of a good attitude. I like her. I want her to do well. She deserves better than this.
I was relieved that the final dancer was Zoria Kali. I felt bad that I'd been so flummoxed by the Strange Fruit number that I hadn't been able to observe her first performance. Zoria took the stage in a stunning gold number that was really an honest-to-god bellydance costume. I don't often see store-bought costumes that blow me away, but the skirt she was wearing...well. Let's just say if I get my health under control to the point where I feel I can consistently perform on a regular basis, I am shelling out for one of those skirts. It was beautiful. She danced to a funked-up version of Adele's Rumor Has It, which I wouldn't have thought would be good or easy for bellydance, but she made it look good. She used fan veils to great effect, and commanded the stage beautifully. I was pleased and impressed and relieved that she closed the show.
The group didn't get to do their final ensemble finale because, as Tamira explained to the audience, the Fringe festival had cut their time short and another group had to take the stage. Classy.
*And while we're here, can I just mention that I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with the cultural appropriation overtones of choosing Arabic (or Arabic-sounding) dance names? It's a problem.
The show opened with a group number that wasn't awful (certainly not as awkward as the opening number for the Fairies production last year), but group numbers don't work unless all the dancers are willing to put in the time to dance as a group. Since Belly Dance United isn't a troupe, there is no group cohesion, and the movements weren't smooth or in synch. It looked like the first troupe rehearsal after everyone has the basic choreography down. Unless dancers are willing to put in the time and energy to pull together a group number (and this takes months and months of drilling and honing and perfecting), group numbers simply shouldn't be attempted. It shows all the dancers in their worst light, which is hardly the way to start a show.
Saucy Nancy started the solos and nearly had a costume malfunction for her entire piece. I was so distracted by the fear that her right breast was going to fly out of her costume at any moment, I didn't pay much attention to her performance. Since her music was from the 1910s, the recording was scratchy and I couldn't understand the words, nor was I familiar with the song. I did occasionally catch some words that made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I admit I was so traumatized by her breast nearly escaping her costume (Had she practiced in this costume at all? Why wasn't she wearing a bra? What would she do if her boob actually popped out?) I didn't pay much attention to the music or her dancing (which didn't involve much bellydance--it was more bouncing around with a red feather boa). When I got home, however, I looked at the program--the song was Black Bottom by Ma Rainey. Now, if one looks at the lyrics and reads even a little bit of the history of the dance that inspired the song, one might get the idea that perhaps this is not an appropriate song choice for a white woman to use for a general audience bellydance show. Saucy Nancy, however, does not share my opinion on this score since she seemed blissfully unconcerned (or unaware) that she was showing the audience a very large portion of very white top.
Nicole English was next, and also failed to perform any bellydance (good or bad), although she did provide the audience with one of the most bizarre costumes I've seen on a bellydance show stage: a red fringe dress, red pants, black heels, and translucent purple cape that looked like a cross between a graduation gown and a drapery valance. This was topped off with a blonde wig and floppy feathered headband that I assume was meant to look flapperish, but the cumulative result made her look like a quail attending a Red Hat Society function. After her beaded hip sash fell off in the first two minutes of her performance, she was left with a costume that had no ties to bellydance of any genre whatsoever. Upon reflection, I suppose this is appropriate because her dancing had no ties to bellydance of any genre whatsoever, either. She spent a lot of time strutting around the stage, removing a white fur cape (?) from her shoulders, then depositing it in the wings, then walking around with her white fur fan, which she deposited in the wings, only to pick it up again near the end of her performance. In between those actions, she waved her arms about with the cape. I assumed she was attempting to mimic Isis Wings. Maybe? Maybe not. It was hard to tell what she was doing, other than anything but bellydancing. At least there was no danger of accidentally exposed flesh with her costume.
The third dancer was Holly. Holly dances with a particular style and she dances very aggressively. Her moves are strongly influenced by hip-hop and modern styles. She is very, very lean and cut, and her style of dance matches her body. Unfortunately, she incorporates few bellydance moves into her style, other than a (spectacular) hip shimmy, and after a while, her dancing becomes repetitive. As a minimalist dancer, myself, I am not one to criticize someone for keeping her dance simple. Holly, however, appears to choreograph her pieces so strictly that she doesn't allow for any emotion. There's no connection to her music or the audience. Her music was Ella Fitzgerald's Blue Moon and Fever (musically, both fine and unoffensive choices), but it seemed as though she simply found ways to fit her style and moves to the music, rather than letting the music guide her dance choices.
Then Saucy Nancy returned to the stage and this is where everything fell apart for me. Up until now, I was rolling along with the show, thinking at least it would be fun to see the competent dancers and roll my eyes at the inexpert ones. But Saucy Nancy's music came on and I just froze. It was Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit. I was horrified, angry, embarrassed, sick. I thought at first that I would get over the initial shock and disgust and settle into a bearable emotion, but no. By the time she reached the end of the song, I was nauseated. My stomach hurt and I was sweating. It was horrible. Inexcusable. I was ashamed. I wanted to stand up and apologize for stupid white people everywhere. She followed that up (yes, there was a song after that) with All of Me, but honestly I had a hard time watching her and I couldn't even bring myself to fake-clap when she exited the stage.
Good bellydancers, responsible bellydancers, respectful bellydancers--when we use Arabic music, we try very hard to avoid dancing to songs that are religious, about death or war, or are otherwise inappropriate for a public performance. I cannot fathom the levels and layers of ignorance, disrespect, and hello white privilege that went into a white person choosing to bellydance to Strange Fruit in a general audience environment with no political context or framework. Then to follow it with a love song was a final slap in the face.
I was so thrown by that performance that I wasn't able to appreciate Zoria Kali's* performance to two songs by Ruth Brown. They were fine. I'm not familiar with Ruth Brown's work, but the songs themselves were fairly straightforward love songs. Zoria was the only performer of the evening who I felt successfully pulled off a decade-appropriate costume. It was a bit cutesy and vaudeville-esque, but it was creative and there was not even a hint of costume malfunction.
Holly took stage again after this, and for a moment I was confused that we'd skipped a decade. But then Aretha Franklin started playing and I realized that yet again, someone had ignored the actual styles that dominated the sixties in favor of leather fringe, bellbottom jeans, and long scarf headband. Ah, well, that's a personal thing. Holly's dancing was, again, Holly's dancing. While every isolation and pop was perfectly timed to the music and rhythm, there just wasn't a lot of soul. The irony of a soul-less dance to Aretha is notable.
The third music fail of the evening appeared with Nicole's performance of Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves. I'm not going to go into all the problems with the term "gypsy," just suffice to say it's not a word that any informed bellydancer should use. Dancing to this song is problematic, to say the least. There are a few dancers who might be able to get away with it (say, those who've extensively studied Rom culture, or who are Rom themselves) and use it as a statement piece. I can see how an educated and compassionate dancer could do a heartbreaking interpretive piece to this song. Nicole falls into none of these categories, despite what she might potentially claim via her PhD studies. She evidenced this by taking off her skirt in full view of the audience for the second half of her performance, basically a disco number to a Diana Ross song, that included several high kicks that presented her crotch to the audience (a huge taboo in bellydance). At least she was wearing pants.
Tamira performed to a melange of Whitney Huston songs that were cut and meshed with no observable reasoning. Her costume was incomprehensible (a layered level dress with some sort of floor-length handkerchief skirt underneath, no means of hip definition, and Isis Wings), and her dance lacked technique, style, or connection to the music. I can't even describe to you how she danced, because everything was camouflaged by the costume. She reached new heights of inexplicableness, though, when she left the stage for a good fifteen seconds or so, only to come out for her last minute of the performance wearing a different pair of Isis Wings, with which she proceeded to do all the moves she'd done with the previous pair of Isis Wings.
Blessedly, due to timing issues, we were spared an intermission where Nicole was supposed to give a fifteen minute dance lesson. We were also spared Tamira's second performance to a Mariah Carey/Celine Dion piece.
As with the Color Fairies production I attended last year, Kadija had only one number. This is most likely because she's the newest dancer of those involved, and I want to say that she's improved quite a bit since I saw her in November. She performed to clips of two Britney Spears songs (including Toxic, which, frankly, I've considered dancing to, should I ever get hired to perform again at a birthday party or something) and a Beyoncé song. Although her costume seemed to be something she would wear to dance class, she looks like she actually attends said dance classes and learns from them. Given a nudge in the right direction, and a consistent teacher, I think she could be a fine dancer. She has good posture and the beginnings of a good attitude. I like her. I want her to do well. She deserves better than this.
I was relieved that the final dancer was Zoria Kali. I felt bad that I'd been so flummoxed by the Strange Fruit number that I hadn't been able to observe her first performance. Zoria took the stage in a stunning gold number that was really an honest-to-god bellydance costume. I don't often see store-bought costumes that blow me away, but the skirt she was wearing...well. Let's just say if I get my health under control to the point where I feel I can consistently perform on a regular basis, I am shelling out for one of those skirts. It was beautiful. She danced to a funked-up version of Adele's Rumor Has It, which I wouldn't have thought would be good or easy for bellydance, but she made it look good. She used fan veils to great effect, and commanded the stage beautifully. I was pleased and impressed and relieved that she closed the show.
The group didn't get to do their final ensemble finale because, as Tamira explained to the audience, the Fringe festival had cut their time short and another group had to take the stage. Classy.
*And while we're here, can I just mention that I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with the cultural appropriation overtones of choosing Arabic (or Arabic-sounding) dance names? It's a problem.
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Pants without a hole in the crotch even!
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and... strange fruit? fucking really? did she get her veil caught in a ceiling fan for an encore?
(there will probably be a snark-laden discussion of this to spill out of my head at some point, either on my lj or on tumblr)
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That...is a morbidly appropriate image.
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........
I... cannot even.
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This whole show sounds horrible and I feel bad for the few dancers that got good mentions because they are surely not what is going to be remembered by anyone who watched this show. I am SO HAPPY that I did not watch it.
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I'm not sure if I want to pin that song on Nancy, or Tamera. Nancy probably picked it (probably) but Tamera maintains complete control over what happens during the show. Music has to be approved. Costumed have to be approved. There's a filmed dress rehersal...
For gawds sake the woman wouldn't let me dance to Mortal Coil's Siren Song during the Faery show because she was concerned it would remind the audience of "The Lovely Bones" which I had not even heard of until she said something.
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...
there are no words
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Just... what.
*flabbergasted*
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Barring her from ever performing anywhere, ever again (and I do mean ever) somehow doesn't seem like an overreaction.
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Yup. That's why I had to sleep on it. There was no way I'd have been able to write a cogent report on it last night.
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And I'm not EVEN going to comment on the songs....
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but now reading the comments, I'm just one more voice commenting in disbelief on the Strange Fruit number. What the fuck was she thinking??
I found myself thinking a couple of times that I wish you'd recorded it...then I thought, maybe I'm lucky you didn't. (or if you did, that you spared us here.)
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And, yeah, I not only have no idea what she was thinking, I have no desire to know.
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I mean, there's bad performance. I've seen a lot of bad performances. I've done some bad performances. But to do disrespectful and ignorant performances, that's completely beyond the pale.
However, this reminds me that all those conversations I keep having about privilege are still necessary and may someday actually change the world.
Love,
Rowan
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I'm sorry, but yes, .. where in a month of Sundays, a blue moon, don't-care-if-it-is-Fringe-Festival, do a group of WHITE WOMEN feel a need to appropriate the experience of almost all Women of Color and even think that it's appropriate?
They are enough white Divas to make an entire show and do it well.
This whole thing is a travesty, and I want nothing to do with anything this director tries to present.
Ever.
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And yes, I will never be a part of anything Tamira produces. Not that she would ever ask me to.
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I am just curious: which costume did she wear for this dance? Please tell me it wasn't the 50's maid costume.
BTW, there is a wonderful doc about the rather strange history of this song that was on Independent Lens a while back.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/film.html
(This song was written by a Jewish social activist who, later, adopted the children of the Rosenbergs after their execution....how's THAT for a story.)
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"Strange Fruit" might be appropriate for dramatic interpretive dance that conveys a moving social/political/emotional message about the horrors described in the song, but bellydance?? I am no bellydance maven, not by the longest of shots, but that's horribly offensive, and I want to hope that the majority of the audience was just as aghast as you were, but I know better than to hope such things.
"Toxic" would be a great number where frivolity is called for.
I didn't know
muchanything about bellydance cultural convention, but I have learned from this post.If you ever get the chance to stand or sit near Patkar during a substandard white girl bellydance performance, I highly recommend it.
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<3
If you ever get the chance to stand or sit near Patkar during a substandard white girl bellydance performance, I highly recommend it.
I DID! He was with us when we went to the Chateau and the Troupe Duende girls were there. To their credit, Duende has gotten a lot better in the more recent shows I've seen of theirs.