RE-ORIENT: Reflections from ‘Gathering at the Delta Colloquium’

“My culture is not a costume…  My culture is not a fantasy…  I am not a fantasy.” 

Impactful and thought-provoking, I was deeply moved to hear the personal experiences so generously shared by the panel of five MENAHT artists.  (It was asked that we do not reveal the personal stories shared by panelists, so here I only seek to summarize key take-aways that inspired and provoked me.)

“Not being believable” was brought up.  The fact that many of these artists had been questioned while teaching classes (by Americans or Europeans) because people cannot believe they are more complex than the Orientalist stereotype that had built up in their minds.  The ‘orientalist’ tendency of viewing the “exotic East’ as unchanging involves reducing cultures and people of “the East” to stereotypes and overlooking the rich diversity within a living, evolving culture.

“Ask yourself: Why do you want to do the fusion?” Each artist discussed instances of mismatched confusion they have witnessed in fusion dance performances and the harm they felt when their culture or religion was ‘quoted out of context’ (and therefore disrespected).  This simple question was posed to us as a tool to self-regulate and check if our fusion performance may cause harm: ‘why do you want to do this fusion?’ 

“Fusion dance is more body centered, than meaning centered.” I really love this point and see so much truth in it as someone who has trained in various folk, classical and contemporary dances.  One artist aptly pointed out the body-centered (individual) approach of Tribal Fusion.  She mentioned while it is one of the wonderful things about it, this approach is potentially misleading because dance viewed only as body movement (devoid of meaning) relieves the practitioner of responsibility to the cultures from where the movements are assimilated from.

I feel there is a lot of food for thought in this point and might explain one aspect of how fusion dance “skirts around” to avoid the issue of misusing cultural symbolism due to its somatic (self) centering, rather than the community centering which cultural dances often leverage on.

“My culture is not a costume.  My culture is not a fantasy.  I am not a fantasy.  I am real.”

My mind went back to all the ‘Oriental Fantasy’ festivals and bizarre fusions I have seen over my 25 + years in bellydance…  and to be quite honest, my heart absolutely sank for having been even involved in events which would promote the fantasy and fetishizing of real living people. So unconsciously we have invisiblized people with our insensitive choices.   How could we have allowed this? 

This was the most powerful moment for me.

In a follow up conversation I had with an Iranian friend, she brought up the fact that even people within “Eastern” cultures can perpetuate this exotification and how viewing culture as a fantasy is destructive because this view glosses over important values and human intricacies which culture centers itself around.

Many artists in the panel discussion talked about how complex their identity truly is: not being fully ‘at home’ and accepted in their ‘homeland’ and yet not being at home in their ‘new’ country (USA and France) as immigrant minorities. 

It struck me that culture offers us all a sense of belonging and importance.  For someone practicing a dance in its land of origin, it can be a social pastime and for someone living as an immigrant in a new land, it can a can become a blanket of comfort critical to survival, self-identity and self-worth.  When that is threatened, appropriated, belittled, it can be so deeply harmful and disturbing. 

As an artist, I have never wanted to harm anyone, in fact I always viewed art as a modality of healing to some degree.  Listening to the voices of artists who have been hurt by insensitive fusions and depictions of their cultural identity was powerful, a moment of truth indeed.  It became so clear that what seems like a small choice on my part as a performer can have a lasting effect that ripples out.  It struck me how this is even more critical in the age of internet, where the whole world can feel the impact.

I was deeply touched by the generosity of all the panel of artists, many of whom said “just ask us, we are happy to help.” I closed my laptop at the end of the day with a graceful sense of empathy (gained from listening) and strength from the tools I had been handed.  Let us dance forward as a community with that grace and strength, ever listening closely and asking ourselves important questions.

My sincere thanks and applause to all who were involved in this event.  THANK YOU!