Comments on: Fusion!

By: Sadia

Sadia — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:41:40 +0000

BRAVO, Najia!!!
You are so very right and you said it so very well!! I have often felt the same things you expressed. My example is not a mixed up animal, but a chair, table or any common thing. I tell my students that when we take the essential nature from a chair — its “chairness”, it is no longer a chair, and we cannot sit on it, and it cannot perform its function. Neither can we take the essence from Oriental Dance and still call it Oriental (or Belly Dance). It is no longer itself.
What I regret most is seeing the long-time dancers who are trying to catch a new market by giving in to what seems to be a popular trend. But it is also disturbing is to see so much ”fusion-tribal-mishmash” being paraded as Belly Dance and even awarded and applauded as something to which we should aspire. Something akin to “The Emperor’s Clothes”.

The dancers in countries where Belly Dance is relatively young, have no good role models to follow, as those who do the best marketing are not those who understand the essence of the Middle Eastern Dance that you and I know and love.

I hope that there are more people who think and feel as you and I do, so we can preserve the Art.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:16:03 +0000

A great article and a comment to test the feature as requested on facebook.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:44:48 +0000

“It is an insult to those who study Flamenco, Jazz, and Ballet for many years that Belly dancers try to re-make these forms,”

no. actually, your article is an insult. to dance and dancers and common sense as well.
good ballet/jazz/flamenco/et cetera dancers surely don t feel modern dance or all kinds of fusions as insults. because they do their thing and thrive to do it well, and don t feel like it s a competition of who owns the purest form. there is no “pure form” in dance, everything we have is a very very recent construct.

you make the silly presumption that to fuse anything with belly dance is something that a bored dancer does. it is the opposite. the creative dancer will do that. sometimes it s good, sometimes it s bad – it really depends on the dance and choreography skills of the individual.
and middle eastern people are not “born with music and dance in blood”. everybody has to learn from scratch. another misconception that you have – your text is full of them.your body is a gift, you shouldn t set it limitations based on puristic views (bordering on blind religion.

By: Ashiya

Ashiya — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:04:12 +0000

BRAVO. I couldn’t have said it better. We are steadily losing the true essence of the dance with the addition of “flavors” of other forms. This is an article that I will share with my troupe and other dancers.

By: Nepenthe

Nepenthe — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 02:27:36 +0000

Hope this inspires many dancers to take a new look at this dance and get inspired by all that it has to offer in an of itself!

By: admin

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:13:34 +0000

Testing— Readers— please let me know if you have any problems with this comment box! editor@gildedserpent.com
Thanks!

By: Fusion « Yallah!

Fusion « Yallah! — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:41:48 +0000

[...] Fusion Por Roberta Salgueiro Uma coisa para se pensar. Essa autora praticamente traduziu tudo o que eu penso. O que você acha do que ela diz? [...]