In the past month, I’ve gotten two of the best tips I’ve ever received in over two
decades of belly dancing. They weren’t
crisp hundred dollar bills, large
bouquets of flowers or earrings made of 14
karat gold… though I’ve been lucky
enough to get all of those and more. One of the tips was a grubby Sponge
Bob pencil eraser, tucked into my belt
by a five year old boy. The other was a small piece of pita bread offered by a
toddler, who was imitating the behavior of the adults around him.
Children
are the best audiences ever- they’re my favorite audience!
Throughout my career, I’ve danced for
thousands of kids. I often joke that
most of my biggest fans are the smallest people- kids under the age of ten- but it’s true! When I tell people I love
dancing for kids, sometimes they look at me oddly… for a couple of reasons.
First
is that in addition to performing straight-ahead Egyptian-style belly dance,
within the belly dance community, I have become known for my fusion performances, and some of them have
been considered very controversial. But
I never perform anything other than family-style show unless I know for sure that there will not be children
present.
Second,
outside of the belly dance world, many
well-educated people still
fall prey to the usual
stereotypes, marginalizing our art as either a seductive ritual or
cheesy novelty. Whether male or female,
I can literally see their “civilian”
brains going into over-drive, conjuring
up images straight out of a Sinbad or James Bond movie. They imagine me doing “The Dance Of The Seven
Veils” in shadowy, smoke-filled hashish den while leering villains in ornate
turbans throw solid gold coins, making plans to carry me away on their flying
carpets to a life of slavery in an exotic harem…yeah, right!
I explain
something that probably doesn’t need to be clarified here: in Middle Eastern and North African cultures,
the movements of belly dancing are performed by non-professionals as a an
integral part of weddings, family gatherings and baby christenings, and women’s
parties. When they hear I, like most belly dancers, usually do shows for
families, including children, their jaws drop a few inches.
.
Since
I am still the featured performer
in the same restaurant that gave me my
very first job almost twenty-five years
ago, I not only dance for children on a regular basis, but I’ve have had the
extraordinary privilege and pleasure of seeing a good portion of my audience grow
up, go to college, get married and have their own kids! It’s impossible to
estimate the amount of autographs I’ve signed on paper napkins, and for years
my refrigerator has been plastered with primitive crayon portraits and misspelled fan letters painstakingly
written in block letters.
Children
are the world’s most pure and unsullied audience, and that goes for every kind
of performing art. They don’t need any
sort of suspension of disbelief to be moved by a belly dance show, they are
happy enough with a swirling pastiche of dancing women, sparkly costumes, loud
music and excitement. Children simply
don’t have the pre-conceived notions that adults do, they
just love being entertained. They know nothing of sexualized
stereotypes or judgments that have to do with weight, age, racial or cultural
prejudice. They let out wild
squeals of unbridled joy the moment a dancer appears. Not only that, because of their candor, kids
will often left you know exactly what
they’re thinking.
Due
to “truth factor” in relations with
kiddies, sometimes the biggest obstacle for me when I’m interacting with or
performing for the small set is to stop myself from bursting into laughter
because of their totally logical yet completely innocent observations! As the Sixties-era television host Art
Linkletter used to declare, “Kids say the darndest things”. Thanks to Walt Disney, I’ve been called
Princess Jasmine more times than I can count, but some of the exchanges I’ve
had left me laughing for days.
I
remember a seven-year-old girl who visited me in my dressing room after a show
one night. While she played with my finger cymbals, she very regretfully told
me that she could never be a belly dancer because she didn’t have “those round
things or those black things”.
I told her that those “round things” were
called finger cymbals and explained that anyone, even she, could have them
because they were a belly dance accoutrement that anyone could purchase.
“
But I still don’t have those black things,”
she sighed forlornly, shaking her head.
“What
black things do you mean?” I asked, utterly confused.
Rolling her eyes as though I was the stupidest
person on earth, she pointed directly to my false eyelashes. When I told her
that they were fake, just a part of my stage make-up, and explained how they
were applied, she leaned in very close to me, cocked her head
towards
the dining room and whispered conspiratorially,
“Everybody
out there thinks they’re real!”
Standing costumed in a hallway just after a
show, a little charmer of about five gave the once-over to my sword partner
Samra and me and observed,
“You guys look just like genies… but with legs!”
It
took us a moment to realize that she meant legs…. as opposed to the smoke rising from a magic lamp!
Another time, a little boy ( the nephew of
another dancer I worked with frequently) burst into our dressing room to visit
us before we went on. Unaccustomed to seeing his aunt in costume, he stared at our Egyptian finery with his mouth
hanging open in shock and exclaimed,
“Hey, where’d you guys get the all the
diamonds?”
And speaking of being an aunt, I discovered
that my baby niece Olivia had definitely
gotten the belly dance gene.
When she was a toddler, her vocabulary only
consisted of an only few words…or so we thought. One night she shocked our
entire family with her first full sentence.
As I walked into the room, she cheerfully greeted from her high chair
with:
“Hi
Auntie-big earrings!”
Visiting Disneyland when she was three, we
almost got kicked off “ It’s A Small
World.” As our boat floated by the Middle Eastern countries, she jumped to her
feet, scrambled on top of the bench, pointed at a veiled mannequin and
screamed,
“It’s
my Auntie!”
As if on cure, the ride ground to a halt, the
music cut out, and a booming voice came over the loudspeaker,
“THE
CHILD MUST SIT DOWN!”
Olivia’s obsession with the dance continued to
grow as she did. We’re talkin’ about a
little girl who got elaborate hand made mini-costumes for every birthday…but
somehow, it just wasn’t enough. We were spending a cool spring afternoon together, about to
go to her favorite park. As I went to
another room to get our jackets, she pouted obstinately,
“I
DON’T WANNA GO TO THE SWINGS!”
I was about to placate her the way one
normally would with a four year old, but
almost had a heart attack as I re-entered the room. She stood in the middle of the living room,
completely naked… except for one of my rhinestone tiaras sitting askew on her
head. Her play clothes lay in a heap at her feet. In each hand, she held an unsheathed sword-
my full-sized, heavy, sharp
scimitars. They were bigger than she was, and she swung them around
dangerously.
“I
just wanna stay here and play dress up with you!” she whimpered.
Feeling
my face drain of color, I cajoled,
“
Ok, sure honey! Whatever you want! Can
you put the swords down for Auntie? “
Once,
at a wedding, a little girl of about nine
asked if I was really and truly a princess.
“Why of course I am,” I answered, not wanting
to wreck the illusion.
Growing
skeptical, hands on hips, she asked me to prove it.
I
knew what would verify my claim. Unbelievably, the California DMV allowed me to
pose for my driver’s license photo while wearing a large rhinestone tiara. When I whipped this out of
my wallet as “proof” of my royal lineage, she gasped sharply, her eyes widening
as she meekly asked,
“
Do you live in a real castle? Can I visit you?”
Backpedaling quickly, told her that when I was
“visiting” California, I lived in a regular house, just like everybody else.
Far and away one of my most cherished memories
is of Timmy, a Canadian four- year- old whom I met while he was in LA with his
family, visiting relatives. Timmy fell in love with me at first sight. He
swooned as he watched me pass by in costume, and scrawled illegible love notes
to me on placemats, which he sent to my dressing room via a very patient
waiter.
When
I came out to dance, his eyes bugged out of his head. He grabbed fistfuls of
his own hair, held a hand over his mouth as if to stifle a scream, and bounced
uncontrollably in his seat. He snatched dollars from his mom and ardently
stuffed them into my belt, and when he ran out of his own money, he picked it
up off the floor as well as personally soliciting it from diners at other
tables, much to their amusement.
Later in the evening, his apologetic mom asked
if I would dance once more, as he’d been pestering her throughout the entire
meal, asking if I would perform again.
Of course, I obliged. When the music started,
his excited squeals could be heard throughout the entire restaurant. Making my entrance, I decided to make him
feel special by draping my veil around his tiny shoulders. The moment I did
this, he let out an earth-shattering shriek that could probably be heard down
the block and then he yelled,
“MOMMY!
THE LADY LET ME HOLD HER BLANKET!
#
Purchase a signed copy of “The Belly Dance
Handbook” by Princess Farhana here:
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| Photo & design by Maharet Hughes/ Graphic Vibe LA |
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What a cute post! Thank you; I enjoyed it! ~Deb
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