One of my new rituals as a small business owner is getting up with my DH to make his lunch as a cost saving effort since we no longer have my income from being a programmer. Strangely enough, I am not too terribly upset about getting up at 7am to do this, since I means that once he heads off to work I have the morning totally to myself to work on dance related tasks, whether it is studio finances, promotion and marketing materials, reading dance related literature or even a chance for me to get in some personal practice. Today I took my morning quiet time to watch the newly arrived documentary called “BELLY†produced by Full Tilt Boogie (website ).
I have seen and own a couple of other dance documentaries including Urban Ghawazee (website) , “What is Tribal Style Bellydance†(youtube clip) and American Bellydancer (though I have yet to see Underbelly and for more than 5 years I have been waiting for the Tribal Style: Becoming a Belly Dancer†documentary yet to be released – website ) and usually find myself nodding in agreement, smiling at each of the dancers and sometimes even replying to them, as though they are actually having a personal conversation with me; I suppose that is what documentaries are supposed to feel like..
So by 8am I had sat to down this morning with my cup of coffee, and freezing rain outside, prepared to watch thinking I was in for a heartwarming treat and a very intimate, albeit one sided conversation, with the dancers in this documentary. Instead, I found that within 5 minutes I was unexpectedly tearing up. This was a good kind of cry, the kind that comes from something that was able to really reach out and touch my heart (and for those that know me, this may come as a surprise since I am a not usually a huggy, outwardly overly emotional or tearful type of persona). Somehow something in the introduction had touched something in me that was raw, and my heart replied in kind by welling up and crying out. I paused the movie, wondering if I was really ready to watch this if this was going to be my reaction to the entire movie. I put the movie back on, and was ready for whatever might come. Fortunately for me the overall tone changed, or perhaps I was just coming out of my semi awake state of consciousness and was thus less prone to tears, but I finished the movie, and was pleased I did. While it was not quite what I expected, and had far more ‘sit down and chat’ type sections that I had thought there might be, I was engaged the entire time, found myself once again nodding along, talking to the dancers and feeling as though they were answering questions that I might have asked them in casual conversation. Well worth buying the DVD if you cannot get to a screening, and I would highly recommend this for dancers of any level of experience.
Visit the website: http://www.ftbproductions.com/films_belly_synopsis.htm
Join in on the discussion on tribe.net: http://tribes.tribe.net/bellydocumentary