Goddess Dance
By Callimachus | Related entries in Kitchen Sink
My beautiful wife took a day-long performance seminar Saturday in Philadelphia with Ansuya, one of the undisputed superstars of modern American belly-dance. She reports Ansuya “worked our butts off,” but was completely involved, down-to-earth, open to every question. At the end of it all, wife said, “I think she’s my new hero.”
After the seminar we went to dinner at a great Irish place that had Belgian beer on tap (go figure), then returned for a performance concert. About a dozen belly-dancers got up and did their thing, one by one. Some were entertaining, some had skills. All of them were moving to music. Sometimes they wrapped themselves up in the performance so tightly it felt like voyeurism to be watching them. Other times they were chasing the music around the room.
Then, at the end, Ansuya came out. She cued the tape, and the music swelled and she just lit up, improvising every move. I have seen nothing so stunning and powerful in decades. She wasn’t a dancer, and it wasn’t music. She was an elemental force that pulled music into her body and merged both into something more than human. And she radiated into the room, even when her eyes were closed, and she drew the room’s energy into herself, too, so that for the first time in the evening I found my foot stomping, my hands clapping.
Her face was full serene. She didn’t even break a sweat. Yet every moment of her performance she was working two or three different isolation movements together — hip rotations and shoulder shimmies and arm motions, all at once, any one of which would have taxed the abilities of most dancers — and in each moment she was not only full on moving the music, she was in transition to the next set of movements.
She put the zills to work, and for the first time in a live performance, I understood zills. She wasn’t just clacking along to the music but she layered something over top of it all, like a soprano saxophone jazz riff dancing on top of a pounding melody, like butterflies drawn to the unfolding rose of the dance.
Layer upon layer of ability spun up like non-stop sensual lightning from the supple body of one woman. When I was a sportswriter, I got to see athletes at the peak of their game. Gretzky, for instance. They didn’t just perform well, they made things happen. They controlled a space and everyone in it, with a perfect flow of mental-into-physical energy. They owned their muscle and bone and their skill, and they took that ownership and projected it into everyone around them. So did Ansuya.
You don’t forget those moments, when you see them. They’re times you lie awake and what you saw plays over in your head and you think, is that really a mortal quality? Is there any way to produce that out of the same stuff that I’m made from?
This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2005 and is filed under Kitchen Sink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 12th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Love the post. Belly dancing is truly becoming a lost art and I hope we more interest in it.
A few things…
What are zills?
I don’t know. A newspaper man shaking his hips? However hilarious that may be, I’d love to see it. ;-)
September 12th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
Zills are finger cymbals.
Well, I was thinking more of doing what Gretzky did than what she did. What I considered saying in my post — but didn’t because it would get me flamed, would go like this:
That’s one reason that, though men do it, it doesn’t really look right.
September 12th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
Personally, I don’t think that pointing out the physical/athletic gap between men and women is anything too controversial. Otherwise, men and women wouldn’t be competing against each other in the Olympics.
To that point, belly-dancing is certainly a female domain. And from those I’ve heard who have tired it, the physical exertion is intense and painful at first. The art flexes muscles that most women have never even knew existed. Also, personally, although men do partake in this art, it certainly seems like a low center of gravity is much more conducive to high art.
One thing’s for sure, if Ansuya ever comes to KCMO I’m definitely going.
September 13th, 2005 at 8:02 am
Justin,
The Bellydance Superstars – a tour of the best dancers in the country (which Ansuya had been a part of up until very recently) – will be in Kansas City, KS and St. Louis, MO in March 2006.
Even though Ansuya likely won’t be there (she’s taking a very well-deserved break), you will still see some of the best bellydancing to be had in this country. I envy anyone who has the opportunity to catch their show!
September 14th, 2005 at 5:58 am
Thank you for this post; I’m a bellydancer and a Bellydancer Superstars fan, and it’s refreshing to see you (someone whose posts I respect) write so beautifully about the art. I get so many odd and sometimes unpleasant looks from people when it comes up that I’m a bellydancer, and I’m glad to see when people have a more accurate and positive idea of what it’s about.
Personally, Rachel Brice is my favorite of the Superstars. If you get a chance to see her, take it. She’s got a very different style from Ansuya, but she’s no less powerful a dancer, and she has the same ability to absorb the music and radiate it into the room and the audience.
And I’d just like to correct the idea that bellydancing isn’t for men. In some of the Middle Eastern cultures, you’ll see men dancing just as much as the women. Here in this country, it’s hard to find many male dancers, but there are some, and many of them are *amazing*. I’ve heard great things about Jim Boz, and Tarik is a very well-known male dancer and teacher. I recommend reading his essay on the subject here. This is also a good collection of information.
If you want more information or have questions, feel free to ask. As my S.O. says, I’m obsessed with this stuff, and there are a lot of good online resources for information out there. Thanks again for posting this. :)
September 14th, 2005 at 5:59 am
Hm. I linked to the wrong Tarik essay. This is the one I really meant.
September 14th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
Kala, thanks for the kind words! Your site looks great. Hope we can get down to see your troupe perform sometime.
You’re right about Rachel Brice. She’s jaw-droppingly good, and she’s one of those rare people in history who has actually pushed an existing art into new territory. My wife has learned a lot from her arm movements, and Amy’s “natural” style is probably closer to Rachel than Ansuya.
Rachel also is, from everything I’ve heard, a totally down-to-earth personality.
September 14th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Oh, absolutely, I love Rachel Brice’s arm movements and muscular control. She’s also got such a great presence on stage: a bit aloof and serene, but with an occasional grin or goofy audience interaction that shows she’s having fun and has a great sense of humor.
Sounds like your wife is a great dancer; I wish I could see her sometime. I hope she also appreciates how lucky she is to have a husband who appreciates the artform. :) My boyfriend seems to like my dancing, but I’d fall off my chair if I read a post from him like this one of yours. He *was* very impressed with Rachel when I dragged him to D.C. to see her dance in person, and said so, which was a happy surprise.
Send Amy down sometime and we’ll throw a hafla. ;) Have you ever thought about drumming?