Waiting in the Wings

September 30, 2011

I am sitting in the silent graduate reading room of my department with the sound of rain outside the window. It was such a hot and dry unrelenting summer in Texas and this moment is bringing in the Fall for me. Fall is my favorite time of year; I always feel reinvention and the momentum of starting new projects and reaffirming my goals. There is so much on my mind that I can barely even think where to begin. The place I am right now in my life is the sweetest feeling place I have ever been (so far).

I can liken how I feel at this moment in time to the moment right when a dancer is about to step out onto a stage from her cozy place in the wings of the theater. She transitions from the focused, unseen, dancer drilling her moves and practicing in the shadows of the wings, emulating her idols and teachers, to the commanding presence on stage who dances knowing that she is in a hard earned and well deserved position where she has complete freedom of self-expression. I feel I have been putting in my dues for quite some time now, and while hard work and humility will always be an absolute necessity, I feel it is finally time for me to let my creative freedom flow.

The years I was with UNMATA were so formative for me that it was hard to find my identity outside of the troupe. It is so much more than a dance troupe, its an extended family, an ideology, a pact, a support group, a group of enablers, best friends, codependent adults, torrential artists, dedicated team members all pooling their energies for a common pursuit. It is crazy to think that I was 16 years old when I entered that world and 22 when I found my true self within and outside of that dynamic.

The years I spent earning my Bachelors degree in Dance at UCLA were so challenging in making me question my motives as a belly dancer and whether or not I had a right to be doing it. I was so challenged by the idea of using dance as a method of meaning making that I forged through a very strained relationship with dance as something that just feels good in my body.

The year I spent in grad school studying theories of culture, performance, and corporeality made me question the base that I stood on, danced on, since I was a child. More than anything those seminars made me question every word that came out of my mouth, West, East, Bellydance, Tribal , Fusion, Authenticity, Tradition. That year made me realize how much I don't know and how much I have to learn from thinkers and artists who have come before me and who are currently around me.

The year I spent touring with Bellydance Superstars in many ways was the best break from all my previous worlds of indoctrination and influence because I was expected to do nothing more than dance. I did not have to choreograph, I did not have to publically speak, I did not have to mediate relationships between performers on stage. I just danced. I danced in all the ways my professors would tear apart in a scathing not-even-worth-writing review. At first I felt I was compromising my ideals but slowly I realized I was compromising the ideals of intellectuals I had been greatly influenced by. The Superstars became a surrogate UNMATA for me, in a way. I acquired a new dance family, equally as meaningful and dysfunctional. I am proud of the work we did together, as orientalist and commercial as some of my favorite people would describe it.

I have returned to LA, returned to grad school, returned to my life as an independent dancer, choreographer, teacher. I have returned with such an invigorated, expansive, and fluid idea of who I am. I feel justified in my belly dance practice, I feel comfortable saying words that I know to be applicable to my unique and thriving community, I feel humbled and excited to learn, I feel equipped with choreographic tools for making meaningful work, and I feel connected to the dancer inside me that just wants to dance. I feel powerful because of my satellite relationships with UNMATA and the Superstars because those two groups of women, UNMATA especially, have given me so much.

I associate integrity, triumph over vanity, hard work, encouragement, and inclusiveness with UNMATA. I associate spectacular aesthetic vision and dance for dancing's sake with the Superstars. My undergraduate years at UCLA made me feel comfortable saying,"I am an artist." "I am a dancer." That is my identity, I have earned it, and I believe it, myself. My grad year at UCLA has allowed me to have a nights-long discussion over red wine with my super intelligent husband about Marxism, post-colonial critique, structuralism, post-structuralism, and the importance of philosophical ideas on the arc of history. (He is probably spell-checking this right now).

In (not-so) short, I associate all my previous experiences with my current identity but now I feel I can observe my connection to all these influences and appreciate myself not as a product of them but as a fully formed individual who has been under the tutelage of many teachers, and is now ready to step onto the stage. There will always be more to learn and my idea of myself will always be fluid but I feel especially firm right now.

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