January 2012 marked the seventh year I've been bellydancing. It's been a huge part of my life since, so I've decided to mark the occasion by sharing how I discovered it. I realized that the story is awfully long, so I've broken it into two parts. I wish I had some photos to go with this entry, but sadly I have none from that period. There will be plenty in the next part though! Enjoy!
The first time I ever saw a bellydance performance that wasn't in a movie was during some garden festival in Windermere back when I was probably 18. My mom and I watched as this group of women, all different shapes and sizes, came out in these fabulous sparkley costumes and did a dance with veils. They ended the dance by doing what I called the "Xena Yell," which I later found out was called an arabic yell.
I was hooked. The dances were so pretty, and it looked like an awful lot of hip work. I had pretty ample hips! I could totally dance like that!
At the time I was living in Cranbrook, and I couldn't locate anyone who might have been offering bellydance classes. I figured learning how to bellydance was just a pipe dream at that point. That saddened me.
It wasn't until my third year in Kelowna, when for whatever reason one of my roommate and I were talking about bellydancing, and she said the Parkinson Rec Centre offered a variety of classes and we should see what they had in the way of dance classes. Lo and behold, they actually had a beginner's bellydance class! Four years after seeing that first performance I was finally going to get to try it!
Getting to these classes wasn't easy. We lived on campus, which was out by the airport, while the rec centre was about two thirds of the way downtown. So we had to take two separate buses to get there, and since we were already near the grocery stores, we'd take a cab to Save On Foods, then walk with out food back to the one bus stop, and ride all the way to the South Campus before turning around and finally heading back to the North Campus. It was quite the ordeal for a Tuesday night.
Our instructor was a lovely lady names Linda who always had full makeup and almost full costume every single class. She'd have us put on shawls with lots of fringe before leading us through a good solid warm-up and learning the very basics.
We learned a basic dance that involved lots of shimmys and hip pops – it was surprising how many muscles it takes to actually do all those things
Once we completed the beginner class, school was done and I was moving back home to work for the summer, but don't worry, Linda said, she'll be offering an intermediate class in September.
So I dragged myself home to cut grass all day for four months, just waiting to get back to bellydancing. And university, I suppose.
Finally I got back to Kelowna and the aforementioned roomie and I found an apartment off campus that was within walking distance of the rec centre, which made getting to classes a hell of a lot easier.
Form there I began the intermediate class. I should point out that the dance we learned in the beginner class was probably about 2 minutes long. That intermediate dance was 6 minutes long. That's a huge effin' jump, but I gotta say, I loved that dance. I couldn't do it now if I wanted to (maybe if I actually had the music), but it was so fun just trying to cram that many steps into a 10-week class.
Linda didn't do an advanced class, but told me I was more than welcome to take the intermediate one again. She taught a different dance every session, you see. I believe the second time around, we did a veil dance. Once that session was done, I decided to take the class a third time. It was then that Linda asked if I would be interested in joining her troupe, Banat Al Raks.
Oh, twist my rubber arm.
So that summer, by then it was summer, I did the intermediate class as well as practices with the troupe. I got my own suitcase full of costumes to wear, which was actually quite intimidating at first. Banat Al Raks was more of a folk bellydance group, in that we weren't in sparkly bras and skirts with slits up to your ass – we were pretty well covered, except for the actual belly area.
With that troupe I did two performances. Which was a huge freakin' deal, because I had horrific stage fright at the time. I was one of those people who couldn't even speak in front of classmates in school. My first one was during some downtown festival in Kelowna, we were in a building that I believe had some kind of wine tasting or something going on. There was no stage, we just had an open area to do our thing.
I was hiding in the back, because it was far safer for me back there. I didn't know the dances all that well, just the one that the troupe does that we learned in the class. When they did a dance I didn't know at all, I just got to stand back and pose. Oh, and smile. It is damn hard to remember to smile when you're so nervous you feel like you're going to puke.
But some way, some how, I made it through and was exhilarated when it was over. I could officially call myself a real live bellydancer, just like those ladies at the garden festival.
My second ever performance was part of a regional show that had troupes from all over the Okanagan. This one was actually on a stage in the theatre at the South Campus, which was scary as hell for me. I was near the back and off to the side, so I could see Linda our of the corner of my eye and follow along. We did a dance that I knew, but good lord, watching the video of the performance afterwards, I was terrible. I was about half a beat behind everyone, and it was painfully obvious. I was mortified.
But, the ladies in the troupe didn't judge me at all, and told me I'd get better. Like anything else, practice makes perfect. The next performance opportunity was at some event down in Pentiction that September, which we were learning a cane dance for that I really thought was cool. I couldn't wait to do this performance, I was gonna do way better this time!
But life had other plans.
Not two days before, I'd applied for a job in Fort St. John that was actually in my field. I was miserable in my landscaping job, having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and not doing anything with it was just depressing. I didn't think I'd get a call back, at least not for a while. Well, they called me the day after I applied and wanted me there for an interview four days later.
Sadly, in order to get there in time for the interview, I had to leave the same day I was supposed to do that performance in Pentiction. And I knew it was unlikely I'd be coming back.
I called Linda, and explained everything to her – she knew I wasn't happy with my work, and was considering moving on – and bless her heart for being so understanding. I bawled like a baby when she came to pick up my costume suitcase, knowing that I wouldn't dance with the troupe again.
I thought my bellydance career was over. I mean, really, it's not like there'd be bellydancing in Fort St. John, right?
Oh, how wrong I was.
To be continued...
