{"id":1454,"date":"2010-05-06T10:45:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T17:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2010-05-06T11:07:21","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T18:07:21","slug":"rebaba-queen-of-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/05\/06\/rebaba-queen-of-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"

Queen of Denial, A Tale about Life and Belly Dancing<\/h3>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rebaba<\/p>\n

Part 1: The Safety of the Stage<\/h2>\n

by Rita Alderucci (aka Rebaba)<\/strong><\/a>
\nposted May 6, 2010<\/span><\/h3>\n

In September of 2004 my life was out of control, the addict in me was running the show and it had finally usurped my ability to function anywhere near normal on a daily basis.\u00a0 It was at this low point in my life that my nearest and dearest, both my immediate family and my Hahbi\u2019Ru<\/strong> family, came to my rescue in the unwanted form of an intervention to save my life.\u00a0 With nothing but love and fear for my life they put their foots down, and took away the last connection I was desperately trying to hold on to which was dancing.\u00a0 I had convinced no one but myself that I could keep dancing in that horrible condition.\u00a0Thank God, they were brave enough and scared enough to say \u201cNO MORE\u201d, and do the one thing that would force me to get the help I needed, take the dance away.<\/em><\/p>\n

With their love and unending support I entered a rehabilitation program.\u00a0 In this program I was finally able to accept the fact that I was (and still am) sick with a chronic (but not terminal) illness.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

I started the long and difficult job of getting my illness under control, and learning how to live my life without drugs.\u00a0 It was the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever done, but, the joys of once again \u201cliving\u201d in the true sense of the word are without parallel.\u00a0 I can truly say that I have never been happier or more at ease in my own skin.<\/em><\/p>\n

In my story that follows I will take you on my life journey, the good and the bad, dancing and then not dancing.\u00a0 I hope this will entertain you as well as help you understand a little about the illness of addiction.\u00a0 Addiction continues to grow in our country in epidemic proportions.\u00a0 The sad truth is that there is still no real hope of getting the necessary help to those that truly need it.\u00a0 The statistics are staggeringly low, with a success rate of less than 5% of those that seek, or who are forced to seek treatment through the courts.\u00a0 I am one of the lucky ones that have beaten the odds, and I know it and will continue the work for the rest of my life!<\/em><\/p>\n

To you my dear family and friends, I dedicate this story of my ups and downs, told truthfully and without remorse to all of you.\u00a0 The lessons you all helped me learn have given me more than I could have ever imagined.\u00a0 I love you all and will work hard to maintain the wonderful life you have helped me rebuild.\u00a0 With all my heart I thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Where should I start?\u00a0 Do I begin with my career overseas? Should I start upon my return to the USA, or from the very beginning?\u00a0 I promised an article that will include my story of drug addiction and on-going recovery; so it should begin in San Francisco, with the ’60s era of the \u201cflower children\u201d.\u00a0 As an alternative, I could begin at the beginning when as a child I became a student of Theater Arts, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and different ethnic dance forms.\u00a0 I also began suffering with insecurities, anxieties, and eating disorders!\u00a0 In the ’70s, the disco era, I began my career as a professional Belly dancer in San Francisco\u2019s North Beach<\/a>, I was 17 years old.\u00a0 Or, I could begin during the time when I moved to Hollywood, and witnessed the arrival of Egyptian musicians in the cocaine infested nightclubs, and I could mention the fact that in these seedy clubs you could hear some of the best Middle Eastern music in the country!\u00a0 I just don\u2019t know exactly where I should begin my story…<\/p>\n

There is much to tell, with and without adding my addiction to the mix!\u00a0 I am hoping, though, that you will be as interested in my dance career as you are in the drug scene that enveloped me before, during, and after it!\u00a0 Therefore, I will begin at the time I started performing, and discovered a new safe place for me.<\/p>\n

For many years, the most secure and safe place for me was on stage–dancing and acting.\u00a0 Performing gave me the security and love for which I yearned\u00a0 (both with and without drugs).\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, for many years I was able to keep my addictive illness in check, and maintain a certain amount of control over my life.\u00a0 Not to say that I didn\u2019t "do" drugs, but, my drug use hadn\u2019t yet escalated to become the monster that took control over my life, and eventually could have ended it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n
\"Rita<\/p>\n
Rebaba dancing in an improv class.<\/h6>\n
Caption- " This photo is taken of when I was in the Performing Arts Workshop (PAW). I was in the Work-Study Arts Program and spent a minimum of 2 hours a day studying drama, improv, Ballet & Modern dance & Circus Arts. I was\u00a0 a student there beginning in Junior High School abnd until I graduated from High School. It was the closets thing to a performins arts school in existence at the time in San Francisco, I was 13 years old in this picture. Gloria Unti, the director, is pictured in the background, left.<\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n
\n
\"Rita
\nRebaba at age 14 dancing with her first pot, selected with the help of Nakish<\/a>. This photo was taken by my mom on the night of the day I bought my first pot with Nakish at White Front (which used to be on 16th Street and Potrero, and was kind of like the first Target) I was 14 years old and the year is 1969.<\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

My Childhood\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was born and raised in San Francisco (and that reminds me, we, my group of \u201cartistic\u201d friends,\u00a0 had a club for a while in High School, and we made T-shirts emblazoned with \u201cB&B NSF\u201d), and I grew up here in the ’60s and ’70s.\u00a0 I was a product of that very special time in San Francisco: a \u201cchemical child\u201d, a very young, hip \u201cparty girl\u201d if you will.\u00a0 Perfectly suited to this era of non-stop pot smoking, which was hardly considered \u201cdoing drugs\u201d in those days. (In fact, drinking alcohol was considered a much more serious problem for a teenager, and of course it still is one.)\u00a0 In the ’60s and ’70s, many dancers and artists believed that the natural high from smoking pot was an enhancement to our art and increased our creativity!\u00a0 When I began dancing full-time in San Francisco\u2019s North Beach Belly dance venues, almost every dancer I worked with smoked pot.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but, I tended to \u201cdance for myself\u201d when dancing stoned.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Eventually, I learned to remember I was onstage while dancing high, (at least most of the time) and overcame my tendency to space-out, lose focus and end up with a blank stare on my face.\u00a0 I trained myself to look at my audience, keep listening to the music and smile<\/strong><\/em>. Never stop smiling!<\/p>\n

The Obsession of My Youth<\/p>\n

It was many years later that the hard drugs that I had convinced myself I could control, completely consumed me.\u00a0 Between then and now, I managed to have an interesting and successful career as a Belly dancer.\u00a0 Traveling to distant countries helped me keep my ugly demons at bay and even sober up for much of that time. (Although, I replaced drugs with eating particularities\/disorders.)\u00a0 During the years that I danced overseas in the late ’70s and ’80s, I didn\u2019t do drugs–except when I visited my hometown.\u00a0Then, it was non-stop partying for up to a month, mostly smoking pot, snorting cocaine and drinking alcohol.\u00a0 Then I would stop, cold-turkey, and return to my life of dancing 7 days a week, 365 a year.\u00a0 I filled my time with dancing onstage, and in jazz classes during the day while living and working in Paris, and in the gyms while dancing in the resort hotels of the Middle East and Africa.\u00a0 I would starve myself and then binge about once a week, taking laxatives daily to be able to relieve myself at all, which becomes almost impossible when you don\u2019t consume any oil in your diet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was high on controlling my eating habits, which by-the-way, is the addictive high of anorexia and bulimia, and I was the thinnest I\u2019ve ever been.\u00a0 European Belly dance venues expected their dancers, and especially their star dancers to look like a professional dancer, meaning thin, very thin and beautiful, which I was though I didn\u2019t know it at the time.<\/p>\n

Of course, being the sick person I was, I took every criticism to heart, from anyone, onstage or off.\u00a0 When you are constantly being judged by men, owners, musicians, and fans, you can never win.\u00a0 I was too fat, then too thin, and I believed them all.\u00a0 Unfortunately, all these opinions of me only fed in to my psychosis and insecurities, allowing me to justify my actions as being necessary for my "art".\u00a0 So, even when I wasn\u2019t actually indulging in drugs, I most certainly remained a victim of my obsessive\/compulsive behavior.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, these years of traveling, and living in Paris were the happiest of my young life, and during this time, I was as close to sane, though clearly still not quite right, as anyone (and more than many).\u00a0 My life was a fairy tale, and if I had to starve myself to attain and maintain it, that was a small price to pay.<\/p>\n

(No!\u00a0 The damage I did to my body during those years of laxatives and food obsessions didn\u2019t show up until I stopped the behavior.\u00a0 I am sterile, do you think these were contributing factors?\u00a0 Most likely they were–along with lots of flight time and tons of exercise.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible this may have occurred without the eating disorders, but, they certainly didn\u2019t help, and most likely were a major contributing factor to my sterility.)<\/p>\n

My Public Image<\/p>\n

Now that I have exposed\u00a0some of my guts, my skeletons in the closet, I would like to tell you more about the image that I vigorously maintained for many years. It is the story I naturally believed to be my public life, and not the big secret that I tried (with varying success) to keep hidden.\u00a0 I was the last person to understand that I was sick.\u00a0 I had become an expert at convincing myself that my behavior was more normal than not.\u00a0 I was a professional dancer and entertainer, travelling the globe, being paid to do what I loved best, dance, dance, dance!\u00a0 I had convinced myself that drugs and eating disorders were as natural and necessary as were my costumes and makeup!\u00a0 The reality was that during the years that I was dancing and touring professionally, I was able to successfully keep my additive nature under control.\u00a0 My most destructive behavior began later in life, once Belly dancing became my hobby, and I was no longer an entertainer by profession.<\/p>\n

As a child, my obsessive\/compulsive personality drove me to hone my dance skills at a very early age via incessant repetition.\u00a0 My unwavering concentration and absolute need to perform led me to seek out venues to feed this need as far back as I can remember.\u00a0 These aspects of my obsessive\/compulsive behaviors were not totally destructive. \u00a0There was definitely a part of my nature that lent itself perfectly to the demanding life of an artist, or, any person who specializes in one field and strives for perfection in it.\u00a0 From my earliest memories, I was unhappy, spending my waking hours doing anything else besides dancing and performing.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Of all the activities with which children and teenagers usually occupy their time, dancing was my major preoccupation.\u00a0 I managed to be dancing or acting most of the time, in school and after school.\u00a0 I began performing onstage when I was 10 years old, dancing the hula with Leilani<\/em><\/strong> Rodgers Company<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 When I was 12 years old, I was enrolled in the Performing Arts Workshop<\/em><\/strong>. PAW is still in existence today, under the direction of the daughter of the woman who founded it in the early ’60s, and with whom I studied both theater and Modern dance as a child, and then teenager,\u00a0Gloria <\/strong>Unti<\/strong> [pictured in second photo above].\u00a0 I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the PAW\u2019s Work\/Study program in junior high school.\u00a0 (In the ’60s this was the closest thing to a high school for the performing arts.)\u00a0 I went to school from 8:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. to take my core academic classes, and then went to the PAW every afternoon.\u00a0 I was paid $20. per week, which was a small fortune for a kid back in the ’60s!\u00a0 On top of the multitude of classes I received in the PAW, both dramatic arts and dance, I was taking Modern dance classes at the Margaret Jenkins studio<\/em><\/strong>, Polynesian dance with Leilani Rodgers at the Buchanan Street Berkeley YWCA, and I started taking Belly dance classes with Jamila Salimpour<\/a><\/strong> at the Presidio Avenue studio where she began teaching Belly dance in San Francisco.\u00a0 I was involved in all of these activities before I turned 13 years old!\u00a0 Fortunately for my single mother, most of these classes were free, or they became free to me once I distinguished myself, making it possible (affordable) for me to take all these different classes.\u00a0 I was obsessed with dance and better than the average kid at it.\u00a0 By the end of 1969, I started to perform with Bal-<\/em><\/strong>Anat<\/em><\/strong>!\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"1st\"1st
\n1st Ren Faire
\nThese two photos were taken at the first Renaissance Faire at Black Point in Novato California in 1970. Aida and I shared Pot Dancer duties (she is in the back round along with:
\nJamila and Suhaila, Mark Bell<\/a>, Galia, Mehta, Lisa (the first Bal Anat snake dancer), Sharon Carew (who did the occational finali, Snake dancer and then Kahslama with me some years later).<\/h6>\n

Jamila<\/p>\n

In 1970, I performed at the first Black Point Renaissance Faire<\/em><\/strong> in Novato, California.\u00a0 Aida<\/a> <\/strong>and I shared the first water-pot dance, alternating shows three times a day.\u00a0 It seemed like a dream come true for me, dancing with Jamila\u2019s incredible dance company.\u00a0 I had first seen Bal-Anat as an audience member about a year earlier (1968) at the very first Renaissance Faire held at China Camp in Marin County.\u00a0 I\u00a0 fell in love immediately with the hypnotic drums, music, and mysterious beauty of the performance art that was Jamila\u2019s fabulous creation, Bal-Anat.\u00a0 I started taking lessons as soon as her classes resumed after the faire, and exactly one year later, I was up there with Jamila, and a very young Suhaila<\/strong>, the exquisite Nakish<\/a><\/strong> (who was my faire chaperon because of my young age, and took me to Novato every weekend as I didn\u2019t yet have a driver\u2019s license).\u00a0 I was performing on the same stage as the incomparable Galya, Rhea<\/a>, Anne Lippe, Reyna, Mehta, Lisa<\/strong>, and many other beautiful women, all dancing with sabers, snakes, pots, veils, cymbals, and draped in assiute <\/a>cloth, lots of assiute!\u00a0 It was an incredible, unique blend of fantasy and reality, based upon Jamila\u2019s vision of Egyptian Tribal Dance.\u00a0 She was, and still is one of the most amazing women I have ever had the honor of knowing.\u00a0 I consider her an astute historian whose personal research and unending fascination with Egypt and the Middle East, close to a singled-handed resurrection of an art form in San Francisco, of all places!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her classes gave us so much more than just a Belly dance.\u00a0 Jamila, with her wonderful story telling and strong hand as a teacher gave me, and many like me, a new and fantastic feminist life-path that was strong and woman-dominated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Casbah
\nCasbah Dressing room shot, taken in 1973, I just graduated from High School, and was dancing Tuesday and Thursdays there before leaving the states to go to school in Switzerland.<\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

It gave me a sense of pride and self-esteem for the very first time in my life.\u00a0 It was the first time in my short life that far that I felt truly special, beautiful, and talented!\u00a0 I was mature enough to realize that I wasn\u2019t alone in my new found sense of self-worth.\u00a0\u00a0 Many young American women who began taking Jamila\u2019s Belly dance classes at this time had similar experiences.\u00a0 I have always felt extremely blessed to have met Jamila, and studied with her when I did, and especially at my young age (12 years old).\u00a0 As you can imagine, from what I have previously described to you so far, Jamila\u2019s influence over me was very instrumental in helping me become a stronger and much more secure young woman, much more so than I might have done if left to my own devices.\u00a0 Her classes and Belly dance in my life gave me the outlet I so desperately needed to keep my addictive nature in check for many, many years.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Belly Dance Saves Me<\/p>\n

Believe me; my later drug abuse problems might have taken a much earlier and uglier chunk out of my life if I hadn\u2019t started Belly dancing.\u00a0 These classes in the ’60s were the beginning of what was to become a historical force in the woman\u2019s movement San Francisco, the Bay Area and eventually the rest of the country.\u00a0 The Belly dance craze in the ’60s and ’70s wained in the ’80s, and then returned with a vengeance and new direction in the ’90s with the advent of American Tribal Style (ATS).\u00a0 That is also when John Compton<\/a><\/span>, Paula<\/span>, and I created Hahbi’Ru Dance Ensemble<\/span> in 1992\u2026 I was, for more than once in my life, in the right place, at the right time, and with the right mind!\u00a0 Belly dance embraced me like another mother, and gave me a secure path in life which could only be described as kismet!\u00a0 From my teens to my 40s Belly dancing was like a safety net with a strong enough influence in the right direction, the good and healthy life direction, that it helped to keep me sober (and at the very least, a functioning addict) for many years at a time.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

North Beach<\/p>\n

After graduating from high school, and approximately 18 months of university study at San Francisco State as a dramatic arts major, I dropped out to take my first dance contract and travel to Calgary, Canada, to perform for two months.\u00a0 Two days before I was to leave the owner passed away!\u00a0 So instead of traveling to Canada to dance full time, I started performing on Broadway at the Casbah<\/em><\/strong> Cabaret<\/strong><\/em><\/a> as a regular dancer (described in North Beach Memories, Part I<\/a>)\u2026\u00a0 I was 17 years old, and in heaven! <\/p>\n

Travel\u00a0<\/p>\n

In my nineteenth year, I left San Francisco and the Casbah, to go abroad.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s father was from Switzerland, although he died very young, a long time before I was born, his (and now my) family were plentiful with 6 sisters and one brother all living in Switzerland.\u00a0 In 1974, I had my Grandfather\u2019s sisters and brother still living in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland.\u00a0 It was time for me to meet more of them, and see France, Spain, and Italy as well.\u00a0 I saved up and left with a Eu-rail Pass (a gift from my mom) for what was supposed to be a summer long trip through Europe.\u00a0 I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, and decided right then and there that I wasn\u2019t going home anytime soon!\u00a0 With help from my mom and my Great-Aunt (my Grandfather\u2019s oldest sister), I secured funding from the Swiss family bank to pay for my education.\u00a0 I was invited to room with another Great-Aunt, and my mom committed to send me spending money.\u00a0 I started intense language school in September of 1974, with the hopes of passing the strenuous language tests necessary to gain admission to the International School of the University of Geneva, Switzerland<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

My intent was to study the French language and eventually go on to one of the many translator schools Geneva is famous for and that supply the United Nations.\u00a0 I imagined myself working in the UN as a translator and living in Europe full time.\u00a0 Well, I got as far as a year and a half of 8-hour a day language school under my belt, before dropping out and jumping a train for Paris, France.\u00a0 In Paris my best girlfriend (and she still is), was working as an \u201cAu Pair\u201d, taking care of a single mother\u2019s two girls.\u00a0 She had also taken some Belly dance classes with Jamila Salimpour in San Francisco back when I first began to study with her.\u00a0 She had written to me while I was still in Geneva, saying that she had met some Arabic musicians playing in the Metro.\u00a0 They told her about an Algerian restaurant named Al Jezair<\/em><\/strong>, off the Place de Ste. Michel, on the left bank of Paris, where they played nightly in an orchestra, and there were Belly dancers in the show!\u00a0 When she told them her girlfriend was a professional Belly dancer in San Francisco, they laughed, and said there was no such thing as an American Belly dancer!\u00a0 She tried explaining the current fad\/trend in San Francisco that Belly dancing had become over the last couple of years, but, they were hard-pressed to believe it.\u00a0 They said that I should go to Al Jezair for an audition when I arrived in Paris.\u00a0 (Personally, from what my girlfriend told me, I think they were just being nice and flirting with her as she was, and still is, also a beautiful Jewish girl from NYC.)\u00a0 When she wrote me this story, it took me exactly one day to decide to give up my dreams of becoming a translator at the UN, and jump on the next train to Paris with 8 dollars in my pocket, and the hopes of a job Belly dancing on the left bank!<\/p>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/h2>\n

Don’t miss-Author Rebaba<\/a> will be performing with Hahbi’Ru at the upcoming Tribal Fest held in Sebastopol, Ca Sunday, May 16th at 4pm(ish), 2010<\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n

\"use<\/p>\n

\n

Have a comment? Use or comment section at the bottom of this page or Send us a letter!<\/a>
\nCheck the "Letters to the Editor<\/a>" for other possible viewpoints!<\/p>\n

Ready for more?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n