SalomeJustitia

Bad feet.

There is a running joke between me and my parents that I got the worst qualities from both of them - Mom's allergies and prematurely grey hair; Pop's migraines and crooked teeth, etc.  Most of these I have fixed with hair dye, orthodontia, and pharmacuticals, but there is one inherited feature that I can do nothing about - my feet.  How frustrating when I've always loved dancing so much to have the infamous "bad feet."

I suppose I should be happy I'm here to have bad feet at all; after all, it was the flat-footedness I inherited that kept my father out of the military back in the day.  But I lived many years of my life with a woman with almost perfect feet.  My mother is very proud of her feet, and I do have to say (and occasionally she insists we all do) that they are beautiful, a model of what feet should be.  I've been with her on multiple occasions when total strangers come up to her to tell her what beautiful feet she has, and her wide array of sandals and perfect pedicures showcase them even more.  So I have a touch of a complex; I worship at the altar of perfect feet.

Not so much at the end of these here pins.  It's the arch that really creates a beautiful foot, and I have unfortunately weak arches.  Oh, I cover it up - years of training my feet in pointe shoes means I know how to point my foot to create the illusion of more arch, and the vertiginous heels I'm fond of wearing prevent my ankles from pronating when I walk.  But I know.  And I haven't done much to make them more attractive.  Take the bad feet base and layer on toes broken multiple times, callouses upon callouses, and ever since I started Latin dancing, consistently chipped pedicures (it's the dragging that does it!).  It all adds up to a bit of a mess.  But as my mother used to say, "you can't see the spots on a galloping horse."  So if I keep them moving fast enough, maybe you and I both won't notice their flaws, and only see the dancing.

New steps rumoured!

When I was dancing ballet, I knew all the steps.  Sure, not each one was perfect (was any one perfect?), but yell out a step and I could immediately dance it.  The fun, and the creativity, was in the way those steps were put together.  The dancing was really in the transitions by the time I left ballet.

I'm remembering what it was like before I'd reached that point, when my teacher would demonstrate a new step and tell us the name, then break it down slowly and help us through it.  That was such an amazing experience, all of us working together to "get it."  There would be no competition in those moments - that would come later - but just all of us in awe of this new, fantastic thing we wanted our bodies to do.

The last few weeks, bellydance class has been quite small, as many of the girls are off visiting family across the country and abroad.  I've been one of three for the past two weeks, and I'm so glad I've been making it into the city for these classes.  The personal attention has been amazing, and Reyna has been really happy with my performance.  But even better is that with such a small class, there's a lot more play involved.  Reyna will turn to me and say, "Look, try this."  And there I am, 10 years old in pink tights and new toe shoes again, saying "What is that?" and "Show me again?"  Practicing in the mirror at home, spinning and spinning until I'm dizzy, in love with a new step.

Resolve.

As 2007 fast approaches, I look forward to the next twelve months in my dancing life.  My one true goal for this upcoming year is to stretch.  Stretch my body and stretch my mind.  Expand past the bonds that constrain me – stress, fear, insecurity, habit – and allow my dancing to grow.

What are New Year’s resolutions but desires to push yourself further than the year before?  In this next year, I resolve to feel boundless.  I resolve to stop saying I can’t and start saying I will, with practice and dedication.  I resolve to treat my body better and provide it with healthy fuel. I resolve to open myself to more varieties of dance to provide me with inspiration in my genres.  I resolve to be fearless and be willing to fall.  I resolve to let out the various parts of my personality.  I resolve to see the humor and fun in dance.

But what generalities!  In 2007 I will:

*  Perform in spaces bigger than my bedroom and in front of people besides the person in the mirror.  With my bellydance troupe I will be attending Rakkasah West, and I want to perform my best.  I want Reyna to trust that I will know the choreography down pat, perform it full-out, and be a positive reflection on her teaching skills.  I also don’t want to be put in the back, so really working it at class is necessary to demonstrate my “front line” potential!  This year I also want to get up the nerve to bellydance solo.  We’re doing a showcase to raise money for our trip, and I’d like to perform a short solo routine, hopefully giving me the courage to seek out solo performance opportunities over the course of the year.  I'll be performing Latin ballroom for the first time this year, as I’ve signed on to do the studio showcase in the early spring, and I’m not backing out!  I want to feel comfortable with my routine and start to develop some ease of Latin movement.  I want Tony to recognize his choreography and for Michael to not feel like my life raft, but like a dance partner. And for all of these performances, I want to have no concerns about inviting people I love to come and see.  I love to talk to those around me about my dancing, but I get nervous allowing them to see me dance.  I'd like for my performances this year to have those I love watching in the audience.

*  Increase my practice time.  Time is at a premium in my life, and dance classes are expensive.  Still, even if I can't increase my studio time, I'd like to increase my flexibility, including getting down into the splits again. This means taking the time to warm up and stretch at home every day.  I also want to feel no guilt about taking dance class when busy at school. Dancing is an important escape for me, and I need to acknowledge that I will be a better student when I am a more well-rounded person.  I'd also like to get over some of my fear of the unknown and take drop-in classes at studios around the city to challenge myself and make sure I'm not falling into any ruts or patterns.

*  Watch more dance.  I think looking back over this blog proves that when I witness a dance performance that moves me, I am inspired in my own efforts.  So I hope to see more dance performances, this year, especially performances outside of the genres I am usually attracted to.

*  Stay positive.  This is a two-pronged effort for me.  I'm glad I looked back over 2006 and accentuated the positive, because I have a tendency to get very down on myself and my abilities.  I want to learn to accept compliments and criticism equally, instead of always dismissing complimentary comments as "just being nice."  I want to take pride in my increase in skill, instead of always focusing on what is left to learn.  I want to have a healthy body image and not fret about not having the ideal body for whatever genre, which leads into letting all the old ballet hang-ups and negativity go and just moving on as a person meant to do a different type of dance.  Dancing is fun, and I want to have a lot of it this next year!

Reflect.

2006 has certainly been a turning point in my dance life.  It was the year I came back to dance again as an outlet and a passion.  In this year I advanced from beginning bellydancer to troupe member, and while I'm still "the new girl" and behind on some abilities, I think I have proven myself to my teacher and fellow dancers to be dedicated and desireous to keep learning and improving.  I've gotten a nice start on the zills and I think I look pretty good with a veil (although I have to hem my commercially-made ones - not made for shorties!).

In the latter part of this year I found a ballroom studio that suits me and pushes me to tap into a part of dancing and body movement very foreign to me (funny that the Western ballroom style feels more foreign than the Middle Eastern movement).  I was frustrated today (as always, my comprehension is doing laps around by movement ability) and Michael pointed out that I've only had about 20 hours of lessons - "I dance that much in two days," he said.  That's a good way to gain perspective.  I'm proud of how far I've come in "two days."  In "two days" I learned the basic patterns of the waltz, foxtrot, jive, rumba, salsa, hustle, and I'm actually getting decent at the cha-cha.  In "two days" I learned half a routine that I'm going to perform in the spring.

This year I discovered a dance/performance scene in New York I had known almost nothing about.  I've watched some amazing women fight back against society's image of the ideal female form and proudly strut and shimmy and shake.

I embraced my true dance fan (dork?) and reached out to others.  I started this blog and electronically met some truly gifted, supremely funny, and always passionate dancers across the country and throughout the world.  I've exchanged ideas, discussed failures and triumphs big and small.

It's certainly been a year: I danced at Rakkasah and didn't fall off the stage, I met Tony and Melanie and didn't turn into a blubbering idiot, I was bestowed with a burlesque name (though I haven't yet used it!) and I braved the web.  I expected too much of myself and occasionally lived up to my own expectations.  I started to let my old ballet hang-ups go.  I remembered that dance is fun, and I had a hell of a lot of it.  I can't wait to see what new dance adventures next year will bring.

Music memory.

My iPod has moods, and it wants me to listen to the music that reflects those moods.  Sometimes it feels very gay disco and plays a loop of Scissor Sisters, Cher, early Elton John, and showtunes.  Sometimes it gets depressed and exclusively plays Elliot Smith.  And sometimes it gets in the holiday spirit.

I don't keep Christmas music on my iPod, because a) who wants to hear "Jingle Bells" in August ("Dominic the Donkey" is a different story - welcome anytime) and b) I hear enough Christmas music as forced upon me starting the day after Halloween in EVERY RETAIL STORE.  But the score to "The Nutcracker" remains on my iPod all year round, regardless of the holiday connotation.

Well, iPod has seized upon what it can to reflect its good tidings of comfort and joy and is playing pieces from "The Nutcracker" just about every other song.  What amazes me is that when I hear this music, my mind immediately starts running through the choreography from the "Nutcracker" I performed year after year in my childhood and teen years.  For example, I remember the party children choreography I haven't danced in at least seventeen years, I remember the Mouse Battle I led when I played the Mouse Queen over a decade ago, I remember precisely the Waltz of the Flowers choreography (well, five years in a row and a year as dance captain - it's pretty ingrained), and I remember the choreography I never even performed, like the Cavalier's solo.  This is clearly the space in my brain that should be filled up with Criminal Procedure, but it's filled with choreography I'll never dance again.

Even when I go to see another version of "The Nutcracker," like my favorite, NYCB (though I'm also quite partial to Cleveland-San Jose), I watch their beautiful steps and get thrown off, because I'm expecting the choreography from my old company.  I'm very partial to a storyline like mine from childhood as well.  "Marie?"  No, it's always "Clara" for me.  And I love a nice, bizarre, Land of the Sweets second act - ours was Licorice ("Spanish Dance"), Icing ("Arabian Dance"), Peppermints ("Chinese Dance"), Butterscotch ("Dance of the Reed Pipes"), Lemondrops and Mother Sweet ("Polichinelle"), Orange Slices (a stolen variation from the "Pas de Deux"), and Candied Petals and Dewdrops ("Waltz of the Flowers").

Maybe I should stage a one-woman version of "The Nutcracker," with me running around performing all the parts.  At least put that occupied brain space to good use!

Push.

Danced with Fred today as Michael is off in Toyko for the week.  It's so interesting to dance with another partner when you've gotten used to a specific person, but the goal is to be able to dance with anyone, after all.  Good, hard lesson, with a lot of focus on balance and body positioning.  Fred is a physical teacher, so he would actually push me (nicely!) to show me where my upper body should be, or that I was off balance, or that my hips were not making a full range of motion - I'm not used to that, so it was really effective!  And lots of work on closed position in cha-cha locksteps to avoid that Popeye look.  I am a prancer, though, and it's going to be difficult to train that out of me, it's so ingrained in me to pick up the foot.  This silly little quarter turn today, I kept doing in jazz pirouette position instead of leaving the toes on the floor - I might as well have been doing jazz hands and thrown on a bowler hat.

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm retraining the way my body dances.  I don't want to lose the ballet completely, but I also don't want to look like a ballet dancer doing Latin or a ballet dancer doing bellydance.  I was having a lot of trouble "getting funky" in bellydance class the other night, and Reyna was (totally justifiably) getting on my case about it.  My super-pulled up positioning looks great with veil work (btw, just got some gorgeous hand-dyed silk veils from Flying Skirts of San Francisco) but sometimes I have difficulty getting my whole body relaxed enough to smooth out routines.  I think my tension at school (almost finals time) is translating into physical tension on the dance floor, and dancing is supposed to be my escape.  I also think some of that fear of making mistakes I was mentioning causes me to go into "I know I can do this at least" mode and fall back on a more classical positioning.  I can't wait until I feel comfortable enough to let myself go completely.  I love those moments when it happens, but I'm chasing those moments more than I'm catching them.

Reasons II.

Bellydance reminded me of the joy of dance, and once I got that joy back, my appetite for dance became voracious.  All of the dance obsession of my childhood and teens came rushing back, and while I knew that going back to ballet was the wrong thing for my body and my mind, that dancing as much as possible with the best teachers I could find was the right thing for me at this point in my life.

As I've mentioned, I used to absolutely idolize Tony and Melanie, and sought out their studio when deciding to give ballroom a try.  But why ballroom in the first place?  I think that I'm living a very hermetic lifestyle as a law student.  I spend more time in my room at my desk than anywhere else, and I'm alone without Pablo all week due to the excessive commute.  For one, I wanted the social feel of a bustling studio with people having just having fun.  Secondly, I think it's just healthy to have physical contact in your life, which I don't get as a solo dancer, and certainly don't get in my personal life when I'm away from my husband.  Humans are just meant to be touched in a positive way, and I like that about partner dancing.

I've also really noticed the positive inflence ballroom has had on my bellydancing.  Michael and I have worked a lot on getting grounded and sending energy into the floor and about separating the upper and lower halves of the body.  Vital in ballroom but so much help in bellydance as well.

Reasons.

Interesting question posed over at the Bellydance: Experiences blog.  Why bellydance?  For me, when I think about how I began bellydancing, I see it as equal parts accident and fate.  One of my defining characteristics is that I am a dancer.  But there was a period in my life when I didn't dance.  My experience with ballet had been very truamatizing and damaging emotionally and physically, and I'm still angry that careless teachers did so much damage that I lost my joy for dance and walked (limped) away without finding another creative outlet.  I didn't dance.  I didn't dance!  But I knew in my heart I was still a dancer.

One day I walked into Reyna's beginner class.  I was confused and the moves were new, but Reyna walked up to me and said, "You're a dancer."  Something so simple, but it validated what I had been thinking and hoping, not that I used to dance, but that I was still a dancer - still had that something inside me that fights to get out through movement.  And as I continued to study, I found that bellydance movement comes naturally to me; sure, not every new move is perfect right away, but the movements feel right.

Furthermore, in this culture obsessed with weight, I have found the bellydance community to be one of the most open and accepting groups of people I have ever come into contact with.  For me, ballet and postive body image were mutually exclusive (even as a naturally slender person).  But bellydance is a (non-sexualized) appreciation of the female form and feminine movement in which all shapes and sizes are viewed as beautiful; where the body dictates the movement and not vice versa.

Dogs are barking.

Quite the workout with Michael today, since we're really trying to get this choreography nailed before the holidays so it can just be practice, practice, practice, and styling after that.  I think it would be a lot easier if I didn't have to balance myself on a tiny, tall Latin heel, but somehow the cha-cha just doesn't work in jazz sneakers.

I met Michael's first student, Susan, today, who still studies with him regularly.  The student-teacher relationship is such an interesting one.  I danced with the same ballet company from the time I started ballet until I quit at 17.  My teachers were as much a part of my childhood as my relatives, and I often saw more of them than my own family.  Leaving them was like losing part of my family, and although I was very angry at the psychological damage they had done, I mourned that loss for a long time.

These days, I'm very loyal to Reyna, since it was through her enthusiasm, encouragement, and challenges that I seriously persued bellydance.  When I drop in at another studio for a bellydance class, I feel like I'm cheating on her somehow.  And as a troupe, we do look better when we're all doing the steps the way Reyna taught them.

When I first started ballroom, I had a few lessons with teachers other than Michael until I found a schedule that worked for me, which happened to match up with Michael's hours (seriously lucky for me).  I know it's good in partner dancing to mix it up so you learn how to dance with anyone like you would in a social setting.  But the relationship with your teacher really is like a relationship, where you get a shorthand that's so much easier than trying to read a new person.  And with partner dancing there's always the comfort level about someone touching your body (and you touching someone else's).  The he-knows-that-I-know-he's-not-being-inappropriate-right?  Or the he-knows-I'm-not-crushing-on-him-right?  Or (in some cases) the he-knows-that-I-know-he's-gay-right?