Woke up this morning with this question in my head.
I just have to quote Colleena Shakti's blog to express my before-breakfast concerns...
"What happened to Middle Eastern music? I remember that was what initially drew me into this dance… the heart wrenching and uplifted feeling I would get when I heard it. That is why many of us choose to dedicate ourselves to a 'marginal dance form' - an Oriental dance and not go with a Western dance style.... culture inspires community rather than isolation.
When compared, Western/Occidental art seeks to satisfy individual expression, Eastern/Oriental art, (or what I have learned in India from my masters I should say), has 2 functions - to celebrate divine union (the heightened state of the dancer when she 'forgets' herself and transcends the individual self) and uplift the spectator to a similarly ecstatic state (what we commonly call 'to behold beauty'). Though not all dance has to be a prayer or follow a tradition, values are what subconsciously manifest as aesthetic choices.
What are the values of the Tribal community that you saw? Do you think there is a change of values inside the change of aesthetic choices made by dancers?
[...] I hope I don't sound too negative, I did see some awesome technique and innovation and I saw a TON of love and support. I just want to see us evolve and take it higher in every way or it will just be another fad that passed like disco.
I love belly dance because it is an expression of femininity, oriental thought and I love tribal for the remembrance it offers of women dancing for women basking in their divine sensuality. It's not an opposition to change, evolution or self expression that I feel... rather a sadness for the loss of Oriental beauty in belly dance."
I will take these thoughts with me to the market: today it's new fabrics day!
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