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The Ann Arbor News - Nov 4th 2003
"Beauty and the Bellydance"
Ann Arbor woman crosses into unfamiliar culture and appreciates what she finds
By Amy Whitesall - News Staff Reporter |
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When Jessica Elkins tells people she's a professional belly dancer, she gets one of three responses.
"Well, isn't that cute..,"
some will say, probably rolling their eyes as they walk away, thinking belly dancer equals glorified stripper.
"Your husband lets you do that?"
others ask, maybe assuming the same.
"Where can I take lessons?" ask the
rest.
The thing about Elkins's side job (she does facials and waxings by day) that makes it hard to dismiss is that she respects belly dancing as an art form, and she's determined to teach others to respect it as well.
"It should be something that's fascinating to watch, not erotic to watch," the Ann Arbor resident says. "You want to captivate people; there's mystery. The costume is more revealing, but you need to be able to see what the body is doing (in time) to the music."
Elkins (who declined to give her age because "a belly dancer is forever 23"), dances regularly at Ann Arbor's Cafe Oz, clubs in the Detroit area, family parties and Chaldean (Christian Iraqi) weddings. Her audiences range from families to the all-male, all-Muslim clientele of an Egyptian cafe.
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At Cafe Oz it's a college-age club crowd. Most are Americans, many of them not quite sure how to react to a belly dancer. The music starts, Elkins
swirls into the room in a gauzy pink costume accented with glittering glass beads, and they discover that the dance is fascinating, mesmerizing. Just as the music is layered - strings and keyboards and drums driven by a pounding bass beat - the dance is a complex tapestry of movement.
"People love it," says Cafe Oz coowner Jaffer Oden, "I think they're really impressed. It's kind of fun because sometimes people really get into it. It goes with the whole Middle Eastern theme. We wanted to do some sort of performance, and the place is too small for live music. (Belly dancing) is something that's live and fun to watch."
Elkins is clearly having fun as she dances around the room, flashing a warm, lively smile. She moves from table to table, playfully engaging people, male and female. A man at one table claps, shouts and motions with his hands as his head and torso bob and sway to the music. Two women get up and dance with Elkins. She glides deftly through an area where people are sitting on the floor, an obstacle course of feet and legs.
In Middle Eastern clubs, she says, the men clap and motion with their hands, and their eyes follow her every move.
"They pay a lot of attention to me," she says. "But I have to say that even in a situation like that you'd like to think they're appreciating the art form. That's why 1 keep doing it. It's for the people there that appreciate you as an artist."In a country where most people know only as much about belly dancing as they've seen in B movies, often dancing for Middle Eastern men who would never let their own daughters bellydance, Elkins meets stereotypes at every turn.
But belly dancing has given her a timely and uncommon window on Middle Eastern culture, or at least the segment of it represented by those who hang out at clubs until 3 a.m. She started dancing professionally in the fall of 2001, just before Sept. 11. Work was slow that faIl. People weren't hiring dancers because they didn't want to look like they were celebrating something. Later, as the United States massed troops at Iraq's borders, Elkins says there was a noticeable tension, even among people who were out having a good time. The singers in the clubs where she works started singing a song called "Baghdad" more often, and the audiences would sing along.
"At one point in the lyrics, all they're singing is (the word) 'Baghdad' over and over," Elkins said "But they're singing very dramatically, and people are clapping - not because they're patriotic about the government - they're clapping because they love their country.
"I just felt like coming to tears. They still sing it now, but the song had more feeling (during that time). You knew everyone's minds were on it."
These days, she says, they don't talk in the clubs about what's going on in Iraq. People are out having a good time, she says. They don't want to discuss anything so serious.
"I feel very fortunate to be in a roomful of people from a complete other culture and feel comfortable," Elkins said. 'They're speaking another Language; they are in full mode of their other culture."
She describes the older Middle Eastern men she dances for as "old school." They're passionate and chivalrous, but she gets a strong sense that they don't consider women their equals.
Yet she's also been part of their celebrations, seen men join hands and perform a dance called the debke. In a debke, everyone makes the same movements at the same time, united in motion like a group of people doing the hustle.
"I've seen men go up to other men, singing, and throw rose petals over their heads," she said "There's this very beautiful side of it."
Elkins plays a traditional role in wedding celebrations, usually for Chaldean families. The dancer leads the bride and groom into the reception hall for the first time as husband and wife, and with the band playing she walks them all around the room, with all the guests singing and dancing and waving scarves. The guests surround the couple, and then Elkins leads them to their seats. Then she does her dinner show, during which old women and little children get up and dance with her.
Elkins says all of the belly dancers in the Detroit area are American; Middle Eastern families, she explains, would never let their daughters bellydance professionally. In some places in the Middle East, belly dancing is a front for prostitution. In other places belly dancing has all but disappeared in the face of religious fundamentalism. To some degree Middle Eastern families here still react to those stigmas.
"It's something I don't understand," she says, when asked to explain why. "It's a deeply rooted cultural... Arabic families are generally very, very, very strict, with their daughters in particular. I think they view bel1ydancing differently than I do. It's something unspoken, but they would never respect the family of an Arabic daughter who bellydanced."
Shavan, who asked that her last name not be used, studies belly dancing with Elkins, but doesn't dance professionally, though Elkins says she's good enough to do it if she wanted to. Shavan is Chaldean, and there are still members of her family who don't know she dances. Those who do know assume she just does it for fun, for the workout."In the Middle East now there are dancers everywhere," Shavan said "In Lebanon especially, there are so many dancers. They have very strict families, yet they are dancing over there. Over here if they see an Arabic girl dancing, it's like the end of the world."
Elkins took a few tap and ballet lessons as a child, but her passion for dance really blossomed after she started dancing freestyle with the Rhythm Family, an Ann Arbor-based African drum corps. In the late 1990s she took a few classes in African dance to get better acquainted with its structure.
One day the instructor nodded toward Elkins and asked a friend of hers, "who's the belly dancer
over there?"
Elkins started studying belly dancing, first at a studio in Ann Arbor and later with a succession of teachers in the Detroit area, which, she found, has a strong belly dancing subculture along with its large Middle Eastern community.
Belly dancing suits Elkins. She loves the subtleties, the richness of the music with all its layers and driving beat. Even in the beginning, when she didn't understand the music, Elkins says the form seemed natural to her. It took time to learn how to interpret the rhythms, and Elkins studied the technique for
four years before she started dancing professionally. That groundwork, she says, is critical.
"You can't just start expressing yourself, because if you do you're not doing it right." she said. "Typically you want to express every layer of the music as it happens, simultaneously. If you talk to any drummer you'll learn that the drum is like the core of our being, it's based on our heartbeat. And the rhythms are amazing."
Her first paid performance was at the grand opening of a restaurant in Rochester. She didn't have a costume of her own, so she had to borrow one.
It was multicolored with limp cotton fringe instead of glass beads. All of her training had been in choreographed moves; this engagement was all improvisational. She was late for the performance because the restaurant was a lot farther away than she'd thought. But it was a start, and Elkins soon found her comfort zone - in front of an audience. "I smiled a lot," she said, laughing. "And afterward people said they liked my smile." |
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