Children
There is nothing more beautiful than to see children dancing and loving it. We all know how children love to dance and dance naturally from the year dot. They particularly enjoy music with good rhythms and will naturally dance as soon as they can walk. They have no inhibitions and can dance as we should all dance ... like there's no one watching. (well, to a certain extent!) When a child dances we all smile. I cannot empahsise enough how important it is to encourage your child to dance. Belly dancing is of course the best possible dance as it teaches control, coordination, rythm, gives suppleness, agility and above all .. JOY
Children adore the costumes and are completely mesmerized by watching the dance and love to get out there and perform it. They have no silly inhibitions and just totally enjoy themselves and the music.
I teach many children to dance and it is a sheer joy to have them in my class.
I noticed, whilst performing, that parents had a very hard job to keep the children from running after me during and after the performance. Children had never shown such interest in me before and I was fascinated as were their parents at how they clung to me once I donned the costume. (Far more likely to avoid me before that)
Whilst appearing on television, my cousin who has a four year old little boy, taped my performance. She then played the tape to her son. Little did she realise at the time, but that tape became the greatest tool she had for dare I say "keeping him quiet"
Although sick to the back teeth of hearing and seeing the tape herself, she was just so delighted that she could get on and do the housework and all her other jobs, whilst her son literally sat for hours watching the tape. He learned to rewind, stop and play the video and so she did not even have to interrupt what she was doing for quite some time.
Belly dancing will keep children captivated long after Bob the Builder has laid his last brick.
Corrupt forms of Belly Dancing
I find it a great shame that still so many people (alright MEN!!!) still have these strange notions as to what it is they think belly dancers do. Admittedly there are plenty of "dancers" who bring the dance in to grave disrepute, but surely there are naughty ladies in every profession.
Only recently I stood chatting with a man (use that term very loosely) in a wine bar and he asked me what kind of women I teach belly dancing to. I explained the age groups were from 7 to 70. He then looked at me very seriously and asked me was it not quite immoral and most unsuitable to teach children this type of dancing.
I can only imagine he had been laid spread eagle in some tacky holiday resort and had so called "dancers" jump up and down on his body. Unfortunately I suppose I cannot really blame him if that is his only experience of seeing a belly dancer.
I do not care nor am I interested in what other "dancers" call dancing. I do however get very upset with being given the same job title.
I get very upset because it has taken a lot of time, skill and energy, huge amounts of study, pain rejection and tears to be able to dance as I do now.
I have no issues with pole dancers, strippers or the type of belly dancer described above, what I do have issue with is the fact that it would take me about 10 minutes to get really good at what they do whereas it has taken 10 years to get really good at what I do. (however it might take me more than 10 minutes to learn that pole business!!!)
I have problems with the term "belly dancer" for the simple reason it does sound vulgar tacky and anything but subtle. Oriental dancing conjures up images of beautiful, mysterious and exotic dancing never seen by the average Westerner. The irony is that subtlety is the key ingredient in belly dancing which comes about through correct isolation. The term "Belly dancing" conjures up images of the local Greek Taverna, 10 pints of lager and my favourite response from the audience of "get him".
What are we to do? If I advertise my self as an Oriental dancer/Teacher no one will know what on earth I'm talking about. So ladies I'm afraid we're stuck with it.