I love my cappuccino. Whether I wake up in Malta or Chicago, I know it is the only way to start my day! I may have had a late night performing in a night-club – I am a dancer, it is part of what I do – but I do not drink, do not smoke, do not do drugs and I am vegetarian. Chocolate and coffee are the mini-vices I love to indulge in every day!
I sip the fuel that will keep me going for the rest of the day while I gaze at the blue Mediterranean on this bright morning. How fascinating! I love Malta. I would move here if I could. The people are so warm and friendly – people are more genuine here. And the island is beautiful too – the weather, the beaches and the architecture. It somehow feels like Italy meets the Nile. Its Arabic influence makes it feel like my two favourite cultures combined.
Cappuccino is a constant, although my days are very different... especially since I began to travel. It all began after I moved from California to Chicago, when I began receiving invitations to travel throughout the US to teach workshops. My teachers also invited me back to teach their students, and each time I moved I met more people who took me to more places.
Eventually I went to the Stockholm Bellydance Conference in 2002 – one of biggest bellydance conferences in Europe, with twenty Middle-Eastern and twenty European teachers. I went to perform and study with Egyptian teachers, however they liked my performances such that they invited me back the following year to teach, and that led to other invitations. Since then I have been accepting invitations to teach all over the world.
I get ready to go out. Here in Malta I am free from obligations for most of the day. I am teaching eighteen hours a week but mostly in the evenings, except on weekends when I hold work-shops. Then there are the shows and performances in clubs, festivals and on TV. And there is the planning for all of that... although sponsors may say, “Be ready at six!” and I do not know where I am going or why! It is fun in one way but it can also make me nervous. I am my own manager in Chicago so I know everything! Anyhow, compared to my life back in Chicago, being here is quite easy-going.
In Chicago my days are extremely full. I need to make preparations for classes, workshops, troupe and company practices and individual practice. I must plan choreographies for all those things, design costumes, choose the music and chase night-club owners for money! I usually have work-shops or private lessons to teach – most days I teach four to eight hours a day – and then I must get ready for an evening performance. I teach regularly in Chicago so I have substitute teachers fill in while I am away, but I prefer to travel during slow business periods, and simply have a Spring break or something along those lines.
So here I am in Malta, this fine Spring morning. This is my fourth year coming here. I first came to Malta when Dr Elizabeth Ann Stewart, a half-Maltese friend of mine who was brought up in Malta, had asked my assistance in bringing a spiritual-tour group from America – she taught meditation and I taught bellydancing at Hagar Qim, playing my finger cymbals for music.
I finally sit with my girlfriends at a lovely cafe on the Sliema Front, and we order cappuccinos. I met Jane and Joanne when, extremely keen to learn bellydancing, they organised workshops within two weeks in order to utilise me during one of my early visits to Malta! Initially, it was the Paul Curmi dancing school, led by Eldridge Curmi, that organised my workshops. Although this time I have been invited directly by the girls themselves, I still collaborate with the Paul Curmi dancing school.
Not surprisingly, our main theme of conversation is bellydancing, also known as Oriental Dance. I do Arabic folk-dancing, Egyptian cabaret and fusion mixed with Latin, Spanish and hip-hop. Interestingly, Flamenco, with the stomping, is only 150 to 200 years old. Prior to that, traditional Andalucian dance such as Zambra Mora was much more Arabic in style, and so was the music.
Joanne looks at me with pleading eyes, “I want to change this impression that people have that bellydancing is some sort of lap-dance! It is elegant, feminine, feel-good, fluid and fun – how I wish that more people could share this with us! It is so great that anybody of any age, shape or size can do it... and there are no rules for success – if you work at it you can make it!”
We are talking about the ups and downs of life as a dancer, when Nicole appears. Nicole Zafer is my right arm – my colleague, my best friend and my baby... we meet every day and at night too, to discuss dancing matters and chat.
In December I tore three ligaments in my lower back and I could not dance. It was even hard to walk all the way through to April, till just before I flew out here. I worried that I would not be able to perform. Through it all, Nicole, who has been my student for three-and-a-half years and is part of my dance-company, took over my classes. She was my body while I talked the classes. Nicole is beginning to make belly dance her work – she is now teaching her own classes and I am really proud of her.
Cappuccino has become a troupe ritual too! I have many students of all ages, from 14 to 86, the eldest being an ex-ballerina who, due to arthritis, now bellydances in order to keep moving. Nine of my students are semi-professional and can do very nice performances on stage. We always drink a coffee together before a public performance.
My dance company, Fringe Benefits, is my baby and my students are my babies... so I have nine babies! Many companies pick a name that nobody can pronounce. I picked this name because all of my dance company members are college students or married with children, aged 20 to 36, so they do it as something on the side – it is not really their job. Of course, it also refers to the fringe on the clothes!
Cappuccino after cappuccino and an odd slice of chocolate cake, our conversation continues well into the afternoon. It is unusual for the four of us to be together like this, since Jane and Joanne have their day-jobs to tend to most days. However, for me it is time to make preparations for the evening classes.
I had never imagined that I would be a dance teacher and I had never planned on going professional. I actually obtained three degrees in art history and gallery practices. I studied ballet from two years old, and jazz and tap for nineteen years. I took up Turkish dance when I was 18, then switched to Egyptian style, which I like more because the variety is wider, due to different regions, and its history is longer. Within three years of discovering Middle-Eastern dancing, I quit the others because I loved it so much!
When I moved from California to Chicago, I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and continued dancing as a hobby and for exercise. I took Latin American dance classes like Batchata, Samba, Salsa, Merienge and Cumbia, and Spanish like Flamenco, at a local school. They asked me to teach belly dancing. I had taught ballet to children since the age of 14, and had already worked as an assistant to both my Turkish and Egyptian teachers, but only in Chicago did I start teaching alone. I started mixing and created my own style – it was fun!
I went through a career crisis because I realised that I can paint when I am 90 but only now that I am young can I dance! So although I had always thought that art would be my work and dance my hobby, it switched around. Art helps me in my dance-career because I do not have to hire-out for any of the graphic services – I can do my own website and costumes and so on. I still paint to subsidise my income because the economy in America is slow. I was painting the Serengeti in a child’s nursery when I was injured. I still love art.
As I look at my students in the studio, so eager to learn, I bask in the satisfaction of conveying the art of bellydancing to them. My students work for months and months on their dances. Fringe Benefits was one of sixteen dance ensembles selected from around the world to be featured at the First International Belly Dance Conference of Canada 2007. Recently, they did such a perfect job during the performance in Stockholm that I was crying. They try so hard and do so well. Watching my students doing their first solos or a really good performance really warms my heart.
Meanwhile, the teacher remains always a student – at least as far as I am concerned! A bellydance professional needs to know about music, rhythms, cultures and costume in addition to all the other elements of performance, so it is very complicated. I have studied for fifteen years and I feel that if I continue studying all my life I could not learn it all.
I perform in many styles, however Egyptian Cabaret, Saiidi, Shaabi, Zaar and Spanish Fusion are my specialties. The most heart-warming moments, as far as performing goes, are when I dance for my Egyptian teachers and they love it, and they say, “Bravo! Bravo Chellcy!” and clap and complement me. Egyptian teachers do not hand out complements freely and they really think of the right thing to say. It feels special when I make my teachers proud.
One of my teachers is Aida Nour, one of the biggest female bellydance legends still alive. She is older and getting ready to retire. Aida Nour has pins in her knees and grimaces in pain while teaching, but keeps going. She is such a beautiful solo performer but this year, in Stockholm, she had to cancel her solo performances and change them to shorter duet pieces. Nonetheless, afterwards she was in so much pain that she was crying. It was a most heart-breaking moment. And it made me realise that time is short, that I need to make the most of my young body now.
As I lie in my bed, I inevitably think of the big event I am organising in Chicago when I return in early June. I am bringing both Aida Nour and Karim Nagy, an Egyptian Tabla player, to Chicago to do workshops and a show in October. Videographers will record the theatre performance, because I want to produce a performance DVD of the show – I want to capture my teacher on film before she retires! It should be out in December. With images of Egyptian bellydance goddesses dancing on my mind, I drift away to sleep....
Bellydance Malta, run by Joanne Mallia and Jane Camilleri, promotes courses, workshops and performances in Oriental Dance including Classical Egyptian, Cabaret, American Tribal Style (ATS), Tribal Fusion, Folkloric and Spanish Fusion styles amongst others.
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This is the third in Melanie Drury’s, “A Day in the Life of...” series. The next one is due on 9 June.
www.melaniedrury.com
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