Happy Mothers Day!
Whether your mother is biological, or a mother within the
realm of dance, use this weekend to honor her.
A few days ago, at a
showcase, I was watching my beautiful friend Alli Ruth, a belly dancer from Finland,
perform. She’d grown up in
Southern California, and was trained by the late, great Diane Webber, a belly
dance pioneer who influenced literally hundreds of dancers. Diane’s troupe, Perfumes Of Araby,
begat many strong solo performers who taught and influenced many others. Her
classes at Every Woman’s Village in the San Fernando Valley spawned many accomplished dancers, including Jillina.
But back to my pal Alli Ruth:
in the middle of her show, the woman sitting next to me burst into tears. She clutched at my arm and sniffled,
“I’m so sorry… but I see
Diane in her dancing!”
It was a profound moment; I’m
getting goose bumps right now just writing about it.
People have told me that they
can see my teachers in my dancing, and I have also been told that students of
mine reflect my own movements and essence.
While I was always proud of both statements, the point was never quite really driven home to me, until the other night…and then I
began to think in an even broader scope.
In the very act of dancing,
we are honoring our forebears in dance. Belly dancing has been handed down from
mother to daughter, from teacher to pupil through many millennia and hundreds
of generations. It is a song of the soul, and a celebration of beauty,
femininity, power, and strength.
In the very act of dancing,
we are honoring women past and present, all over the world.
The women who gave birth to
our physical beings are obviously very special, but there are so many other
women to pay homage to… those women with no blood ties who selflessly gave
birth to us in different ways.
Our Dance Mothers nurtured us and raised us in art and
beauty. They helped us through our baby steps to grow into strong performers,
sharing our triumphs and our woes, advising us, seeing us through the ruts and
rough periods. They understood our discouragement, our passions and helped us
fulfill our goals.
No matter what style of dancing you perform, take a moment to think of all those who came before you, those who pioneered the way for us, those who taught our teachers.
Give silent respect and love to the myriad women whom we never even knew
in our lifetimes, women from this country and many other countries all over the
globe who all have a hand in what we are doing today, the gift of dance that we might sometimes take for
granted, grumbling in a class or competing for a dance job.
On Mothers Day let’s belly dance… let’s dance for the
mothers, grandmothers , great grandmothers and great great grandmothers of our dance. Let’s celebrate the
lives of Biblical temptresses, harem slaves, dirt-poor villagers, the women in
tiny dark apartments in Cairo in the 1970’s, the Romany women of the defunct
Sulukule ghetto in Istanbul.
Let’s dance for women of the stage and silver
screen who dared to dance when they were forbidden to. Let's dance for the women who shamed their families by dancing. Let’s dance for women in Beirut when
the bombs fell, for the women and girls of blood-torn Syria, for the veiled
women who can’t drive in Saudi Arabia, and for all the women and girls in Afghanistan who
were denied education. Let’s dance for Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager
who crusaded for women’s rights in the Swat Valley, who was shot in the head by
the Taliban.
Let’s dance for all the women whom we will never even know in our
lifetimes… let’s dance for those who can’t, and then let’s close our eyes and hear their voices.
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