Welcome to the latest installment of Professional Ambitions, my monthly blog series about my journey to becoming a professional fusion belly dancer. The usual disclaimers apply: I am not presenting myself as an expert, this is a “learn alongside me” series, as I talk about the things I’ve figured out. Sometimes it’s about something I did right, and sometimes, like today, it’s about stumbling along until I learn a lesson.
I think one of the hardest lessons for a baby to intermediate belly dancer to learn is what performances are appropriate for which venues. This is especially true for a fusion dancer — if you’re doing Turkish, Egyptian, or AmCab, you have specific musical options to choose from and you mainly decide based on your strengths as a performer and what songs particularly inspire you. But as a fusion dancer you have access to every song in your collection.
In the past, I’ve made some bad decisions. As recently as Spring of 2014, I thought it was a great idea to do a somewhat angry solo to Kid Beyond’s remix of Wandering Star at the Pima County Fair. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea, it was just a song I liked and I figured it would add some variety to the show (true facts, I have been dancing to that song for YEARS and I am still not sick of it), and that maybe a darker tone would fit out late-night set. No surprise, it didn’t really go over well with the half-drunk, rain-soaked crowd. Of course, my fan veils elicited the usual oooohs and aaaaahs, because they’re the sort of crowd-pleaser that you pull out for an outdoor fair.
Over time, I’ve developed three basic kinds of performances:
- “Traditional-ish”, which is generally performed to either authentic Middle Eastern music or Middle Eastern fusion music and comes close to what people expect when they hear belly dance even if I’m not wearing a sparkly beaded bedlah. Depending on the song and the venue, I’ll either wear a “fauxloric” tribal costume with a 25 yard skirt and bright colors, or a vintage-inspired costume with lots of elegant, sumptuous layers. I perform these pieces at venues where I figure people are looking for a more traditional belly dance performance, such as an Open Stage or hafla held at a Middle Eastern restaurant.
- “Crowd Pleasers”, which are not traditional but play well with the general public. This includes electroswing, cross-genre covers of pop songs, and fan veils performed to either really energetic or really beautiful (but not sad) songs. This is what I usually do at an Open Stage held in a bar, or when I was with Fire & Gold, what I would do as my solo as part of a big set at an outdoor festival. When performing as a soloist, I match my costume to the theme of the piece, when performing with the troupe I would try to choose a solo that went with the costume we were going to wear.
- “Weird stuff”, which is all the themed, theatrical, Gothy stuff that I dream up which needs special costuming and makeup. Often these pieces are just too weird for the general public, and I have to save them for themed events. I would perform a weird, themed piece at Waking Persephone or Tribal Fest, but not at the Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive or Open Stage.
So how do you figure out what the right venue is for a piece you really want to perform? Or how do you figure out what direction to go in when choosing what to do at an event at which you’ve been invited to dance?
The first question to ask yourself is, what is the audience expecting? If they’re looking forward to a night of traditional belly dance, it’s probably not a good time to rock out to your favorite 80s pop songs, and if it’s a family-friendly outdoor festival, it’s not the time to break out a loud, angry metal song. On the other hand, if they’re expecting an evening of genre-bending entertainment, you should feel free to pull out something a little unexpected.
The second question to ask yourself is, what will the other dancers be doing? Sometimes you know exactly what someone will be doing because they told you, other times you know your local community pretty well and you know Dancer A always does a drum solo, Troupe B is going to do an ATS set to Helm, and Duet C will probably do their cool new sword choreography. If you’re in an ATS-heavy show that isn’t specifically intended to be tribal-only, you probably want to give the audience a break from zills and mizmar and do something a little different, but not jarringly so. For me, if I’m performing in Tucson I know people are going to want me to do fan veils, but if I’m up in Phoenix I know 2-3 other dancers who are also known for their fan veils, and if they’re in the show I’ll take the opportunity to do something else.
The third question to ask yourself is, what is appropriate for the venue? Big props can be bad in tiny spaces, as can loud zills. A poorly-lit venue with a black backdrop may not be the best time to do a piece that requires a black costume, but it may be a good time to use a glow prop or even palm flames/candles if it’s not against the rules.
The fourth question is, is there a theme, and do I feel inspired to match that theme? And in the case of themes, you may also have to consider what the other dancers will do. In my community, it’s practically a guarantee that a steampunk or circus show will include at least one Abney Park song and Roustabout by Beats Antique, and any Christmas show will involve Santa Baby. Look for songs and ideas that tie into the theme but aren’t obvious.
The fifth question is, do I even really want to dance in this show? Sometimes you feel like you should take an opportunity but it isn’t right. Maybe the theme for the monthly hafla is Goth Night and you’ve never willingly listened to Goth music in your life. Maybe it’s a Christmas show and you work retail and if you hear one more carol, you’ll scream. It’s better to sit a show out, and either be in the audience or stay home with a tasty beverage than to awkwardly shoehorn yourself into a show that doesn’t fit your style or your current inspiration.
Along those lines, here’s a story that actually happened to me. I had just come off stage at a festival and I was talking to a couple vendor friends for reassurance that I did ok, when a neighboring vendor asked if he could get me into a sparkly cabaret costume. I said no thanks, that’s not my style. He said “Well what if someone called you one day and offered you $300 to do a cabaret-style gig?” First of all, I laughed at the unlikelihood of that happening in my town, but then my thought was, why would I take that gig away from a dancer who could actually do it? I’m not going to put on a beaded bedleh and chiffon skirt and put on an Arabic pop song and hope I can fake my way through something that doesn’t inspire me, when I could instead point a potential client to my friends who have closets full of Egyptian costumes and carefully curated set-lists for restaurants and parties.
What I’m saying is, be true to yourself. Don’t try to pour yourself into someone else’s mold. Do the right dance at the right venue, but don’t be afraid to say that you’re not the right dancer for this one.