Authenticity: Are We Missing the Point?

 

Have you ever had cow’s udder ravioli?

That’s what the original Genoese ravioli was stuffed with. (As well as spinal marrow, veal brains, and all kinds of other things.)
 
 

And yet nobody – not even current residents of Genoa – would call that “authentic” ravioli today.
 

We all want our dance to be authentic.

(With the exception of fusion, of course.)

We want to be good, we want to be respectful, we want to be right.

But we only focus on one facet of authenticity: authenticity of form.
i.e., making the dance look like it does “over there”.

But when we do that, it never comes out quite right. Something is missing.
 

What’s missing is the point.

When we obsess about authenticity of form, we ignore authenticity of purpose.

Because we’re doing this dance outside of its traditional cultural contexts, it’s easy to forget that the “why” is just as important to the dance as the “what”.
 

This is easier to understand if we step back from dance, and think about authenticity in food.

A few years ago, I read an article by Colman Andrews, one of the founders of Saveur Magazine, about what it means for a food to be authentic.
 

And it completely changed the way I view authenticity.

As Andrews said in an interview in Ortensia Blu:
 

“What may be authentic to someone else is not authentic if we try to recreate it.
 
A big example I use is original Genovese ravioli. The meat stuffing included spinal marrow, brains, a couple of other animal parts and ground up udder.
 
If we want to make authentic Genovese ravioli do we go out and find all those things, which are probably illegal to sell, or even if they’re not you have to go through this big production of finding them.
 
It may be authentic in the recipe but violates the spirit of it which is this is the junk that they threw away, let’s grind it up and put it inside the ravioli.
 
What’s more authentic-to make the ravioli with ground turkey because that’s what you have left over?”

 

Because our cultural context is different**, it’s not enough to copy the form of the dance.
We have to stay true to it’s spirit.

We have to remember what the point of the dance is.
 

So what is the point of belly dance?

As Alia Thabit said in her recent interview on the Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse, the feeling is the most important thing.

As Sahra Saeeda said in a recent blog post, “more than half of the dance is feeling in Egypt and it is definitely more important than the steps”.

As Yasmin Henkesh said in the very first Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse call, the dancer is the M.C. of the show, and she is responsible for making sure that the audience has a good time.
 

That boils down to:

• Sharing what you hear in the music
• Sharing how it makes you feel
• Remembering that your job is to entertain, not show off your skill or artistry

(Yes, you are skilled. And yes, you are an artist. Those are very good things. But if you’re not also entertaining, you’re not doing your job.)
 

When we miss the point, dance turns into mimicry.

When we copy the dance wholesale – moves, gestures, expression – we’re not dancing, we’re doing a Dina impression.
 

That doesn’t mean you can’t take inspiration from others

Copying elements from others is a key part of artistic growth.

Picasso famously said: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

And learning other people’s combos or choreographies is a great learning tool.
It fills the creative well, showing you different ways to interpret the music or connect movements.

And there’s value in preserving earlier forms of the dance, so we will know our history.
 

The trick is to make it your own, instead of copying it wholesale.

Adapt what you learn: tweak it to suit your body, your style, and what you hear in the music.

And use it in service of the feeling, in service of entertainment.
 

But doesn’t that turn the dance into a free-for-all?

 

Despite everything I’ve said so far, we can’t ignore authenticity of form.

(Again, except for the fusionists.)

Again, a quote from Colman Andrews helps here. In his article Authenticity: it’s the real thing in Saveur Magazine no.78*, he said:

“There are certainly basic, inviolable rules for dishes like those, if you want them to have any credibility at all (don’t make paella with long-grain rice; don’t put beans in the chili).

But beyond that, every version is as different from the rest as the person who makes it is from the balance of humankind.”

As participants in a cultural art form, we have a responsibility to make sure that the form of our dance at least in the same ballpark.
 

But everything we do in that ballpark has to be motivated by the point

Let go of worrying about what you’re doing, and focus on what you’re feeling.

Share that with the audience.

Entertain them.
 

And learn as much as you can about the traditional cultural contexts.

Cultural context is the glue that connects the form to the point. We can’t reproduce the contexts exactly in our own culture**, but the better we understand them, the easier it is to find parallels.

Then you can stop trying to make cow udder ravioli.
 

Next Steps

 

Take stock

Are you focusing on the “why” as much as (or more than!) the “what”? Where do you need to grow? What do you need to let go of to do that?

(If you’re feeling overwhelmed, pick just one small thing that you can work on now.)
 

Do some research

Learning about cultural contexts is easier said than done. It’s easy to find tidbits, but harder to find comprehensive, accurate information.

Some of my favorite sources are:

• Artemis Mourat (Turkish and Turkish Romani)
• Sahra Saeeda (Egyptian)
• Yasmin Henkesh (Egyptian – the “liner notes” for her Sand of Time music label are mini books)

 

Your Turn

What do you think of all this? If you disagree, why?

How have the “what” and the “why” been a part of your dance and your dance education?

What makes this hard? What impediments are in your way?

What resources can you recommend to help with the “why”?

Share your thoughts in the comments.
 

lolcat image courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger

* Links marked with an asterisk are affiliate links, meaning I get a small commission if you use them to make a purchase. If you’d rather I didn’t, just search for the product name. That’s 100% okay by me.
 

** Most of my readers are Westerners, so I’m assuming that the reader is not in a traditional Near/Middle Eastern cultural context. That won’t be true for those of you who live in one of the dance’s home countries, or have recent Near/Middle Eastern ancestry, of course.