In light of the utter craziness that was 2011, I’ve decided to make a life change. A good one, I promise. I’m throwing a lot of time and energy in this direction, so I’m not going to be around as much while I work on it. It’s slightly secret right now, so please bear with me while I work on this instead of dance. If you are one of the few that knows, please keep it to yourself for now.

I’ll still be at Art of the Belly, with massive amounts of glitter and several bottles of high end Riesling.

Dance-wise, 2011 was a great year, I really can’t complain. Many things came together, and a lot of my experiments started gelling this year into a cohesive whole. I met tons of great new people, saw some incredible sets, and maybe had a few myself. So no complaints from me.

Life-wise, 2011 has been rough. My husband has been out of work since June, and while I like having him around, there’s a pervasive tension that underlies every day, where you know if something bad happens, you’re that much closer to disaster having only one income. Couple that with my overall discontent with working in an agency environment rather than a product shop, the fact that I seem to get a nasty cold every month, and several other things going on – that compounds a lot of stress.

The upside of this is that I threw myself into my creative stuff as an outlet, and I was shocked to realize on Friday that I had choreographed an entire year’s worth of work, in addition to selecting 6 or 7 improv songs. I have enough for all of 2012. I also made many sparkly things that people seem to like, and have ideas for even more sparkly things. I got a 5 lb box of glitter shipped to my house. Just sayin’.

In the end, I feel extremely fortunate to have the outlets I do, both creative and supportive, especially from those in Lilam and Transcendence. 2011 has been trying, to put it mildly, and I can only imagine how difficult it would be if I didn’t have those areas in which to channel my energy.

I have experience with a handful of local teachers, all of whom are absolutely amazing ladies, both in and out of the studio. I haven’t even scratched the surface of teachers to study from, and my list remains, and will remain, a mile long. Whether it’s “tribal” or “traditional” (and yes, we all know those labels are inadequate), we never have to travel far to get instruction from world-class performers in a variety of flavors of belly dance.

We also have amazing shows. Whether it’s yearly “showcase” shows (Shems’ 2009 Ya Omri still sticks out to me), or recurring shows like DCTC that give performers a regular outlet to be awesome. And the community regularly turns out for them. Whether they’re dancers, drummers, or long-suffering partners of dancers, there are so many people that are a part of this community that make it even more interesting.

I also think it’s great that there are more scientists-by-day / belly-dancers-by-night than I can count. It’s kind of like knowing superheroes.

Just a little love for my community today.

This is all despite the fact that I don’t have what’s thought of as “normal” blonde girl hair, so most advice and cuts are not applicable. It’s wiry, coarse, naturally knotty, and soaks up everything like a sponge. Most traditional styling regimens don’t work, and often make things worse. I’ve even had hair dressers try to make me get relaxers, when I’m very opposed to chemical treatment.

I’ve pulled it back for years, just to avoid having to deal with the annoyances it brings. A few years ago I decided to stop cutting it, as my husband decided to grow his hair long. I wasn’t going to have his hair be longer than mine, because that’s just wrong. As it got longer, I just braided it back, and still rarely left it down.

Around that same time, I had my first couple performances (pre-Lilam) with in a studio group with tribal stylings. Everyone else was pulling their hair back and sticking hairsticks and flowers in it, so I did the same. As I joined Lilam, and was introduced to the wonderful world of wigs, I started augmenting my hair with a clip in hairpiece, still sticking lots of stuff in it of course.

Yes, with hair down to my lower back, I was wearing a hairpiece. Hi, I’m Spiral, and I often do things that make no sense.

This summer I started studying with a new teacher who’s classes are just incredibly fun. She’s a great mix of good-natured and business-like, and I’ve had a lot of success mixing in what I learn with her. I let slip in class recently that I wore a hairpiece, and she was aghast, saying we would have to have a discussion about it. After class, she made me take my hair down, discussed with me why it would be best to leave it down – that it was the fullest expression of femininity, that I was selling myself short, and that many Egyptian teachers would be equally upset by my pulling it back, and several other reasons. She was one of the first people (besides my dad, but he’s biased) who gently, but directly, challenged me to let it go as it was.

I have to admit, it was hard to just leave it down and listen to the advice she was giving me. For years I had the attitude that there was something “wrong” with it, and tried to hide it and make it conform as a result. Despite this, after she pointed out several times I was still tucking it behind my ears, I agreed to leave it down for my next fusion set to see how it felt. I added some hair tricks and a beaded headband, and figured I’d be very annoyed with it by the end of the set.

How did it actually feel? Kind of amazing. This sounds overly dramatic, but it’s accurate – I felt like I had flipped off years of conformity and people telling me what I should be, should look like, and should do. I still watch the video and am amazed that I never trusted myself to let it fly before.

I haven’t pulled it back since, other than to work out and sleep, of course. It does still like to attack my husband at night, after all.

The moral of the story? Always listen to your teachers, and let your hair down every once in a while.

*EDIT:* I just noticed something funny. My professional StereoVision shots from early 2010 (brown costume) showed the last time I had it down while in costume. I did that only for the photoshoot. I wore the same costume this past performance – it must be good karma.

American culture is largely “extroverted”, as friendly interactions are expected to be loud, boisterous, and exciting. For those of us who are introverts, this itself can be overwhelming, as we are constantly drained by loud public interaction. I spent years forcing myself to act as an extrovert, trying to be the life of the party, only to realize that it was causing me a huge amount of stress.

I can be an extreme introvert. Without solitary space at night, I won’t sleep – I have gone nearly 5 days without sleep when forced to travel with others, often ending in near insanity on my part. This isn’t an exaggeration, it’s why I rarely travel, and why when I do, I always get a separate room. I need a few nights a month to get my social fix, but I need to have an equal or greater amount of quiet to balance it out.

That being said, I LOVE to travel or go to social occasions together with an extrovert. They usually deflect attention off of me, so I can have space to mostly listen, and only speak when I have something relevant to add to the conversation. The extroverts I usually travel with understand my tendencies, which is even better.

Performing as an introvert is interesting. Restaurant / hafla settings are hard, because I’m not naturally the type of person who dances between tables and thinks it’s the greatest thing ever. Stage shows however, are GREAT. I have enough room to breathe and communicate effectively, without feeling like I have to address everyone individually.

How this ties in with stage fright, I’m not certain. I’m sure there’s some connection.

I don’t always enjoy performing, and will often hide myself away for a little while after a set, usually changing out of my gear, before rejoining the audience and talking with others. I almost always love those others, but it can be overwhelming to deal with the energy from being on stage, and then shifting gears immediately to being social.

In classes, I often get questions about why I don’t talk (read: am mean). I usually prefer to be at the back, watching the entire room – I really enjoy watching how others process the same information I’m receiving. Most of the time I just get caught up in what I’m learning and forget that there are other people around. From non-scientific anecdotes I’ve gotten from other introverts, this seems to be pretty common.

So if you see someone watching a workshop in the corner, or disappearing after a set, you’ve probably got an introvert on your hands. With proper care and feeding (and a little quiet), your introvert will be most appreciative.

If I meet my practice goals for one month, I can get Skyrim and play it all day. If I miss a day, I have to start over.

There, I said it.

It’s the end of the year for me. I always take off November and December off from hard training; I’ve done this since doing tris. I need a mental and physical break – I’ve got repetitive use injuries in my knees and I need to heal a bone spur.

I finished up my last marathon weekend as of yesterday. With a cold, no less.

First, I went up to Pittsburgh to visit my friend Janim and dance with Ishtar, and had a lovely time. Pittsburgh is a very cool city, and the community was supportive and interesting. I wish I had more of an opportunity to explore both, but due to time constraints I had to just stay the night. I hope to get back that way again in February!

I came back home early Saturday morning, arriving just in time to get some much needed time in with my bronchially-challenged DH, who had been sick since the beginning of the week. A couple hours later, I had to switch gears and get into Jazz Fusion mode to make my way up to Westminster for a benefit show, with 32 acts.

That’s right, 32.

I had a break with reality at some point in the night. At our post-show meal, I ended up completely loopy and tried to booth dance with my dance partners to the obnoxiously loud and excessively harmonizing house band.

So now, break time! No solo performances until January. Time to start watching others perform.

But that’s just crazy-talk, this whole dancing thing being enjoyable.

One of my favorite workshop teachers teaches a series on Catharsis, or releasing whats unneeded and dancing like yourself. That’s really what this year has been about. At the beginning of 2011, I made a conscious decision to NOT promote myself as a performer, get rid of other’s expectations, and concentrate on finding my voice in performance. Add to this the fact that I have two teachers (and occasional teachers who I try to study from when I can) who actively encourage this line of thinking, and I had a solid direction set.

As I see it, there aren’t many (any?) Krav-Maga practicing, weight lifting, jazz/fusion/vintage-American trained dancers around, and that experience is important to tap into.

I am very happy I made this decision and stuck to it, though it wasn’t easy. I’ve gotten plenty of comments throughout my recent training about how I’m not [X]-enough, or too [X]. I had to take a lot of classes that just didn’t fit (hello Modern, you make me feel like an elephant on releve). I also felt like I had to lie low while I tried to figure out the direction I wanted to go in, because I didn’t want to experiment publicly.

This is all in addition to the personal upheaval with my partner being jobless and all, and all the injuries that forced me out of running for good. Talk about paring down and getting rid of what’s unneeded.

I do feel like I’ve figured out my marching orders, and am actually having a lot of fun with what I’m doing, and others seem to be enjoying it too. It’s nice to have that outlet, because 2011 is a pretty crappy year for the world at large.

The list of potential products is long. I make more than I realized.

During the retreat this year, Ava made an interesting comment about ego deaths, and I think it’s been stewing around somewhere in the back of my mind. As performers, we often have to deal with the negative side of ego, either internally or from others. Internally, I think we’ve all had these thoughts at one time or another:

What am I *doing*?
Nobody likes what I do. Hmph.
[Insert blanket poor body image statement here]
I have to be able to do X / Why can’t I do X?
I have to perform at X to be considered a “good” dancer / Why wasn’t I asked to perform?

I admittedly fall prey to the second one ALL THE TIME. I talk myself out of doing shows and sets that would push my boundaries, because I’m afraid of how it will be received. That doesn’t do me any justice as a lifelong student – rather, that attitude keeps me from progressing.

I think that most of the above statements are rooted in fear – fear of success and fear of failure specifically. So what does this have to do with ego?

Ego death is an experience that purportedly reveals the illusory aspect of the ego, sometimes undergone by psychonauts, mystics, shamans, monks, psychologists, and others interested in exploring the depths of the mind.

By purposely letting go of an expectation of success or failure, both for our dance as a whole, or for a technique or performance, we can perform in the moment, without concern for the end result. In this, I think we can more adequately become conduits for the emotional meaning behind the music we perform to. Conversely, by having an inflated sense of our own importance, we cut off that connection between the music and the audience, and diminish our performance.

In other words, letting go of the ego opens us up to channel the music to the audience through movement, without our personal hang-ups or preconceived notions getting in the way.

Dance is both non-personal and intensely personal. We’re both acting as conduits for the music and augmenting music with our emotions through our movement. At the same time, we’re constantly training those movements to be exacting and precise. I know from experience that it can be all too easy to stop progress due to some internal block. At some point, we have let those blocks go to realize that there is no end result of “perfect”, and the progress is what’s worthwhile.

It’s difficult to do, and I’m certainly not the zen master of belly dance (HA!), but I know that letting go of expectations and self-imposed limitations is important.