{"id":1166,"date":"2010-01-17T22:44:31","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2013-05-01T15:41:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T22:41:23","slug":"barbarasyserenap1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/01\/17\/barbarasyserenap1\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Wilson (1933-2007)
A Student of Ruth St. Denis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Serena<\/p>\n

Part 1: Childhood<\/h2>\n

by Barbara Sellers-Young PhD<\/a>
\nposted January\t?,\t2010 <\/span><\/h3>\n

Serena Wilson,<\/strong> a member of the first generation of New York\u2019s belly dance teachers, died on June 17, 2007. Current and former students immediately eulogized her on youtube.com with images of her dancing in a Greek temple and on the Egyptian pyramids. [ed- see below] This essay looks at her life in relationship to the evolution of oriental dancing in the early part of the century from the stages of Vaudeville and the Salome Craze to the impact of the dance metaphysics of Ruth St. Denis. As such, it provides a glimpse into how one of the pioneers of bellydance in the United States combined the various influences in her life to evolve her version \t\t\tof the feminine through the vocabulary of bellydance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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I am a woman, wrapped in chiffon and jewels,
\nThin silks and girdle of gold.<\/em><\/p>\n

I stretch my arms…
\nThe embrace encompasses a universe.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can control a quiver in my hips,
\nTell a thousand stories with my eyes,<\/em><\/p>\n

Skip with child-like glee,
\nThe smile of experience on my lips.<\/em><\/p>\n

Glide in innocence, endure with age.
\nSpin like a dervish; undulate in sensuality…<\/em><\/p>\n

Excite, promise, create, change, tease, mock,
\nUnveil my passion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Untiringly seduce the world as I move my body,
\nFor I am a woman…<\/em><\/p>\n

I am the dancer.(<\/em>1)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"BlakeSerene Blake<\/strong> was born in the Bronx on Aug. 8, 1933\u00a0 into a Vaudeville family of performers called\u00a0 Blake & Blake<\/strong>. Her mother sang and her father played the banjo.(2<\/a>) Her childhood and adolescent years intersected with the\u00a0 Vaudeville stage, on which she often appeared with her parents in the 1930s. This was, however, an era when the Vaudeville stage was in decline as the population flocked first to the silent films and then the talkies. In the end, Serena\u2019s parents quit the Vaudeville and settled in New York where they organized soirees in their Upper West Side apartment that integrated a Vaudeville format of dance, singing, and comic routines.\u00a0 During World War II, Serena joined her parents in entertaining the troops at various military posts and in veteran\u2019s hospitals following the war. Between performing, Serena\u2019s Budapest-born mother provided her an artistic education, most importantly dance lessons at age seven with Ruth St. Denis<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Ruth St. Denis<\/p>\n

Serena\u2019s artistic mentor Ruth St. Denis is considered one of the founders of contemporary modern dance. Raised in the contemplative surroundings of a New York farm and trained in the basics of the movement vocabulary of Delsarte<\/em><\/strong>, Ruth St. Denis moved with her family to Brooklyn in 1893.\u00a0 In her early career, she performed as a skirt dancer in the fast paced environment of Vaudeville in which performers commanded the stage through the tempo of their performance. Inspired by the pageant ballets that created an imaginary Orient such as Egypt through the Centuries<\/em><\/strong> and Genevieve Stebbins\u2019<\/strong> dances based on Greek statuary, St. Denis was not satisfied with being a Vaudeville skirt dancer or a dancer and actress in David Belasco\u2019s<\/strong> company, a fact that she acknowledged to herself while in Buffalo on tour. Sitting in a caf\u00e9, her eyes happened on an image of the Egyptian goddess Isis that was part of a cigarette ad. Convincing the clerk to give her the poster, she placed it on the wall next to her bed. Contemplating it, she saw: a modernized and most un-Egyptian figure of the goddess Isis. She was sitting on a throne, framed by a sort of pylon. At her feet were the waters of the Nile with lotus growing. Her knees were close together; her right hand was on her right thigh, while with the other hand she held a lotus-tipped staff. The coloring was \tharmonious and the composition pleasing but undistinguished. <\/p>\n

Despite the contrived nature of the ad, it set off an epiphany that embraced past contemplations on spirituality and art: It was like the white light which contains all the colors, like the apparent stillness which contains all motion. It was, however, not merely a symbol of Egypt, but a universal symbol of all the elements of history and art which may be expressed through the human body. <\/p>\n

Her destiny, as she was to phrase it, \u201chad sprung alive\u201d in the moment of contemplating the image and she acknowledged an internal state of rapture and a commitment to become \u201ca rhythmic and impersonal instrument of spiritual revelation rather than a personal actress of comedy or tragedy\u201d .<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Ruth<\/span>Her realization was to take her on a search through New York\u2019s libraries and museums in search of the sources that could aid in the revelation of her new found understanding. In the process, her choreographic interests moved from Egypt to India and she consequently searched the environments of New York\u2019s Indian community for support of her project based on the goddess Radha<\/strong>, consort of the god Krishna<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

My intense interest in India had sent me into the byways of New York and I collected a little company, which used to meet in our flat to rehearse two or three times a week. They were of all varieties \u2013Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists. Some were clerks from shops, some were students at Columbia, and one or two were unmistakable ne\u2019er do-wells. They would sit on the floor and answer in a chorus the questions that I flung at them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0St. Denis performances were situated at the conjunction of information gained from books, art, and the explanations of spirituality provided by the Indian immigrant community. Her first performances based on India were staged in the private homes of New York elites for guests such as the Gaekwar of Baroda<\/strong>. Supported by a group of society women charmed by her version of the Hindu goddess Radha, St. Denis received a positive review in the New York press which ultimately provided her the necessary financial backing to tour throughout the American Vaudeville circuit. Although St. Denis would return to New York throughout her life, her career and the development of the company Denishawn with husband Ted Shawn<\/strong> would integrate ongoing tours of the United States with a school in Los Angeles and involvement in the Hollywood film industry. <\/p>\n

The company\u2019s repertoire combined images from across the Orient\u2013from North Africa to Japan\u2013notably the evening length piece Egypta<\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n
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