Here are notes I made, while improvising with zils (May 14 practice session):
"Letting the zils 'talk' is training my neurology--it inspires movement I remember from childhood that improves balance."
What do I mean by letting the zils "talk"?
I bought the cheapest possible pair of zils in order to practice with them in those little bits and bobs of time that crop up in a normal day. Usually, unless I'm in the car, I don't have the privacy. Sometimes I practice specific rhythms: "Doum doum BEK BEK doum BEK-BEK, BEK, BEK-BEK" is my most common one. Sometimes I start a series of straight quarternotes on one hand and then insert a third note between them using the other hand, at increasing frequencies until it sounds like ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling. Or any regular rhythmic pattern I want to try to stick to. It's very difficult not to speed up once I get a rhythm going, and go faster and faster. Or I get bored and start improvising, clattering the zils around any old way with all the precision of a child finger-painting, just for the love of the noise. My zils are nice and loud in the closed car. My theory is, in real-world dancing with zils, the zils had better be automatic. I can currently keep track of only one movement at a time, whether I'm walking to the car with my keys in my hand, pulling weeds, or doing the dishes. Dancing involves layers of interrelated movements. If I think about my movement, I mess up. If I think about the music, I can move rhythmically, but not expertly. So, I want every type of movement, however simple or complex, to be automatic. I want to think about the music and have the movement take over. I want it to move from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system. What I'm doing, really, is training my neurology. I'm taking advantage of neuroplasticity to install a brain upgrade, using music and motion--linked together so deeply as to be unconscious--as the program or operating system.
So there I am, dinging away. It takes a lot of discipline to practice the zils. It takes no discipline to play with the zils.
Sometimes, for fun, I just play with the zils without thinking about it. At this particular practice, I was focusing on stretches, and I let the zils play around while I focused on balance. I call this letting the zils "talk". It feels like the zils are communicating with me, maybe praising God or just chirping like birds or blowing off their own steam, not mine. I noticed that if I switched from concentrating on my movement to listening passively to the zils, my movement changed.
I have a very strong will. My will is so strong, it has transcended my body during athletic performance or even during routine workouts. My will is so strong, I have injured myself.
So I hung up my will and just listened, a passive observer of the dialog my body and my zils developed.
The motions I was making felt familiar. They reminded me of yoga, except I was constantly moving, and they reminded me of tai chi, except that the moves were a bit faster than tai chi. I wasn't deliberately raising and moving my chi around. I wasn't deliberately lining up asanas and settling into them. I was just along for the ride.
The motions were the leadups to cartwheels and handstands.
The zils were calling forth from my body, swinging repetitive movements that recapitulated my favorite vigorous exercise from early childhood.
I used to do handstands all the time. I used to do cartwheels and roundoffs. Before I got too heavy and stiff I was basically upside down as often as I could arrange it, unless I was in school or reading a book. These motions required upperbody strength, balance, and an inner springiness htat connected all of my long bones and connective tissue into a lengthening process, like snapping tent poles together. The impact on my hands and then my feet and then my hands again strengthened all my joints and bounced my internal organs into perfect alignment. I haven't done these moves since puberty, but when I moved with my brain off the hook, and moved, and moved and moved, the movements resurfaced. I didn't decide to do them. They reemerged. They reasserted themselves.
Everything about my body that I believe in as heavy, clumsy, bulky, unweildy, pain-wracked, etc, took about fifteen minutes to slough off. All the illness, moral or physical, is to my vigorous self as fallen leaves are to a rock. A gentle wind blew it away.
It's not a great metaphor, because here I am sitting on my butt typing as a rest from doing the dishes. But it gave me hope. Even my bones have bones that determine their strength and structure, and those bone-bones are neurological. They are still in there, and they are still sound.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Traditional garb from various historical cultures from Utratim
http://home.earthlink.net/~lilinah/Library/MEMyths.html
This is a great article. It was assembled/written by Urtatim of the SCA. Urtatim is emphasizing that there are plenty of sources, visual references, etc. to establish what people wore in their place and time...during which they danced. If the goal is "historical accuracy" then this is a great resource.
If I decide to dance in an SCA context, I would choose my favorite kind of dance first, figure out who was doing it, and dress like them. OR I would choose a persona and throw a hip scarf over the kirtle. :-) Nevertheless I'm pinning looks on a couple of pinterest boards: Belly dance, and SCA belly dance looks. It's REALLY fun. :-) The appeal for me is to have all these juxtapositions of stuff I like: mirrors and velvet and embroidery and coins. Since I'm just dreaming, I can dream that I have EVERY kind of costume. Just as I imagine that I will learn EVERY kind of dance.
This is a great article. It was assembled/written by Urtatim of the SCA. Urtatim is emphasizing that there are plenty of sources, visual references, etc. to establish what people wore in their place and time...during which they danced. If the goal is "historical accuracy" then this is a great resource.
If I decide to dance in an SCA context, I would choose my favorite kind of dance first, figure out who was doing it, and dress like them. OR I would choose a persona and throw a hip scarf over the kirtle. :-) Nevertheless I'm pinning looks on a couple of pinterest boards: Belly dance, and SCA belly dance looks. It's REALLY fun. :-) The appeal for me is to have all these juxtapositions of stuff I like: mirrors and velvet and embroidery and coins. Since I'm just dreaming, I can dream that I have EVERY kind of costume. Just as I imagine that I will learn EVERY kind of dance.
From "Middle Eastern Dance as known in the SCA" .pdf file
I first took an interest in bellydance, or rather, Middle Eastern (folkloric) dance, as an activity in the SCA. We arranged a few lessons, and I learned a bit of isolation and the names of some of the moves. That was in the 70's. Now I'm sure that like everything else in the SCA, it's a much bigger deal. Better researched, more thoroughly articulated, with a format for teaching and network and some accountability and some awards.
I'm not in the SCA now, but I bet that would be a fun source of fellowship and instruction in this area. Pinterest alone is a rich source of imagery and inspiration. I don't have time or money right now but SOME DAY.... :-)
I like the .pdf file I found because it contains a thumbnail analysis of different ethnic styles. For what it's worth, I share it here. Accreditation is at the bottom.
Here's the link:
http://www.eithni.com/ASEncyclopedia/middle_eastern_dance.pdf
And below is the cut and pasted content:
Middle Eastern Dance as known in the SCA, encompasses many cultures. For this brief SCA
orientated outline, Middle Eastern will include ar
eas from Egypt to India, Kazakhstan to Yemen.
History:
“Dance is found among all men whether in primitive or
advanced societies. Its functions vary in
these societies from religious to pure entertainmen
t. So in all probability
dance goes back as far
as man himself” (Massey, 1999)
Through statuary and written reco
rd, the performance of dance can
be traced through century and
millennium in temples, courts and countryside. It
was used as an entertainment, storytelling, and
religious media.
One of the golden ages of court dance occurred in the 16
th
century. Dancers from cultures
connected by the Silk Road performed and shared
their dance styles under
the patronage of the
Mughal rulers.
Much of the dances were lost during Muslim, British, and Islamic rule/occupation. Dancing was
viewed as unseemly and forbidden or driven und
erground with vestiges only found in brothels.
In the early 20
th
century, traditional dance began its resurgence, becoming a channel for cultural
identity. Much of the dance had to be ‘rei
nvented’ and adapted to modern and European
patronage. As example, Persian
and Uzbekistan incorporated ba
llet, while Egyptian and Turkish
became ‘cabaret’.
The SCA has further adapted these cultural styles
into the improvisational
dance that occurs at
camping events around campfires to the sounds of
drums – and sometimes melodic instruments.
Performances venues for dance in the SCA are t
ypically limited to feast and some specific
bardic/performance events.
Basic Materials:
Garb – dress appropriate to the cu
lture your dance style is based, i.
e., try not to wear Indian and
dance Egyptian. A dancer’s garb choices also
tend to change based on kingdom and climate.
Other additions:
Hip-scarves/coin belts – a modern adoption th
at helps draw attention to your movements
Zills/finger chimes – fun if
you are skilled, but show consid
eration of your dance neighbor
Ghungurus/ankle bells – an Indian accessory, used
more for performance than dance circles
Basic Technique:
Unless specified otherwise, most dance styles
taught and seen around cam
pfires is American
Cabaret or California Tribal, what most people thi
nk of when they hear ‘Belly Dance’. Both are
modern American interpreta
tions of classical Egyptian.
Some Period Dance Styles:
Egyptian
sharp or undulating hip, torso, and shoulder movements
‘shimming’ or fast shaking of hips and shoulders
Turkish
similar to Egyptian, but utilizes more
hops/jumps and increased hip isolation.
Persian
Focus is on intricate, graceful arm and hand motions
Little motion in hips, some soft swaying is used
Soft foot work with pirouettes on toes
Indian
Smooth transition between precise body, hand, ar
m, and eye postures, each symbolizing a
specific storytelling element.
South Indian tends to be more sensual while
North focuses on percussive foot work and
pirouettes on heals.
Glossary – Terms are highly variable based
on style. Some common to SCA dancing:
Dance or Drum circle: a gather
ing of drummers and dancers j
oyfully sharing improvisational
music and movement. Most rhythms and
scales are Middle Ea
stern in origin.
Hafla – a Middle Eastern Party
Sources for info:
Dance, like any physical discipline can only
be truly understood by
personal teaching.
My recommendation is to research local dance st
udios and find one that
suits your interest and
style preference. Egyptian is the easiest to fi
nd, and most adaptable to the SCA dance circle
venue. Other dance styles can be more elusive
to track down and open to
new students, but it is
well worth the effort.
Reginald Massey, India’s Kathak Dance: Past
Present and Future, Abhinav Pub. New Delhi,
India. 1999. ISBN 81-7017-374-4. (Great book if you ar
e interested in Kathak and origins of
Indian Dance)
http://www.uzbekdance.org/
- good description of the blending
that occurred on
the Silk Road
http://www.jawaahir.org/index.htm
- site has wonderful info and links to Egyptian sites
http://artira.com/nimaki
ann/history/history.htm
- great history of Persian Dance
And like most SCA research - examina
tion of period paintings and sculpture
Contact info: Eleanor de Bo
lton, Andrea Zigler. 952-239-7959
(an Outlands bred dancer)
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Reading back over previous posts, I notice a theme. Control of the body. I won't get started on the encyclopedia we could all write about issues related to control of the body. I won't even narrow it down to issues related to control of my body--none of those issues are happy.
I only want to write about my control of my body, which I hope will exist someday.
I only want to write about my current non-ability to dance, and the obstacles to developing ability. The obstacles are about control.
We see from watching successful bellydancers that they beautifully control the motion of their bodies. To analyze the different ways is to separate them and then not do them justice. But let's try.
Isolations. Conspicuous and awe-inspiring. Defining of the form because recognizable. Really, really hard to do. When I took up bellydance as a young adult (old teen?) in the seventies (must've been old teen if it was that long ago) I was unusally good at isolations. Now I can barely move my parts at all, even in normal ways. What can I say, it was a tough decade. It's been a tough marriage, in terms of my health. There've been, as we say, up and downs. :-) I'm working on a few isolations. It's a game of millimeters.
Undulations. How beautiful is a belly roll? I could do it once. I can sort of do it. You know how I learned? Deep focus, deep deep focus and hours of meticulous attention. I no longer have focus or attention. More about that later.
Shimmies, flutters, and vibrations. Wow. Maybe someday. I have never been able to do this, but I have come to believe I can master anything if I ask God to help me, dedicate the time and focus, and disregard all the perfectly valid reasons why I'll never be able to do it.
Stamina. Can we talk about how hard it is to assume a bellydancing stance? It used to be easy. Here's what really happened in a 24-hour Nautilus in San Francisco in about 1988. There I was, with my knees slightly bent and my weight on toes but my heels were still on the floor, and my butt was tucked under and my chest was lifted and my back was straight and my arms were relaxed and I had some small weights in my hands because I was about to do some curls. Easy, right? I was an actor then; posture was easy. "How do you do that?" said the jaw-dropped buff guy who was lifting heavy, heavy, heavy items repeatedly. "Do what?" I hadn't done anything yet. "Stand that way?" "What way?" So began one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me in that weird place, and I've never forgotten it. The guy could not stand there with no weights, with his knees slightly bent. True, my center of gravity was low and his was high. His center of gravity was REALLY heavy because he was a built-up weightlifter. I was a strapping hearty girl, but I had nothing like the weight he had to lift, just by standing upright. To me, standing in the bellydance resting position, not even deeply, was something I could do all day and base a number of movements upon. He was shuddering like a winter Dodge within seconds. He could do it AT ALL. Recovering my ability to stand that way is goal one. I can do it for a short time. I'm more top-heavy now. I have the middle aged characteristics of large, fleshy breasts and heavy, fleshy arms and shoulders and I even have, I have no idea how it got that way, a heavy, fleshy back. I'm as disproportionate in that way as a male weight lifter, but I do not have muscles. This is inert, not active flesh pressing my body down into the ground like a quilt made of stitched-together medicine balls. I have a pinched nerve on the bottom of one foot that is gradually resolving. WebMD says this happens when women wear high heels WHICH I DON"T!!! so unfair! And I carefully manage a pinched nerve in my back that gives me hip pain, and it may or may not have healed. And I got a pinched nerve in my neck from studying too much in the same day, and I have two knees in recovery from various excesses. All this to say, my legitimate, medically-justifiable and generally way fun attempts to be fit-and-healthy since my son was born at age 45 (C-section, but that was EASY compared to the joint issues) has generally caused me increasing levels of damage that take increasingly long periods of time to come back from, without actually building muscle or losing fat. Stamina. I have mental stamina. I have to use it to stand up for more than ten minutes without re-injuring myself. Stamina.
Endurance. This is related to stamina. I feel that stamina gives me the ability to go from standing correctly to moving correctly, and endurance gives me the ability to move for a long time. In order to dance at all I have to move, not just train to hold a pose. But one step at a time. If I can regain the ability to stay in the resting position without collapsing with exhaustion, pinching a nerve, or pulling a muscle, then I can regain the ability to do rest while moving my eyes, head, or arms in a controlled and graceful fashion. In a separate but related story, I can regain the ability to do the Egyptian travelling step.
Combinations. This brings me to combinations. Can I walk and chew gum at the same time? Not currently. But if I get really good at both I might be able to do them both at once.
Routines. I took a dance class once. I could never remember more than four beats of moves--and I'm really smart people! But I'm smart sitting down, with a book or a laptop. I'm a textbook case of book smart. I'm not body smart. I can't switch a move from one side to the other without forgetting it. I can't follow the teacher's example. I can't follow a yoga DVD without keeping my eyes trained on the paused screen, which means I can't do poses that require a different head position or a movement. In short, I was terrible at dance class. I once danced well at a club, when no one was watching, by slipping out onto the curb where it was cooler and no one was paying attention to me. I had at one time been known for sneaking into the lobby at church so I could dance to the worship music. What made me "successful"--if by success you mean I could express the music gracefully-- was that I wasn't trying to do what I was "supposed" to do.
I have had varied success throughout life controlling my body in these ways, but I have lost the abilities through age, immobility, and the injuries that resulted from attempting to combat age and immobility through prescribed channels. I would like to reassert control over my body in these particular ways. The bar is very high. What fun is a realistic goal? I never work on those, because they bore me. I have achieved unrealistic goals in the past, becasue they aren't boring. The realistic goal is the one you'll work on.
Related to control of the body is control of the mind. I started meditating. It's not going well. More about that later.
I only want to write about my control of my body, which I hope will exist someday.
I only want to write about my current non-ability to dance, and the obstacles to developing ability. The obstacles are about control.
We see from watching successful bellydancers that they beautifully control the motion of their bodies. To analyze the different ways is to separate them and then not do them justice. But let's try.
Isolations. Conspicuous and awe-inspiring. Defining of the form because recognizable. Really, really hard to do. When I took up bellydance as a young adult (old teen?) in the seventies (must've been old teen if it was that long ago) I was unusally good at isolations. Now I can barely move my parts at all, even in normal ways. What can I say, it was a tough decade. It's been a tough marriage, in terms of my health. There've been, as we say, up and downs. :-) I'm working on a few isolations. It's a game of millimeters.
Undulations. How beautiful is a belly roll? I could do it once. I can sort of do it. You know how I learned? Deep focus, deep deep focus and hours of meticulous attention. I no longer have focus or attention. More about that later.
Shimmies, flutters, and vibrations. Wow. Maybe someday. I have never been able to do this, but I have come to believe I can master anything if I ask God to help me, dedicate the time and focus, and disregard all the perfectly valid reasons why I'll never be able to do it.
Stamina. Can we talk about how hard it is to assume a bellydancing stance? It used to be easy. Here's what really happened in a 24-hour Nautilus in San Francisco in about 1988. There I was, with my knees slightly bent and my weight on toes but my heels were still on the floor, and my butt was tucked under and my chest was lifted and my back was straight and my arms were relaxed and I had some small weights in my hands because I was about to do some curls. Easy, right? I was an actor then; posture was easy. "How do you do that?" said the jaw-dropped buff guy who was lifting heavy, heavy, heavy items repeatedly. "Do what?" I hadn't done anything yet. "Stand that way?" "What way?" So began one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me in that weird place, and I've never forgotten it. The guy could not stand there with no weights, with his knees slightly bent. True, my center of gravity was low and his was high. His center of gravity was REALLY heavy because he was a built-up weightlifter. I was a strapping hearty girl, but I had nothing like the weight he had to lift, just by standing upright. To me, standing in the bellydance resting position, not even deeply, was something I could do all day and base a number of movements upon. He was shuddering like a winter Dodge within seconds. He could do it AT ALL. Recovering my ability to stand that way is goal one. I can do it for a short time. I'm more top-heavy now. I have the middle aged characteristics of large, fleshy breasts and heavy, fleshy arms and shoulders and I even have, I have no idea how it got that way, a heavy, fleshy back. I'm as disproportionate in that way as a male weight lifter, but I do not have muscles. This is inert, not active flesh pressing my body down into the ground like a quilt made of stitched-together medicine balls. I have a pinched nerve on the bottom of one foot that is gradually resolving. WebMD says this happens when women wear high heels WHICH I DON"T!!! so unfair! And I carefully manage a pinched nerve in my back that gives me hip pain, and it may or may not have healed. And I got a pinched nerve in my neck from studying too much in the same day, and I have two knees in recovery from various excesses. All this to say, my legitimate, medically-justifiable and generally way fun attempts to be fit-and-healthy since my son was born at age 45 (C-section, but that was EASY compared to the joint issues) has generally caused me increasing levels of damage that take increasingly long periods of time to come back from, without actually building muscle or losing fat. Stamina. I have mental stamina. I have to use it to stand up for more than ten minutes without re-injuring myself. Stamina.
Endurance. This is related to stamina. I feel that stamina gives me the ability to go from standing correctly to moving correctly, and endurance gives me the ability to move for a long time. In order to dance at all I have to move, not just train to hold a pose. But one step at a time. If I can regain the ability to stay in the resting position without collapsing with exhaustion, pinching a nerve, or pulling a muscle, then I can regain the ability to do rest while moving my eyes, head, or arms in a controlled and graceful fashion. In a separate but related story, I can regain the ability to do the Egyptian travelling step.
Combinations. This brings me to combinations. Can I walk and chew gum at the same time? Not currently. But if I get really good at both I might be able to do them both at once.
Routines. I took a dance class once. I could never remember more than four beats of moves--and I'm really smart people! But I'm smart sitting down, with a book or a laptop. I'm a textbook case of book smart. I'm not body smart. I can't switch a move from one side to the other without forgetting it. I can't follow the teacher's example. I can't follow a yoga DVD without keeping my eyes trained on the paused screen, which means I can't do poses that require a different head position or a movement. In short, I was terrible at dance class. I once danced well at a club, when no one was watching, by slipping out onto the curb where it was cooler and no one was paying attention to me. I had at one time been known for sneaking into the lobby at church so I could dance to the worship music. What made me "successful"--if by success you mean I could express the music gracefully-- was that I wasn't trying to do what I was "supposed" to do.
I have had varied success throughout life controlling my body in these ways, but I have lost the abilities through age, immobility, and the injuries that resulted from attempting to combat age and immobility through prescribed channels. I would like to reassert control over my body in these particular ways. The bar is very high. What fun is a realistic goal? I never work on those, because they bore me. I have achieved unrealistic goals in the past, becasue they aren't boring. The realistic goal is the one you'll work on.
Related to control of the body is control of the mind. I started meditating. It's not going well. More about that later.
Here's more on why I dance; specifically, why I bellydance.
Imagine the ages of a person as concentric rings of a tree. The youngest parts of us are still inside of us, and each year or each age, we add another layer to our soul as it gets bigger. The only part we or anyone else can see is the most recent, hence most exterior part. When we see trees we see this year's height achieved, this year's bark. The sapling, even the seedling, is still alive invisible in the tree and it is a real part of the tree. It is not over. None of the rings of the tree are dead; none of them are over; they are all part of the tree. Hence with our subsequent ages. Our inner child is real, and it's still us. It hasn't been superseded by maturity, it has been joined by maturity.
Here's another metaphor: a string of pearls. Time is experienced sequentially. Maybe we experience only one pearl at a time, each pearl being a different age--but there is only one necklace and it's all us and each bead exists all together.
God is the dirt and water and air and sun that inhabit ever cell of the tree in a complicated exchange that unifies the entire tree. Those things were there before the tree and they form the tree out of material and they will be there after the tree is gone. Maybe it's more accurate to say that God is the system of patterns that creates a tree out of all these things...but my point is that God is in every part of the tree and always has been.
God is the string. It exists apart from the pearls and goes through each pearl like an axis and unifies the pearls into one thing.
Now think of different ages. I have been many ages. Each age is alive in me and never died. We're quite a crowd, me and God and all of our ages in this body.
Each age is attracted to bellydance for its own reasons.
I used to be a little girl. I remember spinning and dancing in a new chiffon nightgown that seemed extremely grownup and glamorous to me. I must've been three or four. The nightgown didn't hold up well. As the chiffon shredded I thought the nighgown was getting fancier. Eventually it disappeared from the rotation of available clothes, and I've never forgotten it. I wasn't a sparkle-princess type of little girl, but I probably could have been if Mom had not been frugal and practical. I'm still that girl. I still have that love of swishy clothes and sparkly, jingly bits that make me feel glamorous and special. I have that desire to wear ALL of the necklaces and bracelets at once and clip the earrings all over my hair. I have been known, as an adult, to embellish office clothes with bits of broken jewelry. I have been known to be immoderate, impractical, unfrugal in my presentation. Rarely, but sometimes you just have to make the little girl happy.
I used to be a sexually-magnetic teen. This was not an easy age. I was voracious for attention. I was untrained and therefore unscrupulous in its use when it arrived. I didn't believe it was real, either, and I didnt' credit the suffering around me. I was culturally savvy enough to know that my sexuality was as compelling as it was transgressive, and I formed a symbol of forbidden power to a certain segment of the population. I had already suffered mightily, innocently, ignorantly, and repeated from that segment of the population, and now that I had a clue and their full attention I was not motivated to be gentle. I'm still that girl. I'm still voracious, I'm still angry, and as an older person I'm increasingly voracious and increasingly angry, because my attention has gone. The sexually-magnetic person is still me, and incapable of understanding where the energy went. I have been known to wish for the power and the energy to come back. I want it to come back, because my suffering is still an issue. I have to take responsibility for the reality of rape without the possibility of seduction. It's all downside. I am still that teen and my power still feels new, like a dangerous surprise...but where did it go?
I used to be an actor. Rarely for money. I got good reviews and bad. Preparing a show and getting it on the boards was the reason I got out of bed in the morning (humanly speaking) for about ten years. Even at my age, 54, that's not an insignificant proportion of unforgiving minutes. Looking back, I think the reason I performed had to do with drama's roots in worship mysteries, and also because it gave me the skills and an ethical framework for managing the energy of attention. It's hard to be around a ton of energy, the kind people generate. But if you can learn the skills related to gathering up all that random attention, unifying and directing it, and giving it meaning, that's huge. That makes the world much safer for those vulnerable to energy. I miss being seen by a group and having the ability to direct what they notice, what they think about. I love that they see me, but I love even more that the "me" can represent new meanings in their minds and hearts, so that they are never the same again. And I don't only love the performing part. I also love the preparation, the study, the disciplines surrounding those skills. I love the bouquet of skill-sets that come together as people with different gifts create a performance opportunity, people who advertise, people who know what kind of lights to turn on and when to turn them on, people who help old ladies find the bathroom, people who feed me a lost line. The parade of images and emotions inhabited by actors is a creation of everybody and the audience, not just by the performers. I enjoyed the performing part best but I respected an miss the whole thing. I used ot be an actor--and I'm still an actor. Then I was a driven, obsessed actor and now I'm a frustrated, disappointed actor, but I'm still an actor just as I'm still 29 years old.
I'm a wife and mother. I used to be consumed with family life because when I'm in, I'm all in. I was a symbol of femininity in other people's eyes. I embodied, literally, fertility and nurturance. There are people in the room with me right now whose teeth and bones have substrates formed by my teeth and bones. People ate my fluids. (Were those fluids ever mine? distinctions between whose body is whose get destroyed in pregnancy are not fully restored for years. If bodies are tempered into time, work, and money, the boundaries between body and body are still not restored even though my oldest children are adults.) That symbolism is my body...they are contiguous. One cannot choose whether to be or not to be a symbol of this power. I am an icon and a totem and a fetish and there's nothing I can do about it.
I'm an athlete. Athletes train their bodies. Minds, you can educate in an instant with new info or a new perspective. Hearts, you can stimulate in the same way over and over again until a habit is formed. Bodies, you have to be much more patient. Bodies, especially at later middle-age, take a long time to adjust to tiny changes. Bodies are responsive, but they respond to slow, regular, predictable, gentle, firm, unending, deep, intuitive, wise, loving, persistent motions. Bodies reward us with strength, endurance, outstanding performance that carries us to new identities. Because bodies need to be addressed so slowly, so persistently, so tediously, it becomes a meditative act. Bodies can respond explosively. Bodies can get charged and charged and charged and then detonate, and maybe it's a Strug 10 or maybe it's an orgasm, but either way it has to be worked up to and then recovered from. And it can hit peaks, and the peaks can be hit again later and the peaks can get higher. Slow and meditative or explosively orgasmic, the body has to learn these capacities. The capacities are developed lovingly and have to be kept up. It's time consuming. There's nothing else you'd rather do, and the results are spectacular, but it does mean that someone else will have to change diapers or earn a salary while you work on it. I want that focus and discipline and time and spectacle.
I'm a writer. I'm a student. These are two sides of the same coin. My mind can travel--that's the wrong word--my mind is conducted in the electrical sense to every human place and every human experience and possibility, through words. Some I read and some I write, and some of the words are fact and some are fictional, and both the fact and the fiction are constructs in that they are words but they are discovered revealed and clarified in that their reality transcends words. What does this have to do with dance? I feel--I havent' experienced this but I believe I will--that dance has the same conductive properties. I will both teach and learn by dancing; there's a huge, fascinating, complex history and culture represented by dance that I can't wait to master or try to master. More than that, when I dance, I am with Miriam dancing on the other side of the red sea. I'm with Valmai, who refused to dance at the wrong time for the wrong reason on pain of banishment and possible death. I'm with Salome earning John's head in an accessory to judicial murder. I'm not just reading and learning and teaching about those people, I'm with them and they are with me. Just as I am with Josephine Baker and Rachel Brice and Moe Khansa. There is no death, no fidelity or infidelity, no purdah in dancing. All dancers are on all sides of all the walls and all the fences, in every place and time. The part of me that understands this is the writer and student; it's recent; it's right under the bark, and now that it's a part of me it always will be even after I die.
I don't know what the next layer will be. It might have to do with grief, magic, or other end-of-life issues--although I hope my life is just beginning its second half and not nearing its end. It will be a new thing that is added to the existing things. It won't be a negation or a breakdown or a discontinuance. If I live long enough there will be a new thing after that. All of these rings on the tree, or pearls on the string, are completely separate reasons to bellydance.
I want the fancy costumes with the swish of fabric luxurious against my legs and shininess and jingle. I want to feel excessive and expensive and visual. This is a childish impulse and that is absolutely ok with everyone who's ever worn a jewel or spread a rich tablecloth in order to set a table with china, crystal, silver, flame.
I want to be sexually admired and coveted. Oh well. That's the way it is. Better not lie.
I want to perform in front of others in order to focus their attention on me so I can choose the meaning of their attention and feed it back to them.
I want to embody an archetype and be part of the structure of the human soul.
I want to develop superior physical abilities and assert perfect control over them, in ways that people not dedicated to that discipline cannot develop those abilities and cannot assert that level of control.
I want to master a field of study and be a resource for other students--as a living embodiment of a living community, not as an encyclopedia.
I want to be next whatever is next.
Incredibly, the breath of God breathes through and unites all these sequential, concentric bodies and makes them one body. The breath and the dance is one praise. I have unity with God, with myself, and with all dancers. I dont' understand it.
Imagine the ages of a person as concentric rings of a tree. The youngest parts of us are still inside of us, and each year or each age, we add another layer to our soul as it gets bigger. The only part we or anyone else can see is the most recent, hence most exterior part. When we see trees we see this year's height achieved, this year's bark. The sapling, even the seedling, is still alive invisible in the tree and it is a real part of the tree. It is not over. None of the rings of the tree are dead; none of them are over; they are all part of the tree. Hence with our subsequent ages. Our inner child is real, and it's still us. It hasn't been superseded by maturity, it has been joined by maturity.
Here's another metaphor: a string of pearls. Time is experienced sequentially. Maybe we experience only one pearl at a time, each pearl being a different age--but there is only one necklace and it's all us and each bead exists all together.
God is the dirt and water and air and sun that inhabit ever cell of the tree in a complicated exchange that unifies the entire tree. Those things were there before the tree and they form the tree out of material and they will be there after the tree is gone. Maybe it's more accurate to say that God is the system of patterns that creates a tree out of all these things...but my point is that God is in every part of the tree and always has been.
God is the string. It exists apart from the pearls and goes through each pearl like an axis and unifies the pearls into one thing.
Now think of different ages. I have been many ages. Each age is alive in me and never died. We're quite a crowd, me and God and all of our ages in this body.
Each age is attracted to bellydance for its own reasons.
I used to be a little girl. I remember spinning and dancing in a new chiffon nightgown that seemed extremely grownup and glamorous to me. I must've been three or four. The nightgown didn't hold up well. As the chiffon shredded I thought the nighgown was getting fancier. Eventually it disappeared from the rotation of available clothes, and I've never forgotten it. I wasn't a sparkle-princess type of little girl, but I probably could have been if Mom had not been frugal and practical. I'm still that girl. I still have that love of swishy clothes and sparkly, jingly bits that make me feel glamorous and special. I have that desire to wear ALL of the necklaces and bracelets at once and clip the earrings all over my hair. I have been known, as an adult, to embellish office clothes with bits of broken jewelry. I have been known to be immoderate, impractical, unfrugal in my presentation. Rarely, but sometimes you just have to make the little girl happy.
I used to be a sexually-magnetic teen. This was not an easy age. I was voracious for attention. I was untrained and therefore unscrupulous in its use when it arrived. I didn't believe it was real, either, and I didnt' credit the suffering around me. I was culturally savvy enough to know that my sexuality was as compelling as it was transgressive, and I formed a symbol of forbidden power to a certain segment of the population. I had already suffered mightily, innocently, ignorantly, and repeated from that segment of the population, and now that I had a clue and their full attention I was not motivated to be gentle. I'm still that girl. I'm still voracious, I'm still angry, and as an older person I'm increasingly voracious and increasingly angry, because my attention has gone. The sexually-magnetic person is still me, and incapable of understanding where the energy went. I have been known to wish for the power and the energy to come back. I want it to come back, because my suffering is still an issue. I have to take responsibility for the reality of rape without the possibility of seduction. It's all downside. I am still that teen and my power still feels new, like a dangerous surprise...but where did it go?
I used to be an actor. Rarely for money. I got good reviews and bad. Preparing a show and getting it on the boards was the reason I got out of bed in the morning (humanly speaking) for about ten years. Even at my age, 54, that's not an insignificant proportion of unforgiving minutes. Looking back, I think the reason I performed had to do with drama's roots in worship mysteries, and also because it gave me the skills and an ethical framework for managing the energy of attention. It's hard to be around a ton of energy, the kind people generate. But if you can learn the skills related to gathering up all that random attention, unifying and directing it, and giving it meaning, that's huge. That makes the world much safer for those vulnerable to energy. I miss being seen by a group and having the ability to direct what they notice, what they think about. I love that they see me, but I love even more that the "me" can represent new meanings in their minds and hearts, so that they are never the same again. And I don't only love the performing part. I also love the preparation, the study, the disciplines surrounding those skills. I love the bouquet of skill-sets that come together as people with different gifts create a performance opportunity, people who advertise, people who know what kind of lights to turn on and when to turn them on, people who help old ladies find the bathroom, people who feed me a lost line. The parade of images and emotions inhabited by actors is a creation of everybody and the audience, not just by the performers. I enjoyed the performing part best but I respected an miss the whole thing. I used ot be an actor--and I'm still an actor. Then I was a driven, obsessed actor and now I'm a frustrated, disappointed actor, but I'm still an actor just as I'm still 29 years old.
I'm a wife and mother. I used to be consumed with family life because when I'm in, I'm all in. I was a symbol of femininity in other people's eyes. I embodied, literally, fertility and nurturance. There are people in the room with me right now whose teeth and bones have substrates formed by my teeth and bones. People ate my fluids. (Were those fluids ever mine? distinctions between whose body is whose get destroyed in pregnancy are not fully restored for years. If bodies are tempered into time, work, and money, the boundaries between body and body are still not restored even though my oldest children are adults.) That symbolism is my body...they are contiguous. One cannot choose whether to be or not to be a symbol of this power. I am an icon and a totem and a fetish and there's nothing I can do about it.
I'm an athlete. Athletes train their bodies. Minds, you can educate in an instant with new info or a new perspective. Hearts, you can stimulate in the same way over and over again until a habit is formed. Bodies, you have to be much more patient. Bodies, especially at later middle-age, take a long time to adjust to tiny changes. Bodies are responsive, but they respond to slow, regular, predictable, gentle, firm, unending, deep, intuitive, wise, loving, persistent motions. Bodies reward us with strength, endurance, outstanding performance that carries us to new identities. Because bodies need to be addressed so slowly, so persistently, so tediously, it becomes a meditative act. Bodies can respond explosively. Bodies can get charged and charged and charged and then detonate, and maybe it's a Strug 10 or maybe it's an orgasm, but either way it has to be worked up to and then recovered from. And it can hit peaks, and the peaks can be hit again later and the peaks can get higher. Slow and meditative or explosively orgasmic, the body has to learn these capacities. The capacities are developed lovingly and have to be kept up. It's time consuming. There's nothing else you'd rather do, and the results are spectacular, but it does mean that someone else will have to change diapers or earn a salary while you work on it. I want that focus and discipline and time and spectacle.
I'm a writer. I'm a student. These are two sides of the same coin. My mind can travel--that's the wrong word--my mind is conducted in the electrical sense to every human place and every human experience and possibility, through words. Some I read and some I write, and some of the words are fact and some are fictional, and both the fact and the fiction are constructs in that they are words but they are discovered revealed and clarified in that their reality transcends words. What does this have to do with dance? I feel--I havent' experienced this but I believe I will--that dance has the same conductive properties. I will both teach and learn by dancing; there's a huge, fascinating, complex history and culture represented by dance that I can't wait to master or try to master. More than that, when I dance, I am with Miriam dancing on the other side of the red sea. I'm with Valmai, who refused to dance at the wrong time for the wrong reason on pain of banishment and possible death. I'm with Salome earning John's head in an accessory to judicial murder. I'm not just reading and learning and teaching about those people, I'm with them and they are with me. Just as I am with Josephine Baker and Rachel Brice and Moe Khansa. There is no death, no fidelity or infidelity, no purdah in dancing. All dancers are on all sides of all the walls and all the fences, in every place and time. The part of me that understands this is the writer and student; it's recent; it's right under the bark, and now that it's a part of me it always will be even after I die.
I don't know what the next layer will be. It might have to do with grief, magic, or other end-of-life issues--although I hope my life is just beginning its second half and not nearing its end. It will be a new thing that is added to the existing things. It won't be a negation or a breakdown or a discontinuance. If I live long enough there will be a new thing after that. All of these rings on the tree, or pearls on the string, are completely separate reasons to bellydance.
I want the fancy costumes with the swish of fabric luxurious against my legs and shininess and jingle. I want to feel excessive and expensive and visual. This is a childish impulse and that is absolutely ok with everyone who's ever worn a jewel or spread a rich tablecloth in order to set a table with china, crystal, silver, flame.
I want to be sexually admired and coveted. Oh well. That's the way it is. Better not lie.
I want to perform in front of others in order to focus their attention on me so I can choose the meaning of their attention and feed it back to them.
I want to embody an archetype and be part of the structure of the human soul.
I want to develop superior physical abilities and assert perfect control over them, in ways that people not dedicated to that discipline cannot develop those abilities and cannot assert that level of control.
I want to master a field of study and be a resource for other students--as a living embodiment of a living community, not as an encyclopedia.
I want to be next whatever is next.
Incredibly, the breath of God breathes through and unites all these sequential, concentric bodies and makes them one body. The breath and the dance is one praise. I have unity with God, with myself, and with all dancers. I dont' understand it.
I practice when I have the house to myself. This happens once, maybe twice a week. If I'm alone, I have a shot at living up to the definition stated by Rachel Brice's tattoo: "Practice becomes firmly grounded when continued for a long time, without interruption, and with reverent devotion." It's written in Sanskrit in beautiful organic shapes, like a vine full of flowers climbing the trellis of her hip bone.
Here is the reason I want to dance. (Why do I phrase it that way? I do dance. The gap between the way I dance now, compared to how I want to dance, is big enough that it's hard to define myself as a dancer--even though I dance.) I want the experience of doing something for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
What stops me?
It's hard to do anything for a long time, without interruption. Every parent knows what it's like to have your schedule, and even your ability to think, put through the shredder. I used to mix juice concentrate in a big plastic pitcher. I observed that I would dump in the juice concentrate and get interrupted, then begin filling the pitcher and get interrupted, then continue to fill the pitcher and get interrupted, then finish the pitcher of water and begin stirring the juice. Parenting of small children was time well spent, no time was wasted and it was all important to do--but it did not involve completing even the smallest task in an organized, coherent way. This was my experience of parenting, and it has been recapitulated by our culture of cell phones in private life and email alerts at work.
It's hard to do anything with reverent devotion. There's a book which may be in print called "The Practice of the Presence of God," which is about finding ways to do the simplest, humblest, least dramatic things with reverent devotion, so they can be done for God as an act of worship and have meaning. Things like the dishes. The monk who wrote the book thought of himself as the least talented and the least skilled, so he did a lot of unskilled labor. He was a humble servant of God. He made the dishes into a sacrament, by his ATTITUDE and by his CHOICE OF THOUGHTS.
I have a hard time doing that.
I'm fortunate to have married a man who shares my faith. When one of us is set on "dim", the other of us can help change the setting. Together, we're bright with faith. This has great implications for our sex life. Our sex life is practiced for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion. That's about the only example I can think of for having that type of experience. Even prayer is telegraphic or parcelled out.
I love sex because everyone understands that it's really important, so important you plan vacations around it. So important, no outsider would presume to interrupt it. When you want to have it, you collude to arrange a time and place where you can take the time you need and have a special room for it--conveniently it's usually a bedroom near a bathroom, but it doesn't have to be--and if you have kids and/or little babies, you spend years--YEARS!--inculcating the habit of not banging on that closed door and staging a sit-in outside it because you've been in bed for ten minutes and now you want a drink of water.
Sometimes we practice with reverent devotion and sometimes we just practice.
I imagine somebody somewhere has a special prayer room, or an understanding within the family that if mommy and daddy are praying with the door closed you have to get your own water. Probably these people are monks or nuns--they're married in a different way, and everyone understands that it's about practice.
The people I know in real life who protect time to practice for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion, are athletes and artists. Athletes and artists have more in common when you think, because I'm also both (although not professionally or competitively or even competently). Athletes and artists expand reality by expanding their capacity. The capacity is within their imaginations and bodies. Athletes and artists use discipline and a growing skillset to change their bodies carefully in a way that expands their abilities. To me this is a bigger different between the two groups and those who don't do either of those things, than the difference between the two groups. But artists are creative! Yes, so are athletes. An athlete has to be able to imagine new possibilities and believe in them so vividly that s/he acts upon the possibility and reveals it as real. This is exactly what artists do. But artists are expressive! So are athletes. Look at them! They express their sport or ability on all of our behalves and make it real for us all, just like artists. Michelangelo made a statue of a perfect human form and named it David, and Beckham made a similar one and it's name is Beckham. Both are on display.
The kind of athleticism I have practiced is endurance events like walking and running, with a little cardio and weight training and yoga thrown in. I race because it's more fun to practice with a goal, and I love the applause. I don't care about winning; I care a tiny bit about medals and T-shirts; mostly I care about applause and medals. The kind of art I have practiced is acting, singing, and when that was inconvenient, just plain writing. I've sold some writing but mostly I write to clarify my mind and entertain myself. I don't really write to communicate any more than I run to cross the finish line first. I have done both of these types of activities for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
I do a LOT of church. I'm from a tradition that insists on worshipers practicing alone, because even though it's great to get together, those types of public worship can't be done for a long time or without interruption even if reverent devotion is the goal. Prayers are telegraphic at my church. They aren't ritualistic but they do punctuate rather than carry the content of our worship sentence. Music lasts about fifteen minutes and then there's announcements. Sometimes sex is like that, too. :-) I have fallen asleep during both activities and so has my husband. ;-)
I was impressed by Moe Khansa's quote of (I think) Rumi when he said in his TEDx talk, "Dancers are athletes of God." This, with Rachel Brice's sanskrit tattoo, underline my main goal in taking up dance as a practice. I combine yearnings within myself as one yearning and this yearning is, to train up my body so it can move in worship in a way that is at once passionate, disciplined, and spontaneously responsive. This is what I mean by dance as a practice. The disciplined expansiveness of athleticism, the expressiveness of art, the praise of God, the joy of sex. For a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
Here is the reason I want to dance. (Why do I phrase it that way? I do dance. The gap between the way I dance now, compared to how I want to dance, is big enough that it's hard to define myself as a dancer--even though I dance.) I want the experience of doing something for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
What stops me?
It's hard to do anything for a long time, without interruption. Every parent knows what it's like to have your schedule, and even your ability to think, put through the shredder. I used to mix juice concentrate in a big plastic pitcher. I observed that I would dump in the juice concentrate and get interrupted, then begin filling the pitcher and get interrupted, then continue to fill the pitcher and get interrupted, then finish the pitcher of water and begin stirring the juice. Parenting of small children was time well spent, no time was wasted and it was all important to do--but it did not involve completing even the smallest task in an organized, coherent way. This was my experience of parenting, and it has been recapitulated by our culture of cell phones in private life and email alerts at work.
It's hard to do anything with reverent devotion. There's a book which may be in print called "The Practice of the Presence of God," which is about finding ways to do the simplest, humblest, least dramatic things with reverent devotion, so they can be done for God as an act of worship and have meaning. Things like the dishes. The monk who wrote the book thought of himself as the least talented and the least skilled, so he did a lot of unskilled labor. He was a humble servant of God. He made the dishes into a sacrament, by his ATTITUDE and by his CHOICE OF THOUGHTS.
I have a hard time doing that.
I'm fortunate to have married a man who shares my faith. When one of us is set on "dim", the other of us can help change the setting. Together, we're bright with faith. This has great implications for our sex life. Our sex life is practiced for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion. That's about the only example I can think of for having that type of experience. Even prayer is telegraphic or parcelled out.
I love sex because everyone understands that it's really important, so important you plan vacations around it. So important, no outsider would presume to interrupt it. When you want to have it, you collude to arrange a time and place where you can take the time you need and have a special room for it--conveniently it's usually a bedroom near a bathroom, but it doesn't have to be--and if you have kids and/or little babies, you spend years--YEARS!--inculcating the habit of not banging on that closed door and staging a sit-in outside it because you've been in bed for ten minutes and now you want a drink of water.
Sometimes we practice with reverent devotion and sometimes we just practice.
I imagine somebody somewhere has a special prayer room, or an understanding within the family that if mommy and daddy are praying with the door closed you have to get your own water. Probably these people are monks or nuns--they're married in a different way, and everyone understands that it's about practice.
The people I know in real life who protect time to practice for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion, are athletes and artists. Athletes and artists have more in common when you think, because I'm also both (although not professionally or competitively or even competently). Athletes and artists expand reality by expanding their capacity. The capacity is within their imaginations and bodies. Athletes and artists use discipline and a growing skillset to change their bodies carefully in a way that expands their abilities. To me this is a bigger different between the two groups and those who don't do either of those things, than the difference between the two groups. But artists are creative! Yes, so are athletes. An athlete has to be able to imagine new possibilities and believe in them so vividly that s/he acts upon the possibility and reveals it as real. This is exactly what artists do. But artists are expressive! So are athletes. Look at them! They express their sport or ability on all of our behalves and make it real for us all, just like artists. Michelangelo made a statue of a perfect human form and named it David, and Beckham made a similar one and it's name is Beckham. Both are on display.
The kind of athleticism I have practiced is endurance events like walking and running, with a little cardio and weight training and yoga thrown in. I race because it's more fun to practice with a goal, and I love the applause. I don't care about winning; I care a tiny bit about medals and T-shirts; mostly I care about applause and medals. The kind of art I have practiced is acting, singing, and when that was inconvenient, just plain writing. I've sold some writing but mostly I write to clarify my mind and entertain myself. I don't really write to communicate any more than I run to cross the finish line first. I have done both of these types of activities for a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
I do a LOT of church. I'm from a tradition that insists on worshipers practicing alone, because even though it's great to get together, those types of public worship can't be done for a long time or without interruption even if reverent devotion is the goal. Prayers are telegraphic at my church. They aren't ritualistic but they do punctuate rather than carry the content of our worship sentence. Music lasts about fifteen minutes and then there's announcements. Sometimes sex is like that, too. :-) I have fallen asleep during both activities and so has my husband. ;-)
I was impressed by Moe Khansa's quote of (I think) Rumi when he said in his TEDx talk, "Dancers are athletes of God." This, with Rachel Brice's sanskrit tattoo, underline my main goal in taking up dance as a practice. I combine yearnings within myself as one yearning and this yearning is, to train up my body so it can move in worship in a way that is at once passionate, disciplined, and spontaneously responsive. This is what I mean by dance as a practice. The disciplined expansiveness of athleticism, the expressiveness of art, the praise of God, the joy of sex. For a long time, without interruption, with reverent devotion.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Coin Maidens: The Women of Ouled Nail
The women of Ouled Nail deserve an opera, or a movie, or a novel, or at least web series. What are people watching nowadays?
Their tribe is from the country, but the girls move to the city to work the streets. They aren't prostitutes, they're buskers, and they dance for money from passersby, hoping to raise enough to go home with a dowry so they can get married.
Some girls work the streets for years. People don't get it, although tourists love it. I would like to show a range of participants' attitudes, through a show about them. It would be like Stage Door, or Fame. Definitely a show biz movie, not a National Geographic type documentary with Orientalist goals. No, a show biz movie, because these dames are tough, scrappy artists living on the edge. Like in Rent, or a Chorus Line, or There's No Business Like Show Business. More Ethel Merman than Mata Hari
The girls, aged 12-15, go off in a cohort to the big city, with stars in their eyes. One is only ten, biologically too young, but of all the girls she's the only one doing it for love of dance so she stows away. Maybe her mother is a Christian convert who has come to believe that dancing is wrong, so the young girl gets away while she can.
Another girl, aged 12, is her best friend and maybe cousin. She's scared to go, but she has to. She would like to just skip right to the happy family life and skip the scary part where you live in the city among strangers, dodging rapists and robbers. She's the character that represents that this is a rite-of-passage that must be faced; it's an ordeal in the technical, anthropological sense.
Another girl is 13. She's plucky, she loves adventure. She doesn't question things.
Another girl is 14. She's not interested in earning money to get married. She's interested in earning money and staying in the city. She wants a modern life with TV and the Internet.
Another girl is 15. She already knows who she wants to marry, and she would like to do this ASAP. She and her crush have an understanding that she will dance as well and as fast as she can, so she can get rich quickly. Her unrealistic plan is to be home in a year.
At the end of Act 1, the girls arrive at the city.
Their tribe is from the country, but the girls move to the city to work the streets. They aren't prostitutes, they're buskers, and they dance for money from passersby, hoping to raise enough to go home with a dowry so they can get married.
Some girls work the streets for years. People don't get it, although tourists love it. I would like to show a range of participants' attitudes, through a show about them. It would be like Stage Door, or Fame. Definitely a show biz movie, not a National Geographic type documentary with Orientalist goals. No, a show biz movie, because these dames are tough, scrappy artists living on the edge. Like in Rent, or a Chorus Line, or There's No Business Like Show Business. More Ethel Merman than Mata Hari
The girls, aged 12-15, go off in a cohort to the big city, with stars in their eyes. One is only ten, biologically too young, but of all the girls she's the only one doing it for love of dance so she stows away. Maybe her mother is a Christian convert who has come to believe that dancing is wrong, so the young girl gets away while she can.
Another girl, aged 12, is her best friend and maybe cousin. She's scared to go, but she has to. She would like to just skip right to the happy family life and skip the scary part where you live in the city among strangers, dodging rapists and robbers. She's the character that represents that this is a rite-of-passage that must be faced; it's an ordeal in the technical, anthropological sense.
Another girl is 13. She's plucky, she loves adventure. She doesn't question things.
Another girl is 14. She's not interested in earning money to get married. She's interested in earning money and staying in the city. She wants a modern life with TV and the Internet.
Another girl is 15. She already knows who she wants to marry, and she would like to do this ASAP. She and her crush have an understanding that she will dance as well and as fast as she can, so she can get rich quickly. Her unrealistic plan is to be home in a year.
At the end of Act 1, the girls arrive at the city.
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