The following are a list of interviews Diana conducted with the professional dancers who held Tribal LA a couple weeks ago in LA. I’m sure you enjoy her effort as much as I do!

***INTERVIEW WITH KAMI LIDDLE***
Question 1) How did you get into belly dancing and why?
I got into belly dancing just because I thought it sounded exotic and fun. I grew up taking ballet, tap and jazz dance classes. As an early teen I was in a theatre troupe as a dancer and I truly loved it. But as a teenager I I lost my passion for dance, until I was in college and saw that the community college offered belly dance classes and I wanted to see what it was all about; I had never seen belly dancing before that. I found that belly dancing came very naturally to me and I began to find that connection with my body again.

Question 2) How has joining the BDSS changed your life?
Joining BDSS has completely changed my life and for about 8 months out of a year, BDSS IS my life. I think being part of this company has really changed my perspective of the world. It is amazing to go to a completely different part of the world and share our art and find others who love it and are as obsessed with it as we are! It makes me realize what a small world it is and that we are all connected in some way.

***INTERVIEW WITH SHARON KIHARA***
Question 1) How many tattoos do you have and what are some of the meanings behind them?
I’m not sure how to count my tattoos anymore, the more work I get the more the tattoos close in over the surface area of my body, making an entire arm seem like one tattoo! More accurately, I’d count it in hours- I’ve sat for over sixty at this point.

Question 2) What was it like taping your first DVD? How did you prepare for it?
Preparing for my first DVD shoot was nerve-wracking, it was in Monte Carlo,and even though I was completely nervous, it ended up being pretty ok. I chose a couple of songs, edited them together, and then created choreography, with large sections left for improv. I then videotaped my practice sessions for reference, so I could easily see what I wanted to change, what needed to be bigger or smaller, move-wise. But this experience barely prepared me for the shoot of my first instructional DVD. Shooting an entire feature-length video was a brand-new challenge.

You need to think about your content carefully, and how to convey the information clearly, in an easy to understand way. Then there’s voice-over, synchronization, editing and angles, so many facets to consider! In the weeks before this shoot, I holed up in a studio and basically banged my head on the floor and filled a notebook with gibberish and wacky ideas that I didn’t end up using! Finally I had to force myself to just choose something, to make a plan and stick with it. My hope became to make a video that at least would not be horribly embarrassing. Once this was my goal, everything fell into place. Luckily, I had the best team with me. John Logsdon directed, and his crew is top-notch. They made me feel comfortable from the start, offered guidance, and in the editing process they really encouraged and listened to my input, they were very accommodating, and very respectful. I learned a lot from the experience, and have learned a lot since then too. Of course now I look back and imagine that I’d like to change a lot, but I’m happy to have this information to apply to my next instructional project.
There you go!

***INTERVIEW WITH MORIA CHAPPELL***
Question 1) What would you tell someone who doesn’t know what belly dance means?
Belly dance is one of the oldest dance traditions with roots harkening back to ancient India some 3,000 years ago. It arrived and spread around the Mediterranean flourishing in the Middle East and North Africa some 2,000 years ago. Belly dance ventured across the Atlantic in the 1800s to find a home in America where there are now more U.S. belly dancers than the rest of the world combined. Rather than a high court dance form that trickled down to the people, belly dance was a folk art that has eventually trickled up to the stage. It differs from ballet, jazz and modern in its extreme emphasis of core muscle isolation especially in the abdomen, pelvic girdle, and thoracic spine. It can have a therapeutic value because of its lack of hard impact moves. Whereas in ballet and other classic theatre dance arts the performer’s hips, knees, and ankles often absorb such strain from years of leaping and touring that it is one difficult to maintain longevity and two is not accessible to every body type, belly dance with it’s higher emphasis on muscular isolation than skeletal virtuosity can be safely practiced from age 2 to 82.

The undulating and isolating components that characterize belly dance are reticent of snake-like, smooth and often observed as sensual movement. This perception of belly dance as either sensual or seductive has both allured and confused public opinion of the dance as something that deserves recognition as a fine art. In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s Hollywood dramatized the belly dancer as sensual and glamorous, giving it it’s current abdomen revealing rhinestone and sequined costuming. Soon Egypt and Los Angeles were in hot competition to screen their belly dancing beauties in the finest silks, heels, and bedazzled back-up dancers.

As this fashion persisted, in the 1980s a break-off form of belly dance called Tribal style belly dance returned to more of the earthy materials, mimicking face tattoos, heavy piercings, and fully covered legs and arms, portraying the dance as more regal and removed rather than flirty and seductive. This rebellion has opened the door to fuse belly dance with all kinds of other genres of music and movement including hip-hop, Flamenco, Rom, Jazz, and gymnastics. To the purists chagrin this fusion movement has forever changed the face of belly dance yet in a sense has returned it to it’s amorphous roots as a nomadic art that picked up various colorings as it traveled from Asia to Africa to Europe. However, with all external shifts bearing down, belly dance’s root use of muscle isolation in both staccato and lugubrious movements continues to keep belly dance as a fine art of movement easily identified unto itself.

Question 2) What advice would you give dancers who want to become professional belly dancers?
Belly dance is a unique profession even within the dance world. Because its group productions are not as ubiquitous as say ballet or jazz companies, a professional belly dancer’s time is spent less auditioning as might be the case in other dance forms and more building her career herself from the ground up. While there aren’t as many professional belly dance companies to join there are many professional dance troupes and even more restaurants, festivals and parties looking to hire individual or group belly dancers. So if your goal is simply to earn money, create a press kit and deliver it to any venue you may be interested in performing. If it’s a Renaissance Festival work to craft your performance and appearance as ethnic and folkloric, if a Lebanese restaurant work to craft yourself as classic and traditional, if a Gothic night club work to craft yourself as edgy and industrial. Fortunately there are a plethora of venues in the U.S. hungry for quality avant-garde performance, as a belly dancer it is not only your job to hone and practice your technique but also to create your persona, be your own costumer, make-up artist, hair stylist, choreographer, stage manager, accountant, press, and business negotiator.

In that respect it’s a huge task with endless permutations to define success. So from this perspective my advice to future professional belly dancers is to become very specific about what your goals are. Then pursue them with tenacity and optimism. As in all entertainment, never say die, but keep your art sacred and unto yourself so that each performance feeds you first. I’ve found this technique helps avert the mind-bending pit fall of performance as attention seeking rather than entertainment.

***INTERVIEW WITH ZOE JAKES***
Question 1) What does belly dance mean to you?
Having fun with friends and getting to express myself creatively. I love that I can go to pretty much any city in the world and find people who share my interests (for some reason belly dancers also seem to share a love for wine, collecting sparkly things, and sushi).

Question 2) What advice would you give to dancers who want to audition for the BDSS or the tribal contingent?
Develop yourself as a soloist. Find your own creative voice and practice, practice, practice. Also, Find ways to get comfortable onstage, do haflas and renaissance faires. Make your own costumes, or at least have a heavy creative hand in the process. And try your hardest to not lose sight of why you are dancing, getting too wrapped up in a goal can sometimes make you forget to enjoy the process.

***INTERVIEW WITH SAMANTHA HASTHORPE***
Question 1) How difficult was it for you to make a transition from the UK to the United States?
I still currently live in the UK. I only come to the United States for performances and workshops. I recently got married and my husband lives back home.

Question 2) What does being a member of the BDSS mean to you?
I can’t believe it, I have to pinch myself! It’s a dream come true.