Alessandra, Signing Off

Well, 2020. What to say about that. I would love to never hear the phrase "social-distancing" again. However, when I reflect back on these last 12 months, for the year that was "canceled", I actually did quite a bit. 

Before the lockdowns hit the U.S., I got in an epic vacation to the Yucatan peninsula where I got to visit Chichen Itza, amongst over Mayan ruin sites, which was one of my dreams since childhood. The trip included Cancun, Tulum, Merida, Playa del Carmen, and sites in between. There was swimming in cenotes, dancing to salsa, watching epic live performances, and relaxing at the beach. 

When it comes to belly dance, I didn't do nearly as much as I normally do in a year, of course due to so many restaurants being closed and my company being on hiatus. But I did manage to squeeze in five performances. I also auditioned for and joined a ladies salsa team through Studio Azul back in January. Once the lockdowns started, we continued practicing virtually, which was sometimes a struggle, But in July we pulled off a live virtual performance, after only one in-person rehearsal. I also continued to take pole dancing classes when studios were allowed to be open, and I am proud to say I graduated to level two. I'm looking forward to resuming when studios reopen in Seattle. 

In April, I completely did the pandemic puppy thing and this fluffy, sweet little guy entered my life. He is my constant companion and I love him to the moon and back. Best part of 2020. 

I also purchased a condo this year! By the time I moved into my new space in July, it was my fourth address in less than two years (FML, moving is seriously the worst). But I'm happy to have found a permanent place to call my own, and have had fun selecting some new furniture and turning my second bedroom into my dance rehearsal space.

With so much performing art being cancelled this year, it was a necessity for me to still find ways to encompass beauty and creativity into my life, and am happy to say I had the opportunity to collaborate on five photo shoots this year, with the outcome being some of my all time-favorite pictures. But let me just say, my soul is dying to sit in a theatre or music venue and watch someone sing, dance, act, or play a musical instrument. Please can we get back to regularly scheduled programming some time in 2021!

Photo Credit: Al Martinez

Photo Credit: Boudoir in Seattle

Photo Credit: Al Martinez

Photo Credit: Al Martinez

Photo Credit: Fred Dimanno

I also found ways to keep myself entertained at home. I took up the very easy craft of diamond painting and completed two paintings. I purged my closets and donated two carloads of clothing and other household items to Goodwill (those hour-plus long donation lines were no joke!!). And I read 25 books, with Glennon Doyle's Untamed being by far my favorite.

For some much needed changes of scenery during pandemic lockdown, I was fortunate to get in some weekend trips to Vashon Island, Mount St. Helens, and Spokane / Coeur d'Alene. And finally, I tapped into my inner Katniss and took a six-week archery class during the fall. Yup, pretty sure that officially makes me a badass!

That being said, 2020 wasn't all fun and games for me, as I'm sure it wasn't for any of us. There were days when I felt my train had fallen off the tracks; days where I was melancholy, grumpy, and unproductive. You know how you usually say, wow, this year just flew by, what happened to the time? No, not this year. Not for me anyway. I feel I have been living in 2020 for something more like three years. Some days, I feel I have been working at my dining room table for all 16 years of my professional career. The repetition of it making me feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day. I also had quite a bit of personal relationship drama and distress. However, I'm happy to say that now, by the end of the year, things have worked themselves out in that regard.

One of my personal realizations has been that the lockdown triggered a significant amount of childhood emotional trauma for me. I grew up in a cult where one's whole life was dictated to you: who you could be friends with, what career you could aspire to, how much education you could attain, what clothes you could wear, who you could marry, what music you could listen to, pretty much even the thoughts inside your own head. So there were elements of the lockdown for me, being so restricted on what you can and can't do, that brought me back to being in a cult and a culture that I had escaped from as a 17-year-old. It created high levels of anxiety and depression for me at the beginning of each new lockdown cycle, and it was something I had to actively work through, including speaking with a therapist about, amongst other issues related to both the past and recent events. 

Looking forward. 

I know just because tomorrow morning we will wake up in 2021 that not everything will be resolved. But with advances related to the vaccine, I feel optimistic that things will slowly start to get better. I also have a number of personal goals that I feel excited and energized about: seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, upping the ante on my fitness and wellness, studying belly dance with my favorite dancer Diva Darina, traveling to Chile, hopefully riding in a hot air balloon, amongst a number of other aspirations. Overall, I'm trying to focus on the things I can control. Always wise advice, but especially in a time period when so much is out of our control, I think that attitude is even more important than ever. Twenty twenty-one, let's turn the page to a new chapter. I'm ready. 

And finally, to the title of my post: signing off. I've made the decision that this will be my last blog post. It's been a long run for sure. I've been posting every month since 2010; an entire decade. This post will make post #180. I've written about the history of belly dance, tips for performing, and belly dance cultural icons. I've interviewed fellow dancers and had guest bloggers. I've shared my personal struggles, triumphs, dreams, and goals. The past posts will continue to stay up, but in the interest of making more time for other pursuits, I have decided that I will no longer be posting new content here. However, you can continue to find me on my belly dance Facebook page at Alessandra Dance and my Instagram page at andria_alessandra. 

To each of you, thank you for reading along with me all these years. I appreciate you taking this journey with me. Wishing you a happy new year, filled with love and abundance. Blessings. 

Halloween Creativity

Halloween is my favorite holiday, hands down. With 2020 being, well 2020, and limited options for celebrating in the traditional way, I still wanted to get into the spirit of things. So I grabbed my favorite photographer, Al Martinez, along with a red wig, black horns, cool props, and vampire teeth and headed to a local park to see what kind of cool visual art we could create. Here's what we came up with.

Fantasy Photo Shoot

With live performing at a COVID-lull, I'm having to find new ways to exercise and indulge my creative spirit. The perfect opportunity for that happened a few weeks ago when I met up with the photographer-extraordinaire, Al Martinez, for a fantasy inspired photo shoot. Check out the fruits of our creative labor below, and be sure to check out Al's other photography work on his Facebook page. 

Arabic Music: An Intro

Like many Western dancers who discover Arabic music and dance in their 20s, 30s, and beyond, I didn't have much exposure to Middle Eastern music growing up. It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s and started taking belly dance classes that I began to regularly hear and learn about this rich, beautiful musical tradition.

Growing up, I was a classically trained violinist and studied Western musical theory for around a decade, and as such I was very familiar with Western scales and octaves. I thought this was the only "organizational" format that music could exist in. Ha! Turns out that was definitely wrong. In fact, it rather blew my mind learning that Arabic music employs its own tone system. (That U.S. education, or at least mine, isn't more culturally encompassing is a topic for a whole other blog post...) I certainly won't claim to be an expert on this topic, nor is this post going to dive into a full blown discussion of Arabic musical theory, but here's a brief introductory explanation.

To start with, let's do a quick review of Western scales for comparison purposes. In Western music theory, octaves are divided into a series of 12 tones, which comprises a chromatic scale. Each interval or movement up the scale is a half-step or semitone. When music is played, it is played in a certain pitch, or key signature, to indicate which eight notes will comprise the scale. An eight octave scale has a pattern of whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step. If that's not making sense, think about singing Doe a Deer from the Sound of Music in your head.

Classical Arabic music, as well as Ottoman, Persian, and Indian music, take this one step farther. Instead of only dividing down to just a semitone, these musical traditions make use of quarter tones. Just like the name sounds, a quarter tone is half the size of a semitone. And thus in the Arab tone system an octave divides down into 24 divisions, instead of just 12. From those 24 tones, seven are selected to produce a scale. From there, the specific notes used in a piece will come from one or more of 70 modes or maqam. A maqam, which translates as location or position, is a system of melodic modes that is built on a scale, which in turn, defines the pitches and patterns of a piece of music. This ultimately sets the structure for a musician to be able to improvise music. Whew! Interesting and complicated stuff!

Moving away from musical theory, it's also important to note that Arabic music utilizes many instruments not frequently, if ever, seen in Western music. The most common of these include the oud which a form of lute, the qanun which is a zither, the ney which is a type of flute, and the riq and dumbek which are types of drums. This is not any way an exhaustive list, as there are many more types of instruments, especially as one gets into folkloric styles of music.

And lastly to say a word about rhythms. Rhythms are an important part of Arabic music and dance. Rhythms can commonly be associated with certain geographic locations and cultures. For example the Sa'idi rhythm originating from an area in Egypt that runs along the Nile of the same name. Rhythms that you will hear commonly danced to by belly dancers include masmoudi, ayub, malfouf, maqsum, beledi, sa'idi, and chiftetelli. A well-trained, well-versed, and well-educated dancer should be familiar with all of these rhythms.

There is of course, so much more to be said and to learn about this topic, but that is your very quick intro and I hope it inspires you to learn more!

Don't Forget Your Mask!

It's the new thing, the new normal. When you feel your house you have to don a mask or face covering.

Wearing a mask might not be the most enjoyable thing ever: it can make you feel overheated on warm days, lead to undesirable breakouts ("maskne"), fog up your reading glasses, and generally be a pain trying to remember when you leave your house. But hey, if you got to do it, might as well try to make it a bit more agreeable.

So here's my nod to having a bit of fun with our new mask couture. Photos by Fred Dimaano.

Find Your Big Magic

I recently finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic, and here's what I thought of it:

Absolutely wonderful inspirational advice.

If you are pursuing any kind of creative passion, at any kind of level, read this book. It's such a refreshing take on the creative process.

In short, Big Magic is the ideology of freeing artistic endeavors from labeling or valuing them by external quantifiers, such as money, fame, awards, recognition, status, and the like, and admonishes to instead purse creativity for creativity sake. For the joy that it brings. Let the ego go, and let the heart take over. Stop worrying about what others think and how they see your artistic expression, and allow yourself to fall in love with your personal passion all over again.

I know there have been times in my belly dance career where I definitely felt this way. I felt pressured to land a new restaurant gig, make a troupe audition cut, or win a competition. I was valuing my art and my enjoyment in it based on what other people thought, based on what external value was being assigned to it. And you know what? It was a sure fire way straight to a dead end for enjoying what I was doing. It was killing my art, my creativity, my soul, and my spark. 

Gilbert is also a big proponent of keeping your day job, so that you can take the pressure off your art form as a means of paying your bills. I completely agree with this. There was a time when I wanted to be a full-time artist, but not anymore. By letting my day job cover my expenses, I have the freedom to selectively choose which people and projects I want to work with, and which I don't. The projects that light me up get the green light, and the rest get left behind without causing any financial anxiety. 

Gilbert also introduces this incredibly cute, but also incredibly resonate idea that creative ideas are these sentient forms of energy, floating around in space, just waiting to find the right human being so that a magical collaboration can be entered into. What is the trick to catch one of these magic ideas? You have to be listening. You have to be open with your receiving antennae on and tuned into the creativity vortex. That's how you find your magic.

If you are feeling stale, stuck, bored, or uninspired by the things that used to bring you joy, this is the book for you. If you feel shot down by rejection, pride wounded by criticism, this is the book for you. If you just need more magic in your life, this is the book for you. I highly recommend that all artists and creatives add this to their reading list.

I will leave you with this powerful quote from the book. "I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it's merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult, or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn't get the outcome I wanted. At such times, I can always steady my life once more by returning to my soul. I ask it, "And what is it that you want, dear one?" The answer is always the same: "More wonder, please."

Yes, more wonder. Free yourself. Free your art. Embrace wonder.

The Show Must Be Paused

I originally had a different post intended for this month, but I think this topic is far more relevant and important.

Black lives matter. No echo of all lives matter needed. Just this: black lives matter.

(If that doesn't resonant as true or makes you feel uncomfortable, try reading this.)

I think recent events have highlighted for me that it's not enough just to be non-racist. To change the system we all need to do our part to actively be an ally. The active part is something I will admit to not having done well at in the past. So one of the first steps I'm working on, highlighted by this week's #blackouttuesday, is listening; amplifying the voices of the BIPOC community and muting the voices of the privileged who have had the platform for far too long. Privilege is a podium and it's time to hand over the microphone.

With that in mind, here are a few ideas of ways to educate, ally, and amplify:

1. Listen to a podcast. Try checking out #TellBlackStories, About Race, Still Processing, or Code Switch.
2. Read a book. Educational titles to consider are Black Feminist Thought, The New Jim Crow, White Fragility, or How to Be an Antiracist.
3. Watch a movie. Pertinent choices include The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 13th, or Freedom Riders.
4. Join a study group on racism. One group is being hosted by Daybreaker and the group will be reading through the book mentioned above, How to Be an Antiracist. The first meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 9th at 8:30pm ET. Sign up here. 
5. Learn from this classic essay on white privilege by Peggy McIntosh.
6. Follow a BIPOC thought leader or activist on social media. Some groups to add to your feed include the NAACP, Equal Justice Initiative, Antiracism Center, and Color of Change.
7. View a TEDx talk on privilege and compassion.
8. Get even more ideas on what you can do from this checklist.

#mutedandlistening