janaki

Dear Suheir,

Very well said!!!!

Cheers
Janaki

Tikvah

A'isha, do you have any examples of what you would call "good" fusion? I'm just trying to get a better perspective from your end of things :-)

Grak son of Tont

Ugh! Grak do fu-sion if him want, not care what critics think. But him not call belly dance, him call fu-sion. Still, not fit in with belly-dancers. Not fit in with jazz-dancers. Not fit in with ballet-dancers. Even though all these elements in dance. Grak not fit in with pur-ists.

Grak go, sit in back of cave, glower and grunt, drink too much mammoth juice, sleep on stone floor, wake up with crick in neck and fuz-zy head. All for art.

Aisha Azar

Dear Tikvah,
First, I hope you understand that I am in favor of and support good fusion dance that is clearly defined for all audiences as such. Many people have tried to paint me as a Nazi who is not open minded enough to appreciate anything that strays from the straight and narrow and that is not my position at all. I can even support Zombie dance that is well done... if it is not linked to the term "belly dance".
Who does good fusion? Look at Michael Jackson's "Thriller" if you want to see a good Zombie fusion, using modern, jazz and street dance technique. There is a clip on this forum somewhere of a dancer performing a fusion of ballet and belly dance to Lessa Fakir. She is a wonderful fusion dancer. In Tribal, there is a group out of, I think, Oregon, called Americanistan who does wonderful fusion, and I sincerely hope they do not refer to themselves as belly dancers. Ne Kajira Janan does great folkloric fusions. Salome is wonderful and fuses belly dance and American concepts in movement. Suhaila Salimpour is a great fusionist, using lots of jazz inspired stuff in her dance. Cassandra Shore does great fusion in American Oriental, ( and she is the one dancer that I can say does equal justice to both American Oriental and Egyptian belly dance; she is brilliant!!) Rachel Brice, who is not a belly dancer in the least, does wonderful fusion, though she is rather a one trick pony with all of her stuff looking exactly alike to me.
That's the short list before coffee!!
Regards,
A'isha

Tikvah

Thanks for answering my question. I wanted to just ask you what you thought, instead of assuming (assumptions just cause problems). I do disagree with you on a few points, but that's ok....that's what makes life interesting! :-)

Aisha Azar

Dear Tikvah,
Thanks for taking the time. If you are from Minneapolis/ St. Paul you live where Cassandra Shore lives and can see some pretty incredible dancing!
Regards,
A'isha

Recnadocir

Rachel a one trick pony lol! Nice to see you back in form A'isha! Wish Miles would come back, I loved your repartee with him!

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Aisha Azar

My Darling Grak Son of Tont,
I miss Miles quite a bit myself!! He emailed me shortly after we met to say that he wants to buy me dinner next time and he thinks he must be a masochist to put himself through such hell again. We spent a merry and exciting 4 hours or so debating the finer point of the BDSS from his side and the not so fine points on mine. We both had a blast, I think. Ya gotta love that man on some levels, but definitely not all. He would say the same for me, I'm sure.
Regards,
A'isha

Recnadocir

I think that the swans are already zombies, that's the point!

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Shanazel

Now that I think about it, a Goth version of Giselle might be interesting... zombies instead of willies.

And as for Swan Lake- away with the same tired interpretations! Swans are such a cliche for grace and mystery. Let's modernize the ballet- bring it down to earth, place the action in a park in the heart of a city, and call it Pigeon Pond. Of course, the stage crew would have to clean the stage after each act...