Lynchburg Tribal: Belly Dance in Lynchburg, VA
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A Story of Origin

2/21/2014

1 Comment

 
I began to study bellydance in 1998.   As I type, that was 16 years ago. 
I studied with one teacher, danced in her troupe after some time, and,
after a couple years, began teaching classes of my own.    I taught what I had been
taught.  I had a few Fat Chance   Belly Dance VHS tapes and pored over back issues of Tribal Talk, a periodical  now long gone.  But my dance world  was narrow.  By the time I was  teaching, my dance world was nourished and informed nearly exclusively by me  alone.  


Then I discovered workshops.  The first workshop I attended was put on by Madame Onca of Baraka Mundi   in Asheville, NC.  The teachers  were Jill Parker and Heather Stants.   It was the first time I had reserved my own room in a hotel. 
I ate a complimentary bagel (and pocketed another for lunch) and went to
  class where I knew no one.  I  spoke to no one and no one spoke to me. 
I attended then show that night.   Returned, exhausted to my hotel and went home the next morning.  


It sounds lonely, doesn’t it?   It sounds like a rather unfriendly atmosphere. 
In reality, it was revelatory.   I had spent the day in a room packed with dancers who loved doing exactly  what I loved doing.  And they were  so talented.   Not just the  instructors, the other students…they were phenomenal.   And they all seemed to know other. 
I knew there was something here that I wanted. 
I wanted the skills, yes, but I wanted that community. 


  In  my little world, I was the most accomplished dancer I knew.  What
I had glimpsed was a world full of dancers with varied strengths and skills who
nurtured each other.  More  importantly, they challenged each other well.  Not in a competitive manner, well  perhaps a little, but internally. 
They were developing the skills they held as a community.   They watched one another dance and were inspired, or instructed, or were  simply appreciative.  


From that weekend I took home a coal burning in  my gut, a need for companionship, a craving for community.   From that weekend I took home the seed that would become Lynchburg  Tribal.


 
1 Comment
Ariana W link
1/9/2021 11:29:37 am

Loved reeading this thanks

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