Tuesdays at 8:20-9:35 at Studio Zahiya On Carolina Ln.
April 7th - May 26th
Come learn the moves, the dancers, combinations, props, comedy and choreography that are the building blocks vintage oriental dance, more commonly known as American Cabaret.

Come to club Nashwa Friday the 3rd for Arabian Nights, starting at 10pm!! Dress as a Sultan or Harem girl to recieve $2 off at the door. Live belly dance performances by Asheville's hottest belly dancers (including me) and live music by the sexiest middle eastern musicians in town. After midnight the party really heats up as themed music will be played and the dance floor is taken over by you, beautiful people. Come learn to shimmy and shake from the experts. This will deffinitly be a night to remember!

December marks the eighth anniversary of my first belly dance class. Seven years ago I performed belly dance for the first time in a small student showcase held at a Greek resturaunt in Carborro which has, sadly, long since closed. Five years ago I had my first paying gig and have been dancing proffesionally ever since.

Over the years I have encountered many issues that arise when doing a dance specific to only

a few cultures in a very specific part of the world when I myself have no other personal

connection to that culture. On top of that, the majority of the audiences I dance for have

no connection with or knowledge of that culture.
Americans are mostly eager to have cultural experiences. I think this is one reason belly

dance has become so wildly popular over here. But at the same time, few Americans care about

authenticity. From the start, belly dancing in America was not as it was in the Middle East

at the end of the 19th Century, but how we percieved it might be, fabricated from the

stories of travelers, and dancers like Little Ejypt, a Syrian woman who performed the Hoochee Coochee at the

Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The fascinating thing about what became popular as a belly

dance costume in America influenced the belly dancers in the Middle East. Around the same

time, Middle Eastern dancers were also influenced by European Ballet.
Over time, different styles of belly dance have come and gone in America. Our short

attention spans have constantly looking for the next new thing. Thus all the belly dance off

shoots of group improvisation and tribal fusion were born. These dances can be beautiful,

but like any art form, if you are a proffesional and calling yourself a belly dancer, than

you better know a thing or two about where this dance came from.

I find this to be a problem here in Asheville. For the first three and a half years I belly

danced, I was taking classes and performing in Durham and Raleigh, two cities with a

relatively good sized Arab community. My teacher, Shahzaadee, constantly reminded us of

cultural expectations and told us what to expect when performing for an Arab audience. Arabs

have always been the most appreciatve audience members I have ever had. They seem to get it

in a way that Americans don't. I do not think this is because it is a culturaly specific

artform that Americans are incapable of appreciating, but instead I think it is because they

are confused. It is understandable seeing as that belly dance is both sensual and sexual and

yet at the same time totally family appropriate. It celebrate the female form but is in no

way explicite. And at the same time it comes from a culture that many Americans feel is

suppresive towards women. For all these reasons I can understand why some Americans do not

know if they should look at the dancer as a stripper or a mother figure. They go in

expecting a scantily clad women shaking her ass and leave having witnessed a highly skilled

artist performing feats that take many years to perfect (let me point out that I am being

optimistic here and chances are all they saw was a scantily clad girl shaking her ass).

There is not a whole lot of diversity in Asheville. There is a very small Arab community in

Asheville. Belly dance is extremely popular here. Sort of. Something that is generally

called belly dancing is popular here, but most of it, has very little or absolutely nothing

to do with anything Middle Eastern. I dance every other weekend at Hookah Joe's. I dance to

live musicians. Unfortuanetly for me, the majority of the musicians do not play Middle

Eastern music. They do not play Middle Eastern instruments. They do not play Middle Eastern

Rhythems. No, they play Indian and Chinese music. Do they see a problem with this? No, they seem happy playing their Indian music. Many of them seem to not care about Middle Eastern music.

Do the other dancers care? I am sure some of them care a little bit. But many dancers in

Asheville really want to be spiritual earth goddess Indian dancers. The problem is that that

is not really a markatable term. Or maybe it is, but I don't think they have tried it yet, I

kind of wish they would though, to cut down on the confusion about what belly dance is, and

my frustration. Do the venue owners care? They probably can't tell the difference. Does the

audience care? For the most part, probably not. I would like to think this is because they

don't know what they are missing. So why am I writing this? Because I care. Because I

studied belly dance for eight years so that I could dance to a tabla playing Masmoudi

Seghir, a Tsiftitelli or Karsilama. I have taken one Indian dance class in Odissi Temple

dancing. But having only studied Indian dancing for one Week I am far from ready to perform

it in a proffesional setting.

This is not to say that I am a purist and that I think belly dancing can only be done to

traditional music. I have danced to NIN, System of a Down, Collide, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

just to name a few. But this was done in either a hafla setting for other belly dancers who

might appreciate for my strange deviations for what they are and not confuse them with what

belly dancing actually is, or in a show that expects such strange behavior like the Fringe

Festival. I feel strongly that as a proffesional dancer going out and performing for the

general public, one takes on the responsibility of reperesenting belly dancing as a cultural

art form to those people. One becomes an ambassador of something that started out as a folk

dance and has a long and complicated history. This needs to be acknowledged in every public

performance. Especially when there is no one there to explain to the audience what is going

on. I feel that if a person has enough drive to study belly dancing to the extent that they

are competent enough to be payed to dance in publice, that they should accept this

responsibility.

The same should go for the musicians. I understand that Asheville is overrun with musicians.

Especially cultural musicians. And I understand that musicians probably want any gig they

can get. So even if you, as a musician have no interest in Middle Eastern music but would

instead like to play jam band style Indian music, I can see why you might jump at the

opportunity of playing for a belly dancer because the owner will hire you because this is

acceptible in Asheville. For whatever reason, classical Indian dancing does not have the

draw that belly dancing does. belly dancing has a reputation. Classical Indian dance, to the

uneducated American could sound stuffy and boring. Not the get drunk, have fun type of

cultural expereince that Americans are so fond of. But it in my mind there is something

slightly ridiculous about having an Indian band playing for a Middle eastern dancer. For

example, one would never ask Indian dancers to dance to Middle Eastern musicians. It would

be very awkward. This is not to say that fusion is not possible, but if I were to

succsesfully do Indian/Middle Eastern fusion in a proffesional setting then I would need to

have eight years of classical Indian dance training and have a whole band of musicians who

were experts in both Indian and Middle Eastern music. This is just simply not the case.

All I ask, as we do not have a large Arab community to piss off (just my friend Mina), is

that we all act as responsible artists and strive to represent the art that we are labeling

ourselves under accurately.

If you have made it this far I reward you with a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM_E3ca7Rs8

Please come out to this show! It will be wonderful! Lots of shiny things!

I am dancing at Hookah Joes at 9:30

to go dance at the Asheville city farmers market!!