Dancing in the Muses' Circle

by Dorothée Barth

While millions of our sisters run, pump, and crunch their way to that sometimes elusive state of fitness, I am among those fortunate ones who encountered a movement path more mysterious, more alluring, and more attuned to the inner goddess. A dance of many names-oriental dance, danse du ventre, raks al-sharqi, Middle Eastern dance-it is known in America as belly dance, although I have always preferred to call myself an earthdancer.

Its origins are as veiled as the dancer herself as she enters her space. Just as the dance once journeyed from sacred to secular and from private to public entertainment, so may this space manifest as mystical garden or temple, nightclub or flood-lit stage. The many faces of this ancient dance offer lively discourse for both dancers and historians, but one thing we do know: Over the last half century, and particularly since the ethnic dance renaissance of the 1970s, belly dance in North America has blossomed dramatically (witness the number of belly dance-related web sites) and has continued to grow as new generations of women discover its power to transform.

During these decades, we dancers often looked eastward for style and inspiration. However, as the status of dancers in the Middle East has continued to be ambiguous and less than uplifting, many of us have come to appreciate the beauty and freedom of practicing belly dance in an occidental setting.

I became smitten by belly dance some three decades ago. With music degree in hand, I'd set out to find my way in the world. If I could just put aside my violin, learn to type, and cultivate excellent phone manners, I was advised, a career as a secretary might await me. I was twenty and stunningly disappointed-until belly dance came along to color my life. Although the decade held meager career prospects for me, it was also a time of ferment and exploration of other cultures and inner realms. Belly dance began to be taught in studios and YWCAs across the country, spinning its spell on mainstream America.

Its blend of percussive and lyrical movements; its earthbound, centered stance; its intriguing isolation of hips, torso, and shoulders; its graceful arm movements; its powerful expression; its exotic musical accompaniment; and its creative, colorful costuming miraculously converted me to the wonders of physical exercise. No small event, since I had a history of hiding in bushes to avoid the dreaded high school P.E. challenge of the day. While I've shimmied in and out of the dance since my fateful introduction in 1974, my fascination with it has lasted more than a quarter century, and I've observed with much interest as the dance evolved.

The videotape revolution of the 1980s augmented and refined belly dance technique and helped to enchant and educate those without ready access to teachers. Diverse dance styles, both cabaret and folkloric, became known to us. Options to study Modern Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish, American Cabaret Style, and American Tribal Style inspired us to develop individuality of movement and attitude. Seminars taught by talented dancers, including explorers from the 1960s and early 1970s, became increasingly available. Competitions, avoided by some and applauded by others, challenged us to perform at a critical level. And in rare but fortunate instances, inclusion of the genre in college dance curricula provided opportunity for focused study and introduced the dance to a more diverse audience.

A new generation of dedicated dancers, some the daughters of dancers, energizes belly dance in the new millennium. Nurtured to dance since childhood and cross-trained in other dance forms and theater arts, these dancers are now sharing belly dance's dynamic potential by their appearance on performance and teaching videos as well as their portrayal of the dance in the media and on the concert stage.

Meanwhile, thousands of women (and a few men, too) continue to enjoy belly dance not as a career but for what it offers personally: a welcome physical, expressive, creative, and spiritual respite from everyday cares-one that strengthens, inspires, consoles, amuses, and liberates them in a way unmatched by any other exercise practice. My own meandering pathway toward rediscovery of the dance's spiritual roots is the subject of the following sections.

Dancing on Shifting Sands-the Beauty Mirage

Although more recently an American Tribal Style of belly dance has flowered as an exciting dance drama that encourages cooperation as well as individual expression, I along with many of my contemporaries was taught American Cabaret belly dance-Southern California style. With that experience came an inexorable pull to exhibit the dance as solo art. My personal process to achieve this goal offers a candid glimpse at the perils of dance ambition. In attempting to create a modest commercial career as a weekend belly dancer, I lost some of the spiritual essence of this ancient art.

Just as belly dance technique began to reach a higher level and costumes became ever more elaborate and expensive, the dance for me began to lose its luster and vitality. Scrutiny and evaluation of different styles and techniques may have created a greater number of polished performers, but it also objectified dance and dancer and began to rob the art of its mystery, spirituality, spontaneity, and yes, vulnerability.

My profound enchantment at donning my first simple, movement-enhancing dance skirt became increasingly difficult to recapture no matter how many new skirts graced my wardrobe; the exuberant high of dancing for a group of supportive peers became eclipsed by a pervasive fear of not being considered skilled enough or of not conveying the Hollywood-style glamour required of working cabaret dancers in Southern California.

As it happened, the number of aspiring professional dancers grew as the number of available venues shrank. In such an atmosphere competition thrived-enlivening some but exhausting and intimidating others. I did not find it a fertile garden in which to greet the goddess in myself or my sister dancers.

My ambivalent dance aspirations offered me many lessons. That the physical discipline required to be a successful cabaret dancer is difficult to cultivate for those with sedentary day jobs. That the desire to be acceptable to peers and restaurant employers would prove financially draining, seducing me to purchase an ever-greater number of adornments intended to evoke an image of the outer goddess rather than resonance with the inner goddess. That a successful cabaret dancer must be highly extroverted. Unable to cultivate such extroversion, it took me years to realize that its absence was not so much an embarrassing personal shortcoming but an invitation to appreciate the dance and myself in a more accepting and less commercial way-to enter gracefully into a circle of light, surrounded by the ancient muses.

Dancing with the Muses

As the nine muses each bring a different mood and color to their circle, so the six parts of the American Cabaret belly dance offer spellbinding contrast (allowing far more opportunity for dramatic expression than its modern Middle Eastern counterpart, which prefers a lively homogeneity). Its first four sections alternate between fast and slow music, prompting a contrast of percussive and spinning versus lyrical movements. The last two parts, the drum solo and finale, are dynamic and fast, although the drum solo itself may contain contrasting and layered movements. This structure has always appealed to my classical musician's mind. It is reminiscent of a Baroque suite or a classical concerto, with the drum solo serving as a cadenza.

The music accompanying belly dance may evoke the Orient but may also invite the nine muses, whose arrival-light-hearted or serious, lyrical, poetic, musical, abandoned, wise, or whirling-ushers us benignly into a new millennium of dance. The muses are pleased to gather, for the movements of belly dance are circular, whether intrinsically, such as when we turn a hip circle, torso circle, or a figure eight; or spatially, such as when we dance percussive hiplifts pivoting around an imaginary circle or as we trace the outline of our dance space.

Thus Calliope the fair-voiced epic poetess and Clio the historian allow us to remember the multi-faceted and sometimes difficult history of our dance and encourage us to retain a conciliatory spirit toward our sister dancers. The dancer's most familiar muse, whirling Terpsichore with her lyre, guides our many spinning movements that grace the opening and close of the faster dance sections. She may remain while we transition to the romantic second part of the dance, the veil dance, while three sister muses join her in the circle's center: Erato, the muse of love poetry; Euterpe with her sweet-voiced flute; and the veiled Polyhymnia, muse of agriculture, who reminds us of the dance's ancient origin as a fertility ritual. Thalia, the comedic muse, makes her entrance during the flirtatious and interactive third part of the dance and will return during the fifth part, the now playful, now intense, drum solo. Between her two appearances, during the most introspective fourth section of the dance which we know as the taxim and chifte telli, and which in American Cabaret style may be performed either standing or on the floor, we will experience a memorable encounter with Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, perhaps balancing her sword. As we reach upward towards the heavens with sustained movements, Urania, the muse of astronomy, enters to complete the circle. During the sixth part of the dance, most often the finale, Terpsichore gives an exuberant farewell appearance as we take our final spin.

When we invite the muses to dance with us, we allow them to guide the dance back toward its sacred origins. And as the dancer loses the self-consciousness borne of fear and desire for approval, she is likewise transformed. To approach this dance with the respect given a meditative, spiritual practice such as Yoga is its most holistic, fulfilling application. And it may well inspire that mesmerizing performance for which dancers so often yearn, perhaps witnessed only by the nine muses.

Dorothée Barth is a writer, musician, and dancer now living in Northern California.