Thread: What the GP thinks we cost (poll results)

My beef with short skirts is that they are unforgiving. Not everyone has beautiful legs - I don't, that's for sure - and, as we all know dancer's aren't always their own best critic when it comes to costuming.

Short skirts require no piano legs, no cellulite, no pasty skin, and so on...they look good on a very small margin of people.

Also, not to defy the EoD (empress of dance) or anything, but if belly dancers want to be seen as serious dancers first - they they will most like need to jettison all but a very select style of bedlah. (and mostly I mean the cheap predictable stuff). Personally, I'm not thinking BD will ever be taken seriously, and I'm not so sure it should be. It is a bit of a novelty.

Originally Posted by danielabellydance

I don't care who knows HOW I shimmy, but don't you think furiously pumping knees are just ugly? It's so much prettier just to see the end result - the shimmies - rather than how it works.

That's like taking a Rolls Royce and taking the hood off so that everyone can see the engine while it's running. Why not, right? We all know that under that shiny, pretty exterior, there is an ugly engine doing all the work. Why not just get right down to it and look at the engine.

Um, NO!!!! Who cares that other people might already know the knees are invovled with the shimmy? That doesn't mean they want to see them!!

i am not arguing in favor of short skirts. i'm saying that the aesthetic -ugly, distracting, skanky- objections are completely valid, but that the "mystery of belly dance" mindset that thinks the knees should be hidden to maintain the "mystery" of the dance needs to go.
i agree that if we want to be seen as serious dancers we'll have to be careful with costuming.
but before we can convince the GP we're serious dancers, we'll have to convince ourselves, and that means thinking about this dance as a modern dance form that's right here now in the 21st century. any notions of "mystery" "secret" "veiled" "magic" "sacred" and "ancient" are fantasies that cloud our perception of the dance.

i don't think our knees are our problem. tina

But I thought we'd pretty much decided that if BD ever became a respected art form, no one would hire us for parties or restaurants any more and we'd all starve.

Hey, then we can be ballerinas!

no most (me!!) wouldn't be allowed to perform anymore. i think when bders talk about respectability it's a "careful what you wish for" thing. tina

Originally Posted by melania

It's more gymnastic than anything.

but you can't tell that from a photo.
"distasteful" has nothing to do with it. gymnastics and yoga have nothing to do with it. the question is, when the GP sees a photo of a woman posing on the floor, do they see a dancer, or is it just one more image of a pretty woman in potentially suggestive pose, in a society in which women are still battling to be seen as humans instead of objects?

when the dance is on solid ground as a dance form and not a yuck-it-up party novelty, when a dancer in a reclining pose is recognized as a dancer , not a pseudo-odalisque, then the non-dancing photos will not be sending mixed messages that belly "dancers" are pretty poseurs first, and dancers only maybe.


i'm not talking BD as "respected art form". i'm talking BD as respected DANCE. dance that takes training and effort and more than makeup and sequins. Dance, not parlor trick, not mere prancing in a pretty costume, not something anyone with 6 lessons can do, not a joke unless proven otherwise.
BD can be respected as a dance form requiring effort and training and still be entertainment. magicians are entertainers, not artists, but "i'm a magician" doesn't regularly prompt sniggers or "i can do magic heh heh heh" while pretending to wave a wand. no one thinks any cute guy in a top hat will suffice when you want to hire a magician.
as long as there's a perception is that belly dance isn't really a dance form and belly dancers aren't really dancers, bad jokes and bad pay will be the norm.

Originally Posted by carolynn

BD can be respected as a dance form requiring effort and training and still be entertainment. magicians are entertainers, not artists, but "i'm a magician" doesn't regularly prompt sniggers or "i can do magic heh heh heh" while pretending to wave a wand. no one thinks any cute guy in a top hat will suffice when you want to hire a magician.

I haven't been reading this thread but I just came in on this post and this analogy cracks me up! ..l;, From now on when I see magicians, I know I'm going to think "cute guys in top hats... heh..heh...heheh...."

I really liked the analogy too. I'm still trying to resolve how I feel about the 'respectable vs. entertainment' thing, and that helps, actually.

Although, then you're back to mysteries and parlor tricks. No one hires dancers to entertain at parties because they can dance (tap, ballet, African, modern, jazz, square, waltz). The whole reason we're hired is because we represent an exotic flavor (restaurants, theme parties) or a PG-13 naughty nudge-nudge wink-wink harem girl for the birthday boy.

That's like taking a Rolls Royce and taking the hood off so that everyone can see the engine while it's running. Why not, right? We all know that under that shiny, pretty exterior, there is an ugly engine doing all the work.

But to a person who likes cars, the engine is the most important thing of all - and not ugly. All they want to talk about is specifications and .... stuff.

I have petrol head brothers. They'd probably have transparent cars if they could.

dude, I'm limping around with pulled ligaments and barely able to get around in the mornings. I feel like both Mishka and me need to mega dose on glucosamine these days. My knees are definitely giving away my age.

I've always had stupid looking knees. They aren't particularly the cutest things anyway. ..g.:

Originally Posted by tattood1

i don't think our knees are our problem. tina

In a strange way, bellydancers have a similar problem that school teachers have. People are quick to say "but they have their summers off and and are done at 3pm every day." And they have no idea the amount of before and after school time, in-service education, grading papers during spring break time and a bunch of other unknown time and expense that teachers have invested in their jobs. For the amount of preparation, continued education and personal expense invested, it's really an under-paid profession.

I think one answer if for us to not keep all this hard work to ourselves. My co-workers are always hearing about my rehearsals, the expense of my constumes, the workshops I attend, and as a result they realize that I'm not cheap date when it comes to booking my troupe for a show. Making it all look so easy cost us in the end. We should change that.