Expressions | Intro to a mini-series

Photography by Kendrick Vasquez, HGAB Studios

The journey begins! In my next posts I will be writing about my journey with dance thus far. I call them “expressions.” 

“Balance”

This year I completed 15 years of Raqs Sharqi! I am a student, teacher and performer. I have been gifted connection in so many ways and have been challenged by process. This has been a beautiful experience that I am truly grateful for. 

Summer of 2005 my sister and I joined our first belly dance class. We did (and still do) many things together and back then we were looking to take dance classes. It was either flamenco or belly dance. A friend had recommended us to Portia at Belly Motions and we haven’t stopped learning since. 

Did I plan that this would become a part of my career? No. I had dreams of becoming an art curator working in galleries and museums. Nevertheless I completed my degrees in Art History and Fine Arts while completing my certification with Belly Motions as instructor and performer. 

It takes a tremendous amount of study and practice to take on these roles. At times I’ve felt focused and guided, while other times I’ve felt lost wondering if I’ll ever raise my status or financial goals. I always say an artist’s job is the hardest. You have to carve your own path while learning about other career paths in order to complement and support yours. An artist is an entrepreneur at best. We have to be very sharp, be both an extrovert and introvert at the extreme. We have to fight many internal and external battles. We are difficult yet wanted. Learning to set our own boundaries is necessary for our sanity. But when we reach clarity everything aligns in harmony and we are understood. 

Balance. We all have our own beautiful strategies on balancing the many areas of our lives. The secret for me is patience.  But what is patience? To me it is time-based - learning how long I take to comprehend. It is also practical, lessons to be applied, mistakes to be made. To me it’s learning how I react and when I don’t like how I react, I must improve it. The ego will or will not let you do so. I am an optimist at heart. I want the world to be happy, full of love, love is the answer for me. So when I think of patience, I think and feel “love.” When I think of balance, I think of process from the heart. 

Balance.