{"id":1304,"date":"2010-03-16T19:30:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T02:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2021-12-15T14:57:41","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T21:57:41","slug":"barbara-sellers-young-serena-wilson-part3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/03\/16\/barbara-sellers-young-serena-wilson-part3\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Wilson (1933-2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Student of Ruth St. Denis
\nPart 3:Serena’s Books<\/h2>\n

\"Serena's<\/p>\n

by Barbara Sellers-Young PhD<\/a>
\nposted March 16, 2010
\nPart 1 can be read here<\/a>
\nPart 2 can be read here<\/a><\/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. 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 of the feminine through the vocabulary of bellydance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Serena Technique of Belly Dancing<\/span> and The Belly Dance Book <\/span>(9<\/a>)
\nNow we have another page in the history of dance with the Serena technique: blending the old with the new; searching for the natural and ultimate truth of woman. But this is where we come in….now it\u2019s your turn to write some history! (Serena Wilson, 1972, 20)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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See the GS Resource List of Bellydance books published in the 1970s & 80s <\/a><\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

In 1972, the same year that Ms.<\/span> magazine first appeared on the stands, Serena, with her husband Alan Wilson<\/span>, made one of the first attempts to systematize the movement vocabulary of belly dance in the The Serena Technique of Belly Dancing.(10<\/a>)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The introduction to the book clearly defines Serena\u2019s position:<\/p>\n

"I have chosen dance as my way to self-expression because it represents the qualities of poise, grace, stamina, femininity, and an enormous challenge to free creativity. When I say free creativity, I mean that the movements are natural to a woman rather than distorted and artificial as they are in ballet. The technique I have created is mine, just as Shakespeare\u2019s plays are his. Words were in existence long before Shakespeare used them, but what he created was new. Women danced belly dance thousands of years before I came along, but what I have done with the steps is new. Actually my dance shouldn\u2019t be called belly dance at all, but it is a version of it, and since the term is so well known, I\u2019ll let it stand….at least for a while". (1972, 3-4) <\/p>\n\n\n
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