At first I was a little disappointed, cause I'd sacrificed $7 in the name of roommate bonding, and a potentially awesome cultural experience, and it was kind of like witnessing group therapy for women in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Frightening. But then it got better and there were groups that had travelled and had been doing it for years and they were actually quite amazing!
Belly dancing is interesting for a couple reasons:
- It's completely mesmerising! You can't take your eyes off the dancer. All the flashy jingly stuff moving around real fast. Impossible to try and hold a conversation if you're like me and distracted by shiny objects.
- Somehow it seems to encompass everything feminine. I'm not gonna lie, the whole time I just kept thinking "Man I want to do that!!!" It just looks like what I'm supposed to do. I was given curves, and by golly I'm supposed to shake them!
- I don't even know what's attractive anymore...
The more that I watched these women parading around with exposed stomachs I started to realize that what we think is attractive is completely relative. There were pregnant women, older woman who had "lost their figure," ridiculously skinny girls, and everything in between. And let me tell you (Note: reading may not be suitable for the naturally skinny), the oh-so-coveted long torso-ed rail thin bodies looked absolutely ridiculous belly dancing. In fact, it was almost gross.
There was a group of high school aged girls who danced and though they were all amazing, most of the girls were really skinny and it was awkward to watch them. But on the end, there was a girl wasby no means fat, but she had a little extra on her and she looked fabulous doing it. Like she was meant for it.
And this theme continued on through the whole thing. The dancers that looked the most natural and the most beautiful were healthy, but not toned. When they moved you could see muscle tone, but there was also a small layer of padding. It just looked....like we're supposed to look.
It was quite the eye opening experience. I've redesigned my ideal body in my head, and vowed to take belly dancing classes from now into eternity :)
My only belly dancing experience was in high school. I was naturally gawky. And naturally awkward. And we were in the church gym.
ReplyDeleteEverything you wrote makes total sense, and I am happy to hear it can be more beautiful/enjoyable/great than I experienced. :)
Ha! That sounds positively horrific. I envisioned you when I wrote about the naturally skinny, long torso-ed individuals. I'm glad you took it well :)
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