Carolena on dancing bodies
I was reading this interview with Carolena Nericcio of FCBD, and found this comment interesting:
I like teaching more than performing. I have the best job in the world. I get to see beautiful women five days a week. I watch them change out of their street clothes and transform in front of the mirror. How many people would pay money to do what I get paid to do! To me, it isn't sexual at all -- it's fascinating, like reading psychology. I watch how people walk, their posture and body language, how they approach me -- if they approach me -- and how they relate to others. I can really tell who they are and what their history is. I see things they don't see. They often say one thing, but their bodies say another. And when they start to dance, I can always tell where their body confidences and traumas are. I can see it, and some of them never let go of it. Some insist on keeping that trauma forever. Ironically, when it comes to their dancing, the confidence can stand in the way more than the traumas.
I am fascinated by the bodies they choose to have. I freak some people out because my body is so muscular and lean, but that's just my personal preference. That's not my message to the world that every body's supposed to look like that. I really appreciate people's natural bodies. And I get to work with them.
Mira Zussman "Far from the pink chiffon: reshaping erotic bellydance - interview with Carolena Nericcio - Interview". Whole Earth Review. FindArticles.com. 17 Sep, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n85/ai_16816228/
I think this is very true, and it's one of the things I like about teaching dance too. Body language is such a revealing thing, and dance heightens that. Watching a fellow dancer (student, troupemate, whatever) grow over time is fascinating and wonderful; in some cases, I've been lucky enough to watch dancers progress from their first timid, stiff attempts to hold posture, into confident, graceful, inspired performers, and it's interesting how often that progression aligns with similar changes in their personal lives. And while it's always clear that the two are intwined, it's never clear whether it's the dance growth that stimulates the personal growth, or vice versa, or both, or if they're just two fungal cultures growing in the same petri dish. But that's not really the point. The identification of the catalyst doesn't matter so much as the action it brings forth.
Speaking of action, I find Carolena's language about choice kind of fascinating too. Choosing to keep or release trauma, choosing a certain body/type/modification. I think she means this both on a literal, mundane level (philosophies and lifestyle choices that affect fitness and/or body makeup, body decoration, personal style) and on a more cosmic woo-woo level (our soul or spirit or essence or whatever has chosen this particular body for this life, has gone through such-and-such experiences to perhaps learn some lesson in this life that wasn't learned in the past.) It's easy to initially bristle at this notion and negative implications that it could carry (are you saying someone chooses to have a debilitating physical condition, or to undergo traumatic experiences?!), but what is striking to me is the way she views the bodies and experiences we all wear as choices, but isn't passing judgment on those choices. Rather, she's acknowledging the dancer, the person, as the totality of all of her choices, in relation to each other. It's a very compassionate, yet elegantly simple, approach. Which makes me think back to prosewitch's eloquently stated idea about passion as interaction and engagement: that we have passion with people/activities/causes, not simply for or toward; that we're not agents acting on passive objects, or even agents acting on each other, but all engaged in dialogue and cooperative influence.
So every dancer (or person, for that matter) is engaged in a dialogue with all of her choices and experiences, whether she's dancing or not. And when we dance together, we're engaged with all of our choices and all of our influences.
I like teaching more than performing. I have the best job in the world. I get to see beautiful women five days a week. I watch them change out of their street clothes and transform in front of the mirror. How many people would pay money to do what I get paid to do! To me, it isn't sexual at all -- it's fascinating, like reading psychology. I watch how people walk, their posture and body language, how they approach me -- if they approach me -- and how they relate to others. I can really tell who they are and what their history is. I see things they don't see. They often say one thing, but their bodies say another. And when they start to dance, I can always tell where their body confidences and traumas are. I can see it, and some of them never let go of it. Some insist on keeping that trauma forever. Ironically, when it comes to their dancing, the confidence can stand in the way more than the traumas.
I am fascinated by the bodies they choose to have. I freak some people out because my body is so muscular and lean, but that's just my personal preference. That's not my message to the world that every body's supposed to look like that. I really appreciate people's natural bodies. And I get to work with them.
Mira Zussman "Far from the pink chiffon: reshaping erotic bellydance - interview with Carolena Nericcio - Interview". Whole Earth Review. FindArticles.com. 17 Sep, 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n85/ai_16816228/
I think this is very true, and it's one of the things I like about teaching dance too. Body language is such a revealing thing, and dance heightens that. Watching a fellow dancer (student, troupemate, whatever) grow over time is fascinating and wonderful; in some cases, I've been lucky enough to watch dancers progress from their first timid, stiff attempts to hold posture, into confident, graceful, inspired performers, and it's interesting how often that progression aligns with similar changes in their personal lives. And while it's always clear that the two are intwined, it's never clear whether it's the dance growth that stimulates the personal growth, or vice versa, or both, or if they're just two fungal cultures growing in the same petri dish. But that's not really the point. The identification of the catalyst doesn't matter so much as the action it brings forth.
Speaking of action, I find Carolena's language about choice kind of fascinating too. Choosing to keep or release trauma, choosing a certain body/type/modification. I think she means this both on a literal, mundane level (philosophies and lifestyle choices that affect fitness and/or body makeup, body decoration, personal style) and on a more cosmic woo-woo level (our soul or spirit or essence or whatever has chosen this particular body for this life, has gone through such-and-such experiences to perhaps learn some lesson in this life that wasn't learned in the past.) It's easy to initially bristle at this notion and negative implications that it could carry (are you saying someone chooses to have a debilitating physical condition, or to undergo traumatic experiences?!), but what is striking to me is the way she views the bodies and experiences we all wear as choices, but isn't passing judgment on those choices. Rather, she's acknowledging the dancer, the person, as the totality of all of her choices, in relation to each other. It's a very compassionate, yet elegantly simple, approach. Which makes me think back to prosewitch's eloquently stated idea about passion as interaction and engagement: that we have passion with people/activities/causes, not simply for or toward; that we're not agents acting on passive objects, or even agents acting on each other, but all engaged in dialogue and cooperative influence.
So every dancer (or person, for that matter) is engaged in a dialogue with all of her choices and experiences, whether she's dancing or not. And when we dance together, we're engaged with all of our choices and all of our influences.