 |
Courtesy of the School of the
Arts and Architecture
Tamra-henna, an M.F.A. student and teacher in the Department
of World Arts and Cultures, brings a cross-cultural awareness
to belly dancing by emphasizing its sensual as well as spiritual
aspects.
|
the fine art of navel-gazing
She brings a new direction to belly dancing
BY AJAY SINGH
UCLA Today Staff
A spotlight shone on Tamra-henna as she wiggled her hips in perfect
unison with the music. Some 100 people huddled in the dark, airless
theater to watch this priestess dance. They seemed mesmerized —
never had navel-gazing been such a sensuous, subtle, soulful experience.
After a pulsating 45-minute solo, the dancer, evidently exhausted,
stood in one place and fluttered her abdominal muscles. A poignant
smile spread over her face, and a gasp, barely audible over the
haunting drumbeat, escaped into the hot night air: “Oh my
God!”
Who uttered those words — the dancer or an audience member
— remains a mystery. But the cry fittingly captures Tamra-henna’s
talent for dancing with total abandon, as if surrendering to some
greater unseen power. Not many people would expect that from a belly
dancer, but then hers was no nightclub performance. Rather, it was
something of a choreographic coup titled “Tarab — A
Journey into the Ecstasy of Arabic Dance,” held recently at
the Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.
Tamra-henna, at 120 pounds, is not your typical belly dancer.
She’s a student — and a teacher — at the Department
of World Arts and Cultures, where she’s finishing a master
of fine arts degree in dance. It’s her life’s mission
to “raise the level of awareness of the beauty and diversity
of the dance, music and arts of the Middle East.” At a time
when many in the West view this region of the world negatively,
her efforts are laudable.
“Belly dancing,” Tamra-henna stressed, is not how
she describes her art form. “When you call it that, you’re
taking away the fact that it’s a cultural art form,”
she explained. “People think, ‘Oh, you’re only
moving your belly — there couldn’t be much to it.’
” She prefers to call belly dancing “raqs sharqi,”
Arabic for “Eastern dance.”
The daughter of a retired engineer, Tamra-henna grew up all over
Southern California. She was “never in one school for more
than two years.” This resulted in a wanderlust that eventually
led her to the Middle East, where she spent seven years studying
and performing raqs sharqi, besides learning Arabic. She even adopted
her Arabic stage name, meaning “flower of the henna plant.”
(She’s of Portuguese descent, and her name is Violet Swan.)
While belly dancing in the Middle East is never performed in theaters,
Tamra-henna’s goal at UCLA is to put the dance in a theatrical
context. It’s an ambitious aim because “tarab,”
or “ecstasy,” an integral part of Arabic dance, is inextricably
linked to music. To understand this nexus better, Tamra-henna took
a course in cross-cultural ecstatic music under Ali Jihad Racy,
a professor of ethnomusicology.
From him she learned that ecstatic music exists in all cultures,
and, regardless of whether or not it’s for religious purposes,
it embodies a sense of spirituality. Further, she learned how musicians
create this experience in people. “I took those concepts,”
she said, “and transformed them into movement.”
Highly sensual dance movement. “In the Middle East, feeling
is more important than technique,” Tamra-henna explained.
In fact, she said, “Arabic dance has no theory or structure,
and most dancers evolve their own style.” Still, her students
at UCLA often ask Tamra-henna why their moves aren’t like
hers. “I tell them I’ve spent much more time on stage,”
she said with a laugh. “It’s my home.”
|
