The Court of Matriarchs

Omg, I am blogging people. It has been a year since my last entry. I am an inconsistent blogger, I know it, and I feel no shame about it either.

I am writing in reflection of my recent experience at "Reverence: A Tribute to Celebrate the Life and Art of Jamila Salimpour" in Berkeley on September 7, 2013 at the Julia Morgan Theater. I am so moved by this experience that the only way I can possibly express how I feel is to take the time to write it out in pieces.

It was a most touching experience for me on a personal level because my precious Gram passed away this year. Those of you who are close to me know how special my Gram was to me. She was very much a maternal figure in my life. She had always been a source of constant love, affection, attention and support throughout my entire life. She passed on April 6, 2013 - just past the stroke of midnight so as not to pass on Madelynn's birthday, which was April 5th. Madelynn turned 18 this year and I am so grateful my Gram was able to watch me and help me raise her. One of my Gram's greatest legacies was her nursing career and to our delight, Madelynn has decided to go to nursing school. Only weeks before Gram passed Madelynn spent the entire day with her as a student while Gram taught her all the "tricks of the trade" and passed on her highest nursing values.

My Gram and Jamila Salimpour happen to be the same age - 87. My Gram was the grand matriarch of 63 direct descendents - 7 children, 19 grandchildren and 37 great and great great grandchildren. At the very top of this grand tribe was my little petite, but powerful, Gram. Jamila is mother to Suhaila and grandmother to Isabella only, but in so many ways a grand mother to a dance tribe of thousands. Both women were single mothers and complete badasses. They both have a flare that cannot be copied - they both know that the best parts of life are based in family, food, laughter and connection. Although my Gram was no professional, she loved to dance too. Both women defied society's expectations of women and forged new paths for themselves and other women in the world that left blazes afire for many years to come. To offer reverence to Jamila in this show was also, in some ways, a way to offer reverence to my Gram.

While I was backstage for Reverence and trying to catch glimpses of the video footage about Jamila that played on stage, I was in tears of gratitude for Jamila's contributions to the belly dance format. Her research, dedication, consistency, and love of the art form played a direct role in why I had become a belly dancer. Her contributions created American belly dance culture as I knew it. I made sure to wear a chain coin belt from my very first belly dance teacher, Asha Diana, from Lupus, MO who taught Jamila's format. I wore it as homage to not only my first teacher, whom I respect, but to the far reaching impact of Jamila's work. I also wore a few pieces of my gram's jewelry to pay homage to her belief in me and my dance. I stood there in the dark sending up "thank you, thank you, thank you," prayers to the great goddess for the influential female/mother/grandmother teachers and role models in my life. Because, of course, without Jamila we would also not have Suhaila, who has been the most significant teacher and mentor of my life.

I knew it was no coincidence that we were dancing in the beautiful Julia Morgan Theater. I did my research and discovered to my absolute delight that Julia Morgan was one of America's great architects at the turn of the 20th century, primarily known for her incredible wood work. She actually graduated from architectural school in 1894. Now that is a badass. She originally created the space as a church and it is primarily made of redwood. The space was intimate, beautiful and sacred - and created by a powerful woman. Reverence could not have been in a more perfect location. We were offering reverence to Jamila and we were offering reverence to the female strength to build things outside of ourselves - to create bigger and bolder and more expansive than we even possibly realize.

Directed by another badass, Amy Sigil of Unmata, the show was divided into 3 acts about Jamila's life. The first two acts exemplified her circus experience in the 1940s and cabaret club solo career in the 1950s - all played by an array of dancers from different genres of the national belly dance community, including Sabriya Tekbilek, Rachel Brice, Asharah and Ashley Lopez amongst others. Zoe Jakes danced the Mother Earth Goddess dance in the final act, Jamila's infamous Bal Anat, from her 1970s Renaissance Fair performance era. The Mother Earth Goddess dance, channeled by Zoe, was absolutely mesmerizing. As I stood on stage in the circle watching her, with hands folded in respect, I felt a strong vibration of affirmation and encouragement run up my spine and perhaps throughout the entire dance congregation. I glanced at Jamila in the audience and saw her proud smile and then at Suhaila to see her sparkling eyes watching us. I took in this sweet coming together of soul sisters and sent a little prayer to Gram. I realized in that moment that this entire service was in dedication to the Court of Matriarchs.

2012 Transformations

Wow - it has been two years since my last post. So much has changed. I closed the studio downtown. It is true. It brings me to tears to type that so point blank. It is not so much that I miss it - but, reading through the posts in this semi-abandoned blog from 2009 and 2010, when I was building that dream, has made me nostalgic and sentimental. I loved that space. Good ole Saint James. We built the most beautiful, gorgeous, embryonic red floors. Those floors wrapped you up like a fetus while in shivasana after a juicy yoga class with Sienna. Those floors pumped energy up the soles of your feet as you drilled around the room repeating the same movement over and over - in a Suhaila drill. There was not an inch of those floors that I had not sanded, painted, touched with my bare hands. I cleaned every inch of them every week with hot water and essential oils. I loved those floors. Problems with the space, a downturn in the economy, James and I breaking up, a couple seriously toxic neighbors and a crystal clear vision received directly from the Goddess herself, that said to me, "Run like hell!," all led to my closing the space. Two years of running Moon Belly in that space was an adventure and I learned so much about myself - both good and bad things. I learned that I am a great leader with vision, creativity and energy, but need to learn to delegate. In typical single mother style, I tried to do everything myself. Money was tight and it was hard for me to visualize enough coming in to hire the staff I really needed. Too many years of poverty were shading my ability to see abundance or trust in abundance. Overall, I set up a situation in which I had very little support. Sadly, this is a recurring pattern I keep finding myself weaving in and out of. I am working on these issues and have learned to forgive myself for them, but trying to learn and grow from them too. I am now teaching one class a week. Just one class, that is all. I used to teach 10+ per week. Life is simple now. I teach at the School of Missouri Contemporary Ballet and it is a great space run by dedicated dancers and artists. It is well lit, pragmatic, solid and functional. I am so very grateful for MCB. I have much more free time in the evenings to share with my daughters. This makes me happy. I still teach private lessons in my home and the Moon Belly Ensemble and DragonFly Company still exist, just much smaller and on a 2012 mello membership trip. All is exactly as it should be. xoxo - K

Yesterday I went back to dance class for the first time in almost a year. I had been pretty excited about going throughout the day, right up until I parked the car and realized that I was entering the intermediate class. Was I ready for the challenge? Mentally? Spiritually? – yes. Desperately, even. Physically? – not so sure. Over the previous three years I had built myself up to ten studio hours a week, but being relatively inactive and recovering from a recent ankle sprain, doubt that I would be able to manage even one hour in an intermediate class seeped very quickly into my conscience.

I managed to make my way into the building, a mix of nervous energy. Down the stairs, around the corner, and forward, to the other side of the door-glass. I was in! As soon as I saw some of the familiar faces, my spiritual well filled completely up, but I still wasn’t confident in my ability to jump right in with the physical demand I knew was ahead. I shared that fear with some of the other girls, who rolled their eyes and promised I’d be fine.

Going back in the classroom after that long reprieve ended up being extremely refreshing. It was new and familiar at once. The mats and lockers were moved so I had to orient myself through that process while simultaneously figuring out how to write my check with the checkbook balanced on my hip. I also filled out a punch card, which I’d never done before. Everyone else seemed so casual as I hurried through these administrative tasks. When I looked around for a spot in the room, however, my old space was there waiting for me. Front, left. Relief and fear commingled once more as I placed myself between the mirror and the rest of the class. I tried not to look too closely in either direction.

Then Kandice started talking. To everyone. She is a teacher. She is organized, thorough, enlightening, enthusiastic, resourceful, and motivating. Everyone was quiet and attentive as she reviewed the semester’s activities, and as she spoke, each of us hoped with a first-grader’s frenzy to make eye contact with her: to weigh in with her what we hoped to see in ourselves. Because she is that kind of teacher.

Thus class begins. After announcements, we stretch gracefully and begin to count out the beats with our minds, bodies, and voices. I was relieved to recognize the routine, mentally and physically. I smiled and breathed and felt just right. And so my experience in the class revealed itself to me not as a lost student but as a returning student, and it revealed more than I had expected.

Aside from the rigorous physical conditioning for strength, endurance, and coordination, Moon Belly classes offer a uniquely fulfilling experience. It’s a hike through an internal mountain range. A hymn sung of the female soul. A circle of heat and motion that feeds on itself but requires each dancer’s individual attention such as we, the dancers, had sought in that glimpse of Kandice’s introductory eye.

My favorite thing about Kandice as an instructor is that she honors the sacredness that we seek in bringing our selves to the class(es) each week, but she also welcomes the profane motives that we cannot shed when we show up there either. Fortunately, Moon Belly studio is the most accepting and freeing environment and it truly reciprocates by design to those who chose to participate. It represents the dance and the dancer and offers every woman her own space. We are free to honor whatever aspect of ourselves brought us to the studio and fear no judgment. Some wish to perform, some hope to awaken some sensual part of themselves, some come to find out what their friend has been going on about, and some simply come because, really, who wants to go to a step class when there’s belly dance in our midst?

Kandice continued to facilitate the training, directing us in the drills. When possible, I would close my eyes, find my way through the music, the flow of the class, so as to distract myself from the struggle I was having with my body to perform the way I wanted. When necessary, I would drop the drill and loosen my tense stance for a quick two or three or four steps of infectious boogaloo, then it’s right back into formation.

I was amazed to find myself keeping up, for the most part, with the rest of the class. My legs hadn’t gone out from under me as I’d feared after the warm-up had left me shaking uncontrollably. In reality, I became enraptured by the rhythm and the consciousness of my body’s reawakening. These two things created an ethereal sensuality that continued to build during that one hour.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always invested my energy in some kind of physical training. Gymnastics, aerobics, yoga, step, salsa, swing, etc. I even tried to teach a few of those. Once, in a yoga exercise manual, I came across an explanation that movement of any kind is both dependent upon and limited by the gravitational pull of objects in our universe. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Without gravity, we are completely unstable, but as gravity increases, our mobility becomes more limited. As that idea grew, I came to understand movement, dance especially, as a flaunting of the human spirit conducted between the positive and negative charge of the earth and moon and all other celestial bodies. While we get pulled in a myriad of directions, the consummate hold of these various forces is ultimately and ironically what determines our mobility. Dancers both celebrate and challenge the claim that the universe naturally has on our bodies, often beautifully. Through dance we recognize as both liberating and pre-defined the individual freedom available within these universal parameters and their cyclical rhythms. The beauty of movement, it can be said, is thus prescribed by the edge and arc of the moon’s loving sword.

But Moon Belly doesn’t take on such a concept of terms, necessarily. I just think about things way too much sometimes. At the ground level, Moon Belly Dance Studio is a functional facility for body conditioning. Within that there is an awakening of spirit that happens to be uniquely female. Dance comes individually or as part of another layer in the Moon Belly experience, depending on the individual dancer’s premise. Because the focus of most of the primary classes is conditioning and internalization of the muscular control of movement, it is hard to explain to people that most of the time spent in class is not dedicated at all to dance. Sometimes I have been critical of that myself. Such as, we’re in a dance class, so why aren’t we busting some moves here? You see, I love to dance. I want to let my freak flag fly when I am drawn in by a heavy rhythm. But when in the studio, there is a discipline of form, a consciousness of rhythm, and an internal awareness that supersedes my personal desires to break completely free. BUT, when I do dance on my own now, my whole body dutifully, often graciously, assumes the task and is guided by the discipline my body has come instinctively to process. Dance, therefore, can be seen as the reward rather than the method of Moon Belly. And because of those methods, I am able to be more creative with my own movement. I see this as a sign of success in any course of instruction, which brings me again to say, Kandice is that kind of teacher.

Namaste. I can’t wait to go back.

Written by Jeni Polacek