On 'Steampunk Bellydance'

[sihayadesigns]

Tribal Fusion being the tricky genre that it is, some people have begun coining the term “steampunk belly dance”. While this seems innocent enough, using terms without properly defining what they mean can lead to a slippery slope of “everything” belly dance. We need to remember that belly dance is based on movement and not on aesthetic. It is belly dance, not belly fashion.

...

Steampunk isn’t a dance genre either, in belly dance or otherwise.

-- Jasmine June Crabinaw's Not So Steampunk Bellydance on Gilded Serpent

WORDY MC WORD TIMES A BILLION.

"It’s never a good feeling, having your meticulous, time-honored craft dismissed or eclipsed by a trend you have no immediate connection to. It’s difficult not to feel uneasy, watching your art form be oversimplified, lumped in, or lazily dismissed by an all-too-easy and reductive definition. It’s not fun, being shoved in a box that you have no desire to be in, even if that box is comfortable, or even inspiring, for plenty of others who’ve willingly placed themselves inside of it." [- a comment in response to the above article]

Not to be flip, but I imagine this sums up the feelings of a large cross-section of the bellydance "culture" who feel that lots of different things have been tossed into a giant pile and called bellydance, for no other reason than someone likes bellydance AND something else, and they think that gives them the inalienable right to jam them together and call it bellydance. These sentiments ring true to artists of any and all ilk--there are always those who are trying to maintain a set of recognizable criteria and standards, and there are those who feel to do so is a constraint of their creativity. The former feels they are being undermined in their efforts to uphold their ideals, and the latter feels they are "taking it to the next level."

I always argue that a dancer should be able to remove their costume and even the music (gasp), and those knowledgeable of the style being presented should be able to recognize the dance they are doing. I have yet to see a performance called "Steampunk bellydance" able to communicate that fusion through purely movement. Tempest and I disagree on gothic bellydance as well--I have not yet experienced something under that moniker that didn't look simply as either simply bellydance or generally modern/interpretive dance.
Think of it. Can you recognize tap without any of the trappings? How about ballet? Flamenco? Hip Hop? Irish Step Dance? Contact improv? Salsa? Jitterbug? Stomp?

And within these styles, experts can even discern sub-styles fairly easily. yet with bellydance, often we throw on a different piece of music and a different costume, and we think we can call it something else. We need to look deeper, as a community of artists, to understand what really differentiates one style from another, and whether it truly is a new style, or an existing style in a new frock.

Shay Moore
Seattle, WA

I LOVE YOU, SHAY.

Comments

[grum]

Hear Hear!

[aethyrkitten.livejournal.com]

People are really doing that? Lame. I always just assumed that whenever people said "gothic bellydance" or "steampunk bellydance," they were referring to the shtick/story/aesthetic of the performance rather than the style of bellydancing used. Huh. It makes no sense any other way, for precisely the reasons above.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm with the woman who wrote the article. Prove to me that there is a definite vocabulary for the kind of bellydance and I'll maybe give in that it exists. Until then, just say you do bellydance with a steampunk aesthetic or something like that.

[lapinetrose.livejournal.com]

I agree about Steampunk, absolutely, but I don't think the same applies to all gothic bellydance. There truly are goth dance moves, club moves, that are very specific in style that can be fused with bellydance moves.

I'm not saying that all gothic bellydancers do this, but I know some who do and would call some of what they do a gothic bellydance fusion.

[sihaya09.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to see a demonstration of what you consider gothic dance moves.

[lapinetrose.livejournal.com]

I can't demonstrate them myself! I've never been a good goth. But if I were to watch many goths I've known dance, even without goth costuming and music, I would be recognize some of the moves as distinctive to goths. So, I think it meets this writer's criteria.

What I would argue is that while often gothic bellydance is just a spooky, costumed presentation of usually oriential bellydance, I have seen legit fusions of goth club dance moves and bellydance.

So, I would say that although often what is called gothic bellydance is not that fusion, but rather solely a stylization, it is not true that there is no such thing as gothic bellydance fusion. Similarly, people often perform tribal fusion bellydance that has no tribal in it, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as legit fusions of tribal bellydance and other dance forms.

[sihaya09.livejournal.com]

I'm not arguing with you-- I'm just saying that I wanna see the receipts. :)

[lapinetrose.livejournal.com]

Well, the best example I can cite is some of Mortifera's work. I'd have to check videos of goth dancers online, which I could do at some point but not today. O'Malley is announcing cosponsorship of the marriage bill today, so I'm a very busy bee at work :-)

[lapinetrose.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I haven't watched discussion of steampunk bellydance closely, but I'd love to hear what Billie Bryant and Sasha Nyx think about the gothic bellydance question. They know goth club moves better than anyone. They may have weighed in at some point on the goth question, though I know they call themselves generic fusion dance at this point. My long time friend Virginia dances with them.

[sihaya09.livejournal.com]

I wonder how closely what you consider to be distinctly gothic moves resemble modern dance in general. I've never seen anything that I would be able to turn off the music and watch a dancer sans aesthetic clothing and say "oh, that's gothic dance"-- because I've never been able to distinctly ID what I'd consider a gothic dance vocabulary.

If you have youtube links, I'd be happy to consider them.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

For me I think I can sometimes see gothic style dance moves, and sometimes I see bellydance moves, but I'm not sure I always see the movements fully fused together, it's more of now do one, now do another. Actually, other than the steotypical goth dancing moves that people poke fun at, I'm not quite sure what would be gothic dance.

It's funny the things I can pinpoint that I have done naturally, pre-BD exposure, while dancing at goth clubs that are moves also done in bellydance - shimmies, interior hip circles, snake arms, undulations. A lot of dance styles overlap movements, but it takes intention, stylistic choices, music and the essence of the dance to really make it one or the other.