Post 3rd Coast Tribal Reflections 2012

January 9, 2012

I'm taking a lot away from this past weekend at 3rd Coast Tribal in Ft. Worth, Texas where I taught and performed. I was already excited to travel back to Texas from California to see all of the friends I made when I was living in Austin. I saw so many old and new friends, former and current students, and it felt really great to have a dance family part 3, outside of Los Angeles and Sacramento. In an effort to integrate all the inspiration that was sparked for me this weekend, I want to write down the wash of impressions that I am left with.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on workshops with Olivia Kissel, Sharon Kihara, and Zoe Jakes. In Olivia's workshop I learned the original version of the "Washer Woman" dance move. UNMATA uses a more angular version of this move for our ITS and I love seeing the lineage of dance moves -especially ones we all seem to do in improv and choreography. From Olivia to Jill to Amy to the rest of us. I sat in on the opening lecture portion of Sharon's Butoh class and was impressed by her verbal eloquence and clarity. I was also really pleased to hear her fluid and accurate explanations of the definition, history, and current practices of Butoh. I guess I half expected her to perpetuate common myths about Butoh and supposed rules that seem to circulate in dance communities outside of the critical academic sphere. But she was right on the money from what I have been exposed to by way of a few of my UCLA grad student cohorts' academic fascination and research and workshops with Katsura Kan. I really respect her knowledge of the form and was so pleased to see the increasing overlap between my academic and critical pursuits in dance studies and my practice in the bellydance community.
In a similar way, I was so excited and in awe of the 4 Fuse magazines I bought and read on the plane home. This magazine is EXCELLENT. I already have a fairly extensive collection of old-school belly dance magazines but so many of the articles just perpetuate the same unsupported myths about bellydance. Fuse takes an intelligent and critical, but supportive, look at the history of bellydance as it is rooted in oriental fascination/fantasy and the articles try to dig into the developments and changes that are happening in our community. I want every edition of this magazine and we could all benefit from reading it in my humble opinion.
Another way that my grad school and belly dance lives have overlapped is in talking with Donna Mejia about the struggles and rewards of trying to achieve a higher education degree in dance studies and choreography. Such trials and tribulations, personal growth, and mass amounts of time invested.
Zoe gave a workshop on trying to follow the source of your influences. In one sentence: if you are motivated by a certain artist, find out who that artist is inspired and influenced by. This is a great way to get people inquisitive and aware and we can only benefit and vastly grow our knowledge by taking her advice. I have been inspired to create a lineage of my own influences and the influences of artists that inspire me.
All of this is to say: I have restored confidence that we are a community of thinking, researching, inquisitive, intelligent, supportive, and creative people who are self-reflexive and aware of the complicated implications of our practice.

Aside from experiencing some great teachers, I had a genuine blast with the students. I am obsessed with Trybe Habibi Bizarre from Lafayette and have been since I met them last year. This is an ITS improv troupe with 23 members!! They have to make it through 5 levels of classes before they can make it into the huge performance troupe. They rehearse at 8am Sunday mornings, they have a group of live musicians and supportive partners who play for them. The whole thing is led by a young punky girl named Ilea (her sister is named April and we have the same birthday -weird). The magic of these women dancing together is unreal and we danced improv together at the afterparty until the wee hours of the morning. Kristen gave me a crazy clown nose/Christmas/goth hair barrette that I cherish. Cheramie and her man are the bomb, Kassandra was a great breakfast partner, and I should stop because I'm pretty sure I just misspelled all the names I've mentioned so far.
I was so happy that girls I had taught in Austin came and took my workshops at 3rd Coast. There were so many great workshops to take and they chose to study with me MORE when they could have studied with someone else for the first time. I am so heart-warmed by that notion. The Drishti Dancers, Jody and Randi's acroyoga performance, Elena and Meesh' really well choreographed duet and too many more to mention all really blew me away in the show too.

The show was phenomenal. I honestly loved everything I had the pleasure of seeing. Urban Gypsy's Habi Ru set, Sonya's dedication to Trelle at the beginning of her piece, the dark genies, Daniella's always amazing stage presence and technique, BellaNatana's long waited for performance, and oh-my-goddess-Z-Helene's crazy zill soliloquy. I dug Deb Rubin's bravery in trying new ideas. In general, I respect risk-taking above all other choreographic elements. Donna Mejia's offerings of presence and tutting skills were wonderful. Sharon Kihara's performance of an Aziza choreography with her SUPER talented dance partner looked so difficult and wonderful. I am so moved by Silvia Salamanca's students and their love for her. Zoe's kabuki mask piece was in it's most impressive incarnation that I have seen.
I was especially inspired by Zoe's ability to access her best self while improvising. I find it difficult to access my most true and expressive dancing without a carefully crafted choreography and I am inspired to challenge myself to improvise a little more. I just get so wrapped up in trying to prove that you can use bellydance to make art that says something that most of the time I overlook the validity and beauty of channeling a purely improvisational piece of dancing.

Other highlights were jamming on my ukulele in an exhausted daze with Carmine Guida drumming on my case while we sat on the floor in the middle of the deconstructed festival. I really enjoyed the workshops I taught because the participants were so present and excited and skilled. Another favorite element was the good vibes backstage from Blue Lotus girls, Drishti Dancers, Zoe, Donna and visits by Olivia, Sharon and her man Wick. I performed something new and really enjoyed the helpful feedback everyone gave me afterwards: from Vicky and Amy and everyone else who approached me in private. I wish I could have watched the whole show so I could have seen some more of my favorites like Stacy Lizette and Raphaella Peting and more.
My least favorite parts were losing a library book on the plane and getting my pussy groped by the TSA. I have been patted down many times after refusing the body scanner but this was the first time the woman made hand contact with my vagina not one but 4 times (2 of the times were after I told her she was had just touched my vagina. Apparently, to the TSA, it is not a pussy, it's "where the leg meets the torso.") People, you are cool with this!? What if it was your 10 year old daughter? Anyway...that's another blog.

I know this blog is not as insightful as it wants to be but once I recover from slight exhaustion I'll be able to engage with all that I learned a little better. Overall I really enjoyed everyone's art and personalities this weekend. I feel like I connected with the participants of the festival and tangentially got to know a couple of the other teachers better. Don't put any stock in what I have to say, go to 3rd coast and get to know these folks yourself.

Continue reading: next blog