The Bellydance Scene in Taiwan Toss Hair Dance by Eugenia I've arrived at No.240 Chong Hsio East Road, Section 4, in Taipei for my first "Toss Hair Dance" class. At this class, instructor Lee taught a choreography titled "Toss Hair Dance" as promised on the Bellydance website.
The 235 Taipei bus reeked of gas fumes, and made me slightly nauseous during the thirty-five minute ride; so, I was grateful for the three-and-a-half-block walk I took while looking for the dance studio. The studio wasn't a studio at all: after asking in a clothing store and two residential buildings, I finally located the classroom, which turn out to be a tiny Japanese style room located in the corner of a gym.
As I descended the stairs and entered the gym’s basement, the broad back of a topless, muscular man blocked my view. Beads of sweat glistened on his back as he moved his thick legs on a tread-climber machine. Similar machines, as well as a variety of weight-lifting equipment, cluttered the room. Three or four foreign men and one Taiwanese man were laboring on different, formidable looking machines, and these men were so built up that they held their arms at a distance from their sides like gorillas since their bulging muscles didn't allow a more normal posture.
The women with veils were the people for whom I was looking. It was fifteen minutes before class time, but already, five or six women twirled veils and shimmied to Middle Eastern music. They went through several choreographies together, dancing mostly to pieces with quick tempos. The only song I recognized was a Tarkan song I had danced to a year ago in Pennsylvania. The women were much more skillful than I expected: just 3 years ago, nobody in Taiwan really knew anything about Bellydance.
However, just a few years later, in this tiny basement classroom, real Taiwanese women were doing hip shimmies, snake arms, veil dancing, and shoulder shimmies, while revealing their bellies! They wore fluttery tops with delicate sleeves and colorful Indian print dance clothing. Each had a generously coined hip scarf and the scarves jangled noisily as the dancers moved their hips in circles and shimmies. Was this really Taiwan? I could hardly believe my eyes and gawked stupidly from outside the classroom for nearly ten minutes.
When I finally
walked to the door of the Japanese styled room, one of the women
smiled at me. When the dance teacher arrived, shortly after seven o'clock, I was bewildered that the other woman had been insulted when I mistook her for the teacher. Our instructor, Miss Chen, was a lovely young woman who looked like she was still in her twenties! At about five foot three, tall for a Taiwanese woman, she had a sparkling head of wavy long hair that was perfect for tossing, no doubt! She wore a lime green sports bra and had on a lovely pair of dance pants that looked to me like a peacock's tail.
I was impressed with how well all the students could do shoulder and hip shimmies at different speeds with control as well. They also had excellent stage presence that (I suppose) came from practicing in front of all those muscular men week after week! However, I was concerned, that some of the shimmies (that the instructor specified as "knee-generated") might hurt some students' sensitive knees. At any rate, the next choreography, Choreography Number Eight, has the title “Cane Dance”! I look forward to learning the Cane Dance in my next Bellydance class in Taiwan, perhaps sometime next year. Have
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for more? 7-26-05
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