Kathryn Ferguson

Article #1 Kathryn Ferguson Dance Interview

Article #2 Connecting all the parts – Pow!

By Jan Henrikson, The New Southwest – September 2010

Kathryn Ferguson sat in a restaurant in Casablanca, Morocco, listening to five musicians play, when a woman drenched in lace emerged and began walking slowly around the room, coldly eying all the patrons.

She stopped at one table, grabbed the bread from it and tore off a hunk with her teeth. She continued to walk and stare while chewing.

All of a sudden she moved her hip. Pow! Then she moved her opposite shoulder. Pow! Then she moved her other hip. Pow!

“It was very, very unusual,” says Ferguson about her introduction to what most Americans call belly dancing.

“I had this snobbish dance attitude because I trained in Martha Graham modern dance and did some ballet. I had some Flamenco, too, but this wasn’t like anything I knew. So, I thought, ‘My goodness.’”

The dancer began moving her hips, shoulders, hands, and head, then picked up a two-foot wide silver tray with a tea service on it, balanced it on her head, and continued dancing, with her whole body, now. She undulated to the floor, suggestively moving her pelvis, got on her knees with tray intact, and finally stood up, still dancing.

“Everybody was ‘Ahhhh!’ They’re all yelling and clapping. There were a lot of French people and North Africans too,” says Ferguson. “I didn’t know what I was watching, but there was something about it.”

Since that moment, Ferguson has spent her life finding out what that something is. For 30 years, she’s studied, performed, and taught belly dancing around the world. Founder of Xanadu Dance Studio in Tucson, she has a dance troupe – the Xanadu Dancers – and a busy teaching schedule. She’s also an award-winning filmmaker of two beginning and intermediate dance DVD’s, which even sell in Singapore.

“It’s a very interesting dance form. So compelling that it draws people from Japan – imagine. From Singapore, how unusual is that? From Germany, Amsterdam, Brazil, from everywhere,” says Ferguson, who has finally made peace with the term “belly dance.”

“Really, it’s called Oriental dance in the Middle East,” she says. “But when you say ‘Oriental’ to anybody in Tucson and most of the United States, they think ‘Asian.’”

According to Ferguson, the term ‘belly dance’ comes from the French writer Gustave Flaubert. “He’s coming from Paris in the wintertime where they’re all high-collars and long sleeves and they’re freezing cold and they’re all covered up all the time,” says Ferguson. Imagine Flaubert in Egypt, then, watching a dancer dressed in layers, BELLY DANCE – FROM 13

except for a bare belly.

“He talks about the danse du ventre. That means ‘the dance of summer – the belly.’ It was probably very exciting for him – ‘Oh my God, there’s a belly,’” Ferguson says.

She projects a gracefulness, even while sitting in her studio, which is laced with a string of rose-shaped lights.

“That’s what I have a problem with. The dance is an art form. You use your feet and your fingers and your face and your whole torso. It’s very complex and your body becomes music.”

Initially enchanted by the music, if not the bread-chewing dancer, Ferguson began studying with a series of world-famous belly dance instructors in the U.S. Dancing with live snakes was attractive to Northern Californians in the early ‘70s. “It was very exotic,” says Ferguson. “More like a circus performance and it was very wonderful. In the Middle East, if anybody had put on a snake, the audience would have left the room. They would think it was dirty. That’s totally an American idea taken from French paintings.”

What Ferguson teaches today is her own variation of the traditional dance from Cairo. Strictly traditional dance movements lack the freedom she enjoyed as a pre-teen. Before her teacher-parents would get home from school, she’d move all the furniture in her house, shut the curtains, and turn on Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

“I would jump from one piece of furniture to another,” says Ferguson. “I thought that I was dancing. And I would move everything back before they would come home and open up the curtains and just be my regular self. I had this funny little dance life as a child. It was very private.”

That sense of having their own unique passion is what Ferguson inspires in her students.

“If you can feel that the real you is right inside your body here-” she points to her solar plexus “-wherever you feel full or happy. If you’re dancing and you extend your arm, that fullness should go shooting out from your fingertips over there, where it could break a window.” She demonstrates – without actually breaking her studio window.

“Then there are other energies that are small and soft and interior,” she adds. “So it’s like finding all of these parts of you that are already there but you haven’t been really familiar with.”

“The greatest thing I think was being able to dance for ourselves and each other,” says Yani Gudenkauf, who studied with Ferguson for two years. “It was about being ourselves, being comfortable in our own bodies, being comfortable in our own essences, in our own femininity and the power that comes with dancing.”

Creative-arts based therapist Barka Elihu agrees. “[Dance] is the antidote for being in a culture that teaches us all kinds of ways of disconnecting from our body,” she says.

Empowering women to strengthen their relationships with their bodies is at the heart of the Chakra Bellydance Circles Elihu facilitates in Atlanta, Georgia, and on the road.

“The practice of keeping everything still and circling around one hip or the other hip or wherever the movement is, trains us to calm down and focus on one place in the body,” she says about isolations or isolated movements, which are fundamental to all styles of belly dance.

By diving into a particular body space, “Women learn where they’re holding onto tension or discord. Through movement they can release that for themselves, in their own time and their own way, from their own power.”

Her own creation, Chakra Bellydancing, evolved from 10 years of studying belly dance. It is a fusion of breathwork, core isolations, meditation, tantric practices, creative visualization, and yoga. By consciously opening and dancing with their chakras – the major energy centers in the body associated with mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical issues – women enhance the flow of their life force and strengthen their connection to Divinity.

Elihu’s Circles are often punctuated by releases of laughter and tears as women access “all of that stuff there’s just not words for, that’s deep in the body.”

“I really love it,” says Elihu. “I love how it integrates so well with other kinds of bodywork. I can’t think of anything more fun than playing dress up with my girlfriends and dancing. That it has all these incredible physical and emotional benefits is just sublime. It’s like ‘Oh, Nature wants us to have a really good time as we’re healing.’”

And they aren’t the only ones healing. Both she and Ferguson believe that dance facilitates “healing on behalf of all women, and the world as a whole organism,” as Elihu writes on her web site at holdingwomanspace.com.

“No one murders each other to have a better song or one more little hand movement,” says Ferguson. “I honestly think there would be fewer wars if more people danced and played instruments and got together and talked.”

Her passion shows up, not only in her practice of a dance form that attracts people from around the world, but in her volunteer work with the Samaritans, a humanitarian organization that takes food, water, and emergency supplies to sick and dying immigrants crossing the Arizona-Mexico border. Stories of the people she’s met have been published in the book Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail (University of Arizona Press, February 2010).

“We are basically one people in the world,” she adds. “One dance, with various forms all around the world. I was attracted to Martha Graham modern dance and ended up working with a dance from the Middle East. It has to do with the core of people, the core of art. Art is a sustaining, integrating endeavor as opposed to a military endeavor where you draw a line and put people on opposite sides.”

You can almost envision her shaking a hip. Pow! Extending her arm from that place of inner fullness and shooting peace from her fingertips powerful enough to cross any border.

Article #3: The Gilded Serpent Kathryn Ferguson of Tucson, Arizona-Interviewed by Lynette Harris

May 23, 2000

Lynette: Before we start the interview, have you made any new videos that I should let people know about?
Kathryn: There may be a new video in the works. I don’t want to say what my idea is at this time!

Kathryn, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, met with me at what is, at times, the
unequalled center of the belly dancer’s universe: Bert Balladine’s dining table.
She began. “The first time I ever saw belly dancing was in Casablanca, Morocco!”

She was quick to tell me that she never uses the words “belly dance” currently, 
but that was the term she and others knew then. Kathryn feels that the term is too
limiting for the dance form. “Now,” she chuckles, “I always call it Oriental or
Middle Eastern dance because, in Arizona, if you say Oriental, they think you mean Chinese.

What really intrigued me while I was in Casablanca was the music. There were five musicians, three of whom were drummers. After I saw that first show in Morocco, my life was changed forever! I didn’t realize it at the time. The music changed me, not the dancer. At that time I was a real snob about dance. I had studied Ballet, Modern, and Flamenco dance. I didn’t think that what the dancer presented was very compelling. She was dressed in lace to her wrists and neck. She entered, walked forward a few steps, and then placed her hip out to the side. Then she repeated the same movement at the other side of the room. Next, she walked over to a table, picked up a scrap of bread and began gnawing on it while she checked out the audience.

When she finished perusing her audience, she started doing what I later learned was called a shimmy, while still chewing the bread. She completed a few more uninteresting things and then she put a huge tea service tray on her head, and got down on the floor. She laid nearly prone and did this: (Kathryn demonstrates for me in a push-up position -pelvis pumping up and down against the floor. ) “Imagine!” Kathryn laughs, “This was my first introduction to the Oriental dance form. Isn’t that amazing?”

Kathryn continues:
” I thought the dancing wasn’t so great, but I was very excited by the music. This was, probably, 1969. After I returned to America, a woman who had been a dancer at the Fez Restaurant in Los Angeles, came to Arizona. Mostly because of my positive memory of the music, I thought I’d like to get involved with the dance. At a nightclub in Los Angeles, I happened to be at a birthday party of a dancer named Antoinette Khoury. There I was in this nightclub! I was just beginning to learn about this dance.

The musicians asked this lady (Antoinette Khoury) to dance. She complied, and she was just beautiful, especially the way she used her hands and arms. I asked her if she would teach me about hands and arms. I went to her house the next day and took a dance lesson from her. This was probably in 1970. All these year later I know that she has become Suhaila Salimpour’s mother-in-law. In the meantime, whenever I saw anybody do anything that I liked, I’d stop them and plead, “teach me!”

In Tucson there was a young Syrian man who played the oud whose name was Nazir Elias, who taught me about the music. I’d go everywhere to learn more. For example, when I was sightseeing on Broadway, San Francisco, I saw a dancer performing in a nightclub. The dancer was Aida Al Addowi. I asked, “Can I learn something from you?” 
She said, “Oh, no,” while wiggling the tip of her little finger, “I am this much of my teacher, Jamila! You must come to my teacher, Jamila.”

So I started making treks back and forth from Tucson to study with Jamila. 

Next I met the late Lebanese-American dancer, Ibrahim “Bobbie” Farrah. He had all these dancers in gossamer veils, shoes, and enough sequins to light up a stadium!

Each one of these teachers’ disciples would pull me aside separately and say, “Our way to dance is the only way”.

The teachers, themselves, never really said that to me. There were two big “camps” of style in this dance. “West Coast” was tattoos and turbans, while “East Coast” was high heels and sequins. What is currently called “American Tribal” seems to me to be just a pasteurized version of what Jamila Salimpour taught.

A short while later, I met this breath of fresh air–Bert Balladine! He was, and still is, another heavy-weight on the dance scene. I bought Bert a drink at a Las Vegas bar during Marliza Pons’ show. I subsequently took a class with him in Phoenix.

I remember leaving Bert’s class feeling like a beautiful woman.

I’ve come to appreciate his candid world view of this dance scene and his view of entertainment in general. Bert has become a lifelong friend.

I started teaching classes and dancing in Tucson, in a Moroccan club and restaurant called El Jebala. I worked there four nights per week for nine years. 

The last eleven years, I’ve been dancing all over the world and most of the fifty states. For eight of those years I’d go twice per year to Europe–Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, performing and teaching workshops. I also went to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Istanbul, and Mexico. In Istanbul, I taught mostly European students. Additionally, during 1985, I studied dance five weeks in Cairo, with Shoki and Faten Naim. They ran a folkloric company. Their family would permit her (Fatem) to perform Folkloric dancing but not Oriental. I went to a street wedding there of a famous drummer, Khamis Henkish invited by his brother. It was very interesting because, foolish me, I thought a musician would want to have a wonderful dancer at his wedding, and instead, the dancer just tugged at the dress that was too small for her while she danced. I wondered if she was a relative? Perhaps the least important part of the show is the dancer. Maybe she fills some traditional role, though.

Xanadu Dancers
I had a dance company called the Xanadu Dancers for a while. The name, Xanadu, comes form a poem written by Coleridge about a place called Xanadu where people danced and sang. Coleridge was a British poet. I guess I would say that I don’t really enjoy having a dance company but I like composing choreography and working with a group of dancers. Having a dance company was a tremendous amount of work for little monetary return, and there are always personal conflicts. I like working with a group of dancers but not necessarily always the same dancers.

Videos
I’ve made three videos now. I can tell you that making the instructional video “Middle Eastern Dance, Introduction to Bellydance” was a horrible experience for me! It dragged on for two years, but I think the final product is good.

Second, we made “Dances from the Casbah.” It was a group effort and it was also slightly experimental. Some of the pieces have non-traditional movements, and the construction of the choreography pertains to dance in general, not just Middle Eastern dance. This video really made my reputation as a choreographer. The group consisted of my students who also became friends. “Dances from the Casbah” was all choreography. It contained performances by the entire group and some of my solos.

”Kathryn Dances” is my third video. It is a compilation of whole pieces and excerpts of live performances in different states and countries. 

I also made a documentary called “The Unholy Tarahumara” It is one hour long, and is about Indians in Mexico called the “Tarahumara”. I lived with them off and on for the last five years. I started out being interested in their dance and music and then became interested in other aspects of their culture. I directed the documentary. It traveled the film festival circuit for a year in the U.S. and five other countries, winning awards. That was a major feat in my life, because I learned a lot about the world, and went through many changes which were both personal and professional.

Spending intense time in a third world culture changes you.”

Kathryn sighed and said, “The main reason I don’t like doing interviews is, I end up saying , ‘I, I, I.’ Its more interesting to say, ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’ “

Kathryn comments on the dance scene: “I still like learning from a lot of people. This is what I’m finding: the current rage is first, ‘Let’s learn from an Egyptian dancer,’ then it is ‘let’s learn from a Lebanese dancer.’

But over the years what I have found is that every single style comes and goes, repeating itself. I think the biggest change to dance is the availability of videos. Because of the existence of video, the Arabs watch us and we watch them. We all steal from each other.

For instance, one of the influences you can see now is the Latin influence in both Arabic and American-Arabic dance.

I hate rules! Every time somebody says “rule”, I go the other way! My opinion about standardizing the dance and its terminology is, I think, standardization is 100% garbage!

I would say there is definitely form and technique to this dance style that must be learned but just who is going to determine which way is the only way? All these questions about style, seminars, standardizing, are the same old questions and discussions for twenty-five years, since the first day I got involved.

Likewise, in the discussion of ‘artist vs. entertainer’, one has to be both. There can’t be one without the other. The reason I don’t participate on the Middle Eastern Dance List on the Internet is because it’s a lot of adamant, un-bending opinions. Nothing, least of all ‘dance’, is so black and white!

What are my plans for future? I want to get a real job! (I’ve been saying that for thirty years.) 

Let me end the interview with a favorite story about when I was real young and first started dancing in a restaurant.

A woman came to my dressing room and said to me, “I’d like to make a surprise for my husband! His Shriner’s name is ‘Babu’. When you come near him while you are dancing, please say, ‘Hello Babu’!” So, when I saw them sitting there, I danced to the table and said “Hello, Babu!” The woman first looked at him, and then she looked at me, and she screamed at him, “How does she know your name?” She slugged him, knocking him halfway off his chair, and then left the restaurant. 

It just makes you wonder, “What does this have to do with dancing?”