by Meredith Phillips

I've always had it and I guess I always will, so of course I want a part of anything that makes a tummy a positive, sexy, cultured thing to have. This begins to explain the attraction I have to the art of belly dancing. Egyptian and Arabic dancers are revered for the control they exercise with their firm, mildly protuberant bellies, some going so far as to do quarter rolls around their abdomens. These are my kind of woman, sensual with rounded hips and breasts and thighs that contrast to their tapered waistlines.

Right?

Not necessarily.

I got my first taste of belly-dancing at a Middle-Eastern food restaurant. In a limited space amidst the tables, a veiled and clinking woman takes control of the crowd. Upon closer inspection, she is a slithery, willowy, commanding blond.

Willowy? Blond? This wasn't part of the deal--where's the hippy, swarthy type with dark eyes under luxurious lashes? At first glance, this woman looks like a sorority sister with a little bit of armpit hair. But the audience is entranced with her fluid movements, interspersed with direct twitches of the hip. She lets rolls travel through her body, always holding her arms erect, above her head or beckoning to the audience. She'll kick her ribs out, clink her finger symbols in time, and shimmy her shoulders.

For a woman clothed only in a black velvet bra and scarf from the waist up, she's very assured with her motions--even skinny women in bikini tops severely limit their range of motion while they try to stabilize whatever perceived imperfection they're trying to hide by sucking in lungs, ribs, fat, etc.

When Sahaja invites someone to dance with her, she holds his or her face under a gauzy veil, ostensibly to make them feel safe, (I suspect that it has something to do with keeping them from getting away). They try to imitate her, but what ends up happening is that they move on such a limited scale that she mirrors their actions. Because one of the tenets of belly dancing is to get people to accept all parts of their bodies, she is showing them that they are beautiful. This concept can be hard to stomach, especially for women with a swell of belly to contend with.

I decided to schedule a beginning class for myself anyhow.

When I called a teacher one Satuday morning, she suggested that I find a leotard and long skirt and come in that afternoon, but I needed about a week to prepare mentally to confront my fears.

On the appointed day, Lucila tied a tassled and clinky scarf around me, defining my hips, and whatever purpose it was for, it worked. I immediately wanted to shake and clink and twitch around. I wanted to isolate.

We began with a series of stretches, and then the hips. To the left, right, left, right, then smoothly from one to the other. Back, forth, back, forth. Before I knew it I was doing figure-eights with my hips, interspersed with something called "snake arms". The basic Arabic, the basic Egyptian. We were twirling, we had finger symbols. I didn't care what I looked like.

In fact, since the class I've found myself unabashedly showing friends what I learned, and I know that I will go back. I'm confident in saying that I will never take up belly-dancing as a profession, but who knows, it might be a nice hobby. Literally and figuratively, I will follow my belly's lead.