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We’ve been the house dancers in a Greek restaurant for a number of years and have also done more than our share of family parties, corporate parties, etc. We’ve truly been blessed and have enjoyed every opportunity to dance. During that time, we have gotten numerous calls from local up and coming dancers wanting to know about how to get professional gigs or even asking about auditioning for an opportunity to dance. We’ve been to a lot of performances, haflas, and workshop shows over the years and have seen a lot of promising up and coming ladies who have asked for input on how to get the gigs.\u00a0 So, you won’t like it but here’s our two cents.<\/p>\n
A Restaurant is a FAMILY Situation. <\/strong><\/p>\n It’s not a nightclub, it’s not a hafla, and it’s not a workshop. Recently, a workshop was held here and we happened to catch some of the video posted on Youtube. I won’t name names, as it has nothing to do with the dancer, but with a trend I see happening. <\/p>\n The young lady has bought into that idea that it’s possible to combine burlesque and bellydance. WRONG \u2013 at least not if you want to be hired for a family gig.<\/p>\n If you come out dancing to Hidey Ho, your choreography consists of very little dancing but a great deal of shaking and grinding, and your costume is an actual lingerie bra with some coins, a cheap skirt and no belt; well I have news for you \u2013 that doesn’t fly in a family restaurant. It doesn’t matter if all of your friends were screaming from the audience and telling you how great you are, unless you’re looking for gig that involves a pole, it doesn’t fly. We can’t think of a single restaurant owner that we know that is going to hire you \u2013 no matter how pretty you are \u2013 if that is your idea of belly dancing. AND \u2013 when the general public sees that type of dancing represented as belly dancing, we can promise you that short of bachelor parties, you’re not going to get hired for many private functions either. Don’t come whining to me when you discover that the local gigs have all but dried up for you and every other dancer in town. You brought it on yourself.<\/p>\n A restaurant is a FAMILY situation (did we already mention that?) It’s also an ethnic one. <\/p>\n If you audition for a Greek restaurant \u2013 do NOT come to an audition with anything other than Greek music.<\/p>\n Don’t bring your dubstep, don’t bring your jazz, or your Gobsmack. Heck, don’t even bring your Lebanese (assuming here that you know not to bring your Turkish!). The same goes for dancing at a Lebanese restaurants (its not the time for anything but Lebanese music). Restaurant customers have expectations. They come to an ethnic restaurant expecting to see something representative of the culture. Again, if you perform in public to modern American music and the general public sees what you doing, they will decide that if that’s what belly dancing is, they don’t want to hire it. You have ruined it for yourself and all of the other up and coming dancers in your area because you couldn’t be bothered to learn about the culture (such as: costuming, music and dance style) of the dance you claim to love.<\/p>\n \n Not only is a restaurant a family situation, It’s also a business. A Greek, Turkish, Lebanese restaurant can all do a very good business without ever hiring a single dancer. In fact, given the way the dance community is dragging the good name of bellydance down into the gutter, they are realistically better off NOT hiring dancers. Parents don’t want their little girls seeing you bending over and doing HUGE hip circles to the back while they are eating or over-shaking your chest, doing back bends with your hips in someone’s face while they eat. They don’t want to see you doing a dance consisting of nothing but chest pops to “Chicky” and they certainly don’t want to spend $50.00 a person for dinner and have some group of dancers come out in pants, choli’s and tattoos all over their face dancing to “I Don’t Give A Damn”. Don’t come complaining to me when you call other restaurants and they are ADAMANT that they will never again have a dancer in their establishment. Again \u2013 you brought it on yourselves!<\/p>\n \n Every year we see more and more opportunities to perform disappear.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \n Frankly we blame this on the dance community at large. When you as teachers don’t hold your students to a high performance standard, when you as dancers go to shows and see dancers performing the way we described and cheering them on, screaming, yelling, and zaghareeting your approval, you only encourage it. When up and coming dancers see things like that in shows, videos, and haflas, they think “oh, it must be okay to do that” and the downward spiral continues. When the downward spiral continues, the jobs dry up even more. <\/p>\n \n At the risk of generalizing, it seems that the new batch of dancers coming up in the last several years are only interested in having people look at them. They don’t care about the culture, they hate the music, and can’t be bothered to learn anything above basic moves, pops\/locks and shaking their “assets” above and below the waist. <\/p>\n \n Yes, there are a lot of dancers who do care, who do study and work at it, but it’s the lazy one’s I’m talking to at this point.<\/p>\n \n Because ladies, you are dragging the genre down. If you want to stand around in jeans, a coin scarf and roll up your cami into your bra to display your stomach and shake your chest to “Chicky”, fine. Just please don’t call it bellydance. Because at that point it most certainly is not. <\/p>\n \n It makes no difference how pretty you are. <\/p>\n \n If you use your looks simply to turn this artform into something salacious, preening and posing as if you are doing a photo shoot for a girlie magazine, you’re not exactly family entertainment and you are most definitely not dancing. <\/p>\n \n While I’m on the subject, ladies, if you host your hafla or workshop show at a nightclub that has wet t-shirt contests, bull riding and pole dancing contests \u2013 what are you thinking? If you’re thinking you’ll make a great name for yourself \u2013 well you will make a name for yourself, but it’s not a polite one. Once you make that kind of name for yourself, you can’t get any respect and you can’t find any decent gigs that pay anything.<\/p>\n Those of you hosting workshops<\/p>\n When you have events and allow burlesque to be taught and performed in your show along with the bellydance, we don’t care how tame it is, the general public sees that. Heck they are seeing it and they have a very poor idea of what bellydance really is. They are NOT hiring \u2013 not any more.\u00a0 Until the majority of teachers, performers, and event hosts are willing to put their feet down and insist on standards of behavior and dance they won’t hire. The sad part is it takes a lot longer (if ever) to re-establish our artform as legitimate after the few have spoiled it. I am hopeful bellydance will survive, but it will be in spite of what the classless dancers are doing. Tacky comes and goes and hopefully the few tasteful dancers left will be able to outlast this. If it doesn’t? Well, betcha know what I’d say about that!\t\t <\/p>\n\n![\"Screenshot](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art62\/graphics62\/Naajidah-screenshotcollage.jpg\")
\n Screenshot collage from the promo video of the
\n Parthenon Greek Restaurant in Lincoln NE<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/div>\nResources:<\/h5>\n
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