I like to learn. I’m curious – probably to the point of being nosy. I like belly dance. I’m curious about belly dance. And I like to read. I like to read about belly dance. I like to know what belly dancers are up to in other places. I like to read about what other belly dancers are up to.
Also, I spend way too much time on the internet.
The sum of this equation is that I spend a lot of time reading online belly dance forums. More time than I will honestly admit. (Seriously, it’s shameful.)
I am all over bhuz.com and bellydanceforums.net like a fat kid me on cake.
In a lot of ways these forums are wonderful. I’ve learned a ton from reading them – either directly because of discussion about a topic, or because of a mention of something I know nothing about, and therefore I looked it up. I also learn about the perspectives of belly dancers from around the world, which can be inspiring, interesting, informative and, at times, infuriating (often in a good way!). It’s a wide world of dance out there, and it would take me several lifetimes to begin to learn it all. I have a great deal of respect for the women and men who are much more experienced and knowledgeable that I am.
Sometimes, though, I think I read too much. Like when I’m worried that I can’t name every famous dancer between 1907 and today. Or maybe I don’t know enough about Persian dance. Am I an unprofessional dancer if I don’t spend $700 on a costume? Have I dancing long enough to teach? Because the minimum might be 10 years. Or 15. Or 35. Do I know how to do enough kinds of shimmies? Maybe wearing tassels on one’s belt is offensive. Or comical. Maybe I don’t layer enough movements at once. Maybe I layer too many. How can I possibly compete with people who seem to know/have met/can do everything?!
Now, I’m not a person who is ordinarily concerned with what other people think of me. And as a fusion dancer, you would think I wouldn’t be troubled by questions of authenticity – and when I’m not panicking about these things, I’m not. (Plus “authenticity” is a really interesting word that deserves its own post. Or perhaps its own website entirely.) But I do want to do justice to belly dance, to its lineage of practitioners, to my teachers, and to my own students and audiences. I therefore frequently get myself into a tizzy about being “good enough” – in my knowledge, my skills, and my presentation.
I don’t really want to get rid of this pressure entirely. A drive to learn and improve is integral to being a good performer. It’s also one of the things I love most about belly dance. Moving from “I could never do that” through “I’ll just try it” and “Maybe I could” and landing on “I’m doing it!” is absolutely one of the greatest feelings, and can’t experience if you don’t work for it!
However, in an effort spend less time in the aforementioned tizzy, I’m really trying to focus more on my own standards and spend less time worrying about my perceived standards of the internet. This is liberating in a couple of ways. First, there’s less pressure to measure up to some indeterminate standard that I can’t even define in the first place. And I don’t need to know all of these things to adequately present my own dancing. I focus on fusion – I can be a really, really good fusion dancer and never be confident improvising a double cane saidi number, or describing the five most influential costume designers in 1967. So I can let go of having to know everything.
If for some reason you haven’t watched this, go do it now!
Secondly, I’m learning to trust my own judgment. Have you seen that Ira Glass video where he talks about the process of becoming an artist? He mentions that when people start out, they are disappointed with their work because they have great taste, but not yet the skills to match it. Reminding myself that I have good taste – that if I create something I personally like there’s good chance that it IS good – is remarkably empowering. It also means I can depend on myself for my own improvement. I can trust my own self-criticism, and use it keep learning. And particularly to use self-criticism to learn instead of letting it turn me into a melodramatic ball of “I’m terrible, I can’t do anything right, why meeeeeee??” The latter isn’t very productive.
The moral of this story? Think about what your dance is about. Watch those practice videos.
Trust yourself.
(Special thanks go to my 8 Elements practice group and the Initiates facebook group for your insightful comments that helped me think about these things. )
