So sorry that there have been almost no new posts to the blog for way too long. That thing...."Life Happens When You Busy Making Plans".....I think got the better of us.
Lets hope that in the future we get to share a little more on the going's on of the Studio and all the Tribe Sisters.
Now, a little recap of reasoning behind our decision to rebrand the Studio...if you haven't already read it on our Social Media Platforms.
As of today, the 1st of August 2016, RUSTY BELLY DANCE
will undergo a re-branding and become MiTribe Oriental Dance Collective.
Our reasoning behind this move is to clearly define what we do
as an Oriental Dance Studio. Although we still firmly base our foundation, and
especially that of our Beginners in the fundamentals of Belly Dance, we have
steadily become more Fusion orientated over the past three years. We aim to
combine different dance forms, such as Tribal Fusion, ATS (American Tribal
Style), Ballet, Contemporary, Cabaret, Kathak Indian, Bollywood and Spanish
Fusion into our unique choreography and technique classes. We still feature
Classical Egyptian and Turkish Belly Dance, but it is not our main focus.
Most importantly, we have to rebrand to suit the conditions of
the extremely conservative, predominantly Afrikaans, “small town” mentality we
face in our city. Rustenburg is growing and evolving, but it is not as
cosmopolitan as the larger cities in the country and if we hope to sustain our
growth, we will have to move away from the “Belly Dance” reference. It is a sad
state of affairs that, even in this day and age, women are still led to believe
that Belly Dance is something akin to stripping. In our town, this radical step
is needed to change the attitude towards our dance form so that women would no
longer be afraid to be associated with Belly Dance. We understand that we run
the risk of being seen as taking a cop-out by Traditionalists, but we daily
face comments from unenlightened women asking “Don’t you only dance for men?”
or “What does your husband think?”, not to mention the negative body image
issues that are associated with our costuming. This lack of education and
exposure is harming the dance form, not helping.
The rebranding of our studio is therefore not a move away from
spreading the knowledge and joys of Oriental Dance, but an action to strengthen
it. Our studio ethos and mission statement had and will always be that of a
tribe of women who collectively share the same standards and values and who embody
the power and passion to motivate each other to be the best they can be. We
strive to always represent Belly Dance in all its associated forms with the
reverence and respect it deserves.
So that is the long and short of it.....
Lets hope that the 'New Look' does make it easier for the ladies of Rustenburg to feels comfortable enough to come and give the Beginners class a try.
Only Time will tell.
Happy Shimmying
Jacqui
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