An adventure in belly dancing

Before I went to Sri Lanka in 2002, I went to a belly dancing class. I resisted the idea at first. “It's silly,” I told my friend Mabel.

Mabel glanced at my tummy. “It'll be good for you.” Her eyebrows raised into accusatory arches.

“I'll have you know,” I sputtered, “that the four sit-ups I do each and every day have made my tummy rock hard.” Mabel burst out laughing. After she badgered me into signing up for the two hour class, I went shopping. I'd only seen one belly dancer ever at a restaurant and I don't remember much of what she wore — if indeed she wore much.

What in the world was I going to wear? A pair of 70s hiphuggers and a Miracle Bra? Coins? Tassels?

I stopped at my favorite high ticket department store and tried on so many tops — crop tops, sports bras — that my hair ended up looking like UniBomber Ted Kazinsky's hair. Nothing fit. Nothing worked. Depressed, I headed for a budget store, where at least cheap prices would ease the painful reflection of dressing room fun-house mirrors. A half-hour later, I left empty handed.

“It's not how you look,” Mabel said when I called her. Then she informed me she couldn't make the class. She mumbled something about a scheduling problem.

She couldn't find anything to wear either.

The morning of the class I cut the midriff from a T-shirt, slipped into stretch pants and dug my mom's old scarf from the back of my closet. I wouldn't be Salome with her seven veils, but to hell with perfect.

Women of all shapes and sizes poured into the class. Some with bellies bared, some wearing tank tops, little crop tops, baggy T-shirts, leotards and sweats. We eyed each other's scarves; rectangles and squares, little hipsters with coins and some with extravagant beadwork. Mine had lots of fringe.

“It's all about movement,” the instructor said. A dark haired sprightly beauty, sported an outfit that was Raqs Sharqi chic. Of course it might have been her size-two body and her sexy hip scarf with a thousand jingling jangling coins that made the look work.

The instructor began by dancing for us, demonstrating “dance du Ventre,” the art form. We watched, mesmerized, as she moved her arms snake-like — a regal cobra in slow motion. Her torso rippling in undulating waves.

She was Ishtar, the Goddess of Grove; Aphrodite alive!

“First you learn to lock your hips,” she said, putting us in a circle. “Bend your knees and throw your hip from one side to the other, then lock it up.”

I tried it and felt like a giraffe stuck in the mud.

The instructor prodded and encouraged until hips began to take on a life, albeit an awkward one, of their own. Then she taught us to shimmy. First the Simple Shimmy — hips, butts and bellies. Loose and wild. Then her favorite, the Why-I-Oughta Shimmy — thighs mimicking Ralph Kramden's tightly shaking fist as he yelled, “Why I oughta send you to the moon, Alice!”

The Butt Shimmy made me think of the Fats Waller lyric, “Must be jelly, jam don't shake like that.”

By the time we learned the Camel (a rolling and arching of the chest, back and stomach in a wave-like movement), I was out of breath and ready to keel over. But I couldn't give up, I had to learn to make my fringe dance.

The instructor lined the class into rows and amped the Middle Eastern music.

Our hips automatically moved to the rhythm of the drums, slowly at first then in double time to the thin sound of finger cymbals. We danced across the room in waves of bodies, stomachs rippling. Arms, hands and fingers seducing the warm afternoon air. Hips rocking. Locking. Bare feet against the bare wood floor.

It was enticing. I pictured dancing for a king, or the next Mr. Right.

And I had thought belly dancing was silly.

I stopped at Mabel's to glow about the good time. “The instructor explained,” I said, “that belly dancing is one of the few activities in which women can explore our sensuality and bodies by how we feel rather than how we look.” Mabel was right, the class had nothing to do with what we wore (however I really wanted one of those hip scarves with the jingling coins!)

Mabel raised her eyebrows. “So, how did it make you feel?”

What was a girl to say?… ”Exotic,” I said as I hip-locked, Cameled, Simple Shimmied out her front door.

However, once home, I couldn't walk for three days! So much for belly dancing!