I’ve been thinking. . .
I love dance, in all its forms – I’m a terrible dancer, I have no rhythm, I think way too much. But there’s something about the feeling when you are dancing that’s so freeing. For a moment you’re mentally excused from the present. The satisfaction that comes from having your mind control your body and doing things that the normal person couldn’t do every day is very rewarding.
My love for dance was initially inspired by the ballet, The Nutcracker. Every year around Christmas my dad would take us to go see it. I’d come home, put the soundtrack on and dance around like the Sugarplum Fairy in my kitchen for the next week.
However, one part always made me cringe – you know what I’m talking about: Tea/Chinese Dance, whatever you want to call it. In the production we’d watch every year the dancers would shuffle around on stage with their pointer fingers sticking up in the most horrid, Orientalist display of “Chineseness” ever. My mom would always angrily remark “Asian people don’t do that!” Afterward, she’d remark that she enjoyed everything “except the Chinese dance.”
This is the shit I’m talking about – who the hell came up with this stupid-pointer finger-in-air thing?
This weekend Lauren and I went to a show at a local bar in town – specifically we had gone to see a burlesque troupe, but they had invited a number of other acts to perform. Anyway, a good number of the performances were Middle-Eastern inspired dances. I know that no one goes to a show of this sort expecting authenticity of any kind, but I felt sickened watching these women writhe onstage with scarves, veils, etc attempting to evoke mysteriousness and sexuality. It seemed like the epitome of Orientalism.
However, I have no problem with non-Asians who wish to learn or even master Asian forms of dance. Why not?
My Korean dance teacher is white woman who grew up very close to where I grew up in Ohio. She had experimented with various types of dance, came to Hawai’i and tried Korean dance and just “got it” – it made sense to her, the rhythms, the movements, etc. She’s been doing it for 30+ years now and is one of the foremost experts on Korean dance in the U.S. But you know what I like about her? She never creates a spectacle. Sometimes, the dances aren’t the most exciting or most technical, but she never tries to change them for acceptance by a larger audience. She’s respectful of tradition and teaches the dances just as she learned them. I’m really in awe of her of having stuck with it when often faced with disapproval from some in the Korean American community.
I don’t know where to go with this.
Where do we draw the line between an Orientalist spectacle and a non-offensive cultural performance? Do I need authenticity to feel comfortable? I don’t necessarily think so but is it possible to have non-authentic Asian dance that isn’t Orientalist and offensive at the same time? Does it all have to do with who is performing the dance? I don’t know, just some thoughts that have been on my mind – blah, my head is full.
melissalou
tanookie23
