On This Day 23 Years Ago: December 20
Nadhra: Rise... Fall... Phoenix.
NADHRA
October 2000
27 years old
After my final bows and adieus, she calls me over to her table in this Moroccan restaurant so she can place a folded bill directly into my hands. When I reach to take it, dipping my head in gratitude, I’m shocked to see that it’s a $20 bill.
Both her hands close tightly over mine. “Just lovely,” she says in that gorgeous accent I’ve been admiring all night. She and her family actually are Moroccan, so to have impressed them this much is astounding to me. She squeezes more tightly as she asks, “What is your name, dear?”
Since we ‘Merican belly dancers with our ‘Merican names do not wish to axe-chop the ambience our restaurant has worked so hard to deliver with its entire ceiling draped in billowing fabric and all the tables set low near the floor amidst piles of cushions (and because we paranoid fighter chicks have had stalkers in the past), I never go without a dance-name. My first one was given to me by the owners of the first restaurant I ever danced at.
They called me Kismet.
But that seems a lifetime away, and I no longer dance at a Greek restaurant, so tonight I answer with the stage name I’ve been using since I moved to Colorado. A few of my older dance mentors helped me pick it out. “Nadhra,” I say.
Her eyes brighten. “Ah… ‘The one who has made a vow.’”
I blink in interest. I had always thought it meant “rare” or “unique,” and I had warmed to the suggestion of it because of the luck I’d hoped it would bestow upon my dancing.
She casts me a keen, slightly clandestine look as she leans even closer, drawing me further in. “And have you?” she whispers. “Made a vow?”
My mouth quirks up to match hers, because, “Yes,” I whisper back. “I have.”
Several of them, in fact.
I’ve already fulfilled the first, and I intend on keeping the others just as devotedly.
DECEMBER 20 - RISING: A belly-nerd in home-grown spangles
You know how this goes. It started out like any other day...
And it did.
Like the day before, I cracked my eyes open and dragged my journal off the nightstand, scribbling down my thoughts and dreams before I was quite awake. 1After fifteen minutes of that, I was fully conscious and ready to spring into action. I ate breakfast, put myself together, and went to work.
After being my ball-juggling, CEO-herding, paperwork-wrangling self, I came home and—you guessed it—chowed down again. Gotta feed the 'Beastie, ya know. A lot.
Next, I came into my living room where the last piles of moving boxes were still up to my nose. I hunted down the boxes of costuming and began digging through them for the night's outfit. That night was our monthly student recital that I co-hosted.
Being December, it was a holiday show. I would have preferred to wear one of my professional-grade outfits, but I'd only just begun to afford such luxuries as imported, pre-made costumes the year before, so my limited selection couldn't accommodate the holiday theme.
All the rest of my outfits were homemade.
After much digging and rejecting, I went with the red-and-black number that I had sewn way back in 1993 after my discovery of Egypt’s reigning belly dance Queen, Madame Lucy.
I’d only been dancing for about a year, and practically peed my harem pants as I waited all week for the commercials to deliver unto my TV (and thus to my VCR) that coveted, promised prize that would have been unheard of in any Northern Minnesota video store, library, or media outfit: National Geographic’s special about Cairo.2
Toward the end of the show, Lucy wore a fabulous lime-green costume with a jagged-edged slim skirt. It was encrusted with gorgeous jewels and fitted her like a glove. Properly goggle-eyed, I set to work the very next day trying to create something similar that would hug my twenty-year-old booty just as alluringly.
Alas. I would not come into my woman-hips until I was about twenty-four.
Double-alas, there was no Hobby Lobby or Michael's in the North Woods back then. There wasn't even a Walmart craft section. Definitely no such thing as Amazon. There was Joanne's Fabric. Period. Since they carried no fabulous, chunky jewels for obsessed, aspiring belly dancers in those days, sequins it had to be.
I spent ungodly hours over the summer of my twentieth year sewing the biggest red sequins I could find onto a black bra, stretchy belt, and the jagged edges of the skirt I'd sewn from red liquid lamee.
Triple-alas, liquid lamee and sweat don't really like each other, so it didn’t take long for the red to streak into a dull black in every spot my drenched body rubbed against it. I’m pretty sure that skirt died before I even made it to Colorado in 1997.
I did, however, still have the bra and belt, which I nabbed out of the bottom of the moving box.
To top off my holiday theme, I chose the icicle-dripped silver belt I had fashioned from a beaded-and-sequined shawl found at one of those high-end boutiques in Old Colorado City. I also pulled out the glitter-dot panel skirts of my two oldest baby-belly dancer costumes sewn by my first teacher—a silver and a black one.
There. I had red and silver for a holiday getup. But darn it, this was Christmas-land Colorado, so I wanted some green as well.
I only possessed two green items.
One was the permanently pleated, forest green A-line skirt that I had hacked out of a stretch-jersey, retro dress I found at a thrift store. After chopping off the elasticized tube-top (grooooovy, baby!), I added gold ribbon to the hem, so that wouldn't work with all the silver I had chosen. I was not in the mood for snowmen singing “Silver and Gold.” I wanted my icicles.
So I had to go with the sea-green circle skirt I had sewn to match my newest mermaidy import.
The holiday getup wasn’t great. But hey. What is a home-grown belly-nerd to do when Seasons Greetings descend?
Besides, this was a student show, and what better way to show students that they could rock their own homemade spangles than to show up in some of the most rinky-dink ramshackle of mine?
So no bleep, there I was. Surrounded by exploded moving boxes and a sea of sparkle. I grabbed the blank cassette tape that housed all my briefer student night performances—yes. We had to use either tape or CD in those days. I didn't want to use up an entire CD for such a short show, so I tacked the holiday show music onto the tape behind what I'd danced to the month before.
Since none of my friends or students had gotten to see the gushy stage dance I did for that swanky nightmare of an Arabian Nights benefit show I’d been hired for the month before, I started with that. 3
In the hopes of luring more signups to my Dynamic Drum Solo workshop slated for February, I decided to close my performance with flying fringe. I was still trying to memorize the latest Hossam Ramzy album, but I figured that a student recital was the perfect place to work out some performance bugs.
Naturally, in my Lucy-like bra-and-belt, I had to use the drums that had been inspired by Lucy, the Magnificent.
Once my tape was recorded, I ran through the dances one last time, then packed the topmost layers of my costume into a bag. The backstage changing area was guaranteed to be jammed with nervous students, so I wanted to contribute the least amount of clutter possible. I also wanted to make sure I could get my outfit on quickly, leaving more time to help my students and make sure Melinda had everything she needed as MC of the event.
Over the past year, she and I had started combining our student shows into a big monthly shindig at the restaurant where we both danced.
Between gigs in several restaurants, I danced every Friday and Saturday night, as well as private parties. It wasn't unheard of for me to dance three to four nights a week for most of a month.
But something was changing in my dancing. It was a drastic change, and I was pretty sure it was going to require a change of venue to fully blossom. It had nothing to do with my swankier, encrusted costumes. It had nothing to do with the fact that I’d finally developed belly dancer hips.
It actually had a lot more to do with those vows I had sworn.
SEEDS BURIED IN THE FOREST FLOOR
7/29/00 - Journal
27 years old
What a great dance retreat! This morning's classes were blissful exhaustion. Now I need solitude to let it all sink in, so I’ve skipped out on the afternoon yoga session to get some fresh air and sunshine. After a little dirt, plus a a skinned knee and wrist, I have arrived where I yearned to be from the moment I spied it—out on the biggest rock in the middle of the river with only this tiny pocket-journal.
I love that sound... Shhhhhh, blub-blub, trickle-shhhhh... Water. I finally love Water again. As much as Fire now, sometimes more, depending on my mood. Silky and clean, calming and smooth, refreshing. Purifying...
Home.
I wonder how I shall die sometimes. By water, fire, crash, in pain, peacefully in my sleep, in sickness, by accident, from old age? I wonder how I shall live. I know how I would like to live. Vibrantly, passionately, gracefully, peacefully, ferociously, honestly, openly, lovingly, emotionally, GOODLY.
All the time alive now.
My pen stills. I lie down to snooze in the sunlight, heedless if I should get a weird tan or not. I just need to be alone. I don't really sleep, but I dream nevertheless. The images overtake me—all the bigger and deeper things I want from my dancing. From my life.
I write again:
There is so much more I yearn to say beyond, "Look how I can pop and whiz-bang every tiny nuance of this drum solo! Yes, I truly do have a miniature leprechaun pushing buttons on a motherboard attached to my every body part. Look how many acrobatics I can perform and still keep that sword on my head!"
I don't want to just be seen as a pretty face in spangles, shaking my sparkly tits and ass for applause and dollar bills.
All that is fine. It's fun. I love doing it.
But it's not enough.
I want to truly SPEAK to people. I want to make people FEEL something from my dancing. With the things in my heart and in my mind, and with some of the dances I imagine, I know I can’t do it justice at all these restaurant gigs. I love performing there but…I need something else. I just don’t know what it is.
Two days later...
On our way back from the retreat, Dakini and I had an amazing talk about not caring so much what the audience thinks. That low-key show last night was such a stressful thing for me. I couldn't keep my sword on my head, and I kept tripping over my skirts. I felt so stupid, especially knowing that some of the big-name dancers from Denver were there to see me botch it.
She asked me, “How would it feel to just dance the way you feel, and sure, if there are people in the crowd who really resonate to that, then that’s great. They can come along for the ride. But for those who don't?” She shrugged. “What if they’re just not your fans?”
That sank in hard. Because it doesn't mean I don't have any fans. It doesn't mean I automatically suck just because some of my audience doesn't like what I do. Heck, even if none of my audience likes it.
It just means I need to keep dancing and dancing and dancing, and that the more I do it, the better I will become at finding what *I* LOVE. Then, once I'm truly dancing the way I was born to dance, the way that works with my body and personality and everything I want to create, eventually the people who love that kind of expression will find me.
And if they don't, I just have to keep dancing because I love it. I mean, I can't not dance. I couldn't stop dancing if my life depended on it.
So that's what I’m gonna do. Whenever I'm up there, yes, I will absolutely leave it all on the carpet or the stage floor. I will give my audience everything, but if they don't give me anything in return...eh. I can be closed circuit and self-perpetuating, only opening in the presence of mutual appreciation.
Then it will be a passionate conversation between us.
Otherwise, I can dance for me.
Halfway home, we stopped for some tea and munchies at a cute little coffeeshop. There was an attached shop that sells skiing paraphernalia and clothing. When Dakini spied the two huge ski bags with rollers, she said we had to get them. “Someday we're going to travel around the world together, dancing and performing, so we're going to need them. We should get them now."
So we did.
There is something magical, something powerful about having that bag right there in the closet under my costumes. I can feel it. Something big is happening. Something is coming.
11/22/00
We just officially announced it! Dakini sent out our most recent video footage to her contacts overseas. We've been invited to travel to the Netherlands and Argentina to perform and teach as partners, just like she said would happen when we bought those bags!
My life is about to change. I can taste it on the air. I can smell it in the water. During our big stage show last month, I did my usual performing monkey tricks with a sword on my head, which was super fun. But before that, I created a flowy veil choreography to Zaza's Book of Kings. In the program notes, I shared the deeper meaning of that piece:
My yearning and quest to understand The Meaning of Life.
I can feel it to the marrow of my bones. That understanding is coming…
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Yeah. It sure was coming. It would arrive with a big, red bow on December 21, 2000 at 12:13 a.m. while I was still dressed in a bunch of that patchwork holiday costume.
LIGHTNING STRIKES THE TOWERING TREE
If only I had fully comprehended what I was asking for during that ZaZa dance, I might have chosen to dance something flirty and fluffy after all.
Okay, fine...I probably wouldn’t have.
I have never been one to take the well-traveled road when there is a good tromp through the toolie bushes to explore.
Besides, I’d sworn those vows, remember? And I was determined to keep them. The first one had been a year-and-a-day of solitude and celibacy as I reclaimed my too-often desecrated temple. I’d passed that mile marker months before and remained in that state by happy preference, rather than by adherence to the vow. (Although a certain Elfin musician had been inspiring me to consider inviting him through the gate.)
The second vow had come on the heels of the first: to learn how to love and protect myself. As an addendum, I’d added one more aspect to that at a ceremony with some of my closest friends in October: KNOW THYSELF.
This was another facet of that “wanting to know The Meaning of Life” dance. Thus had I vowed to continue exploring my deepest self as I quested for my best self.
As this little Fool would soon discover, the Universe is only too happy to oblige such wholehearted lip-flappery.
Good thing I’d been writing about a girl named Phoenix since I was thirteen.4 Because it was all about to get burned down to ash.
© 2020 Hartebeast
Up Next:
On This Day 23 Years Ago - December 21: I DARE YOU (to move…to breathe…to dance…to live)
With a big red bow on top:
BLAM.
Madame Lucy in National Geographic’s Cairo Unveiled - I modeled a red and black costume after her fabulous jagged-edged lime-green one. And yes, this is the video clip from which I taught myself how to do the move I would later learn was called a "Maia." The coveting of that move and her ripple-hands were responsible for transforming that VHS tape into glitchy, static-striped garbage.
That swanky nightmare of an Arabian Nights benefit show where I met a certain Elfin gentleman destined to become my husband.
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I like how you start some of your pieces — like this one — straight in the story in an active voice. It is a very enraging and it makes me want to know what’s coming next. It’s also good because as usual, what came next was just as engaging :)