but when he came home and asked me, “Were you the one
in the yellow shirt today?” I hesitated to answer because I
thought maybe something bad had happened... (laughing)
but then I told him yes, I was the one with the yellow shirt.
He then said, “The girl loved your dancing and teaching,
and she wants to come again tomorrow!” I was so happy
and agreed to teach her again. This was a start of a beautiful
friendship for me and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth returned to the U.S. after studying with me
and she performed the dance that I had taught her. Several
people asked her where she had learned and who her teacher
was in Turkey. She helped to introduce me, and this style of
dance, to a broader audience and student base.
Rabia: I had been performing this dance outside the
Romani community for many years. In Anchorage, I was
encouraged by other local dancers to teach a class on 9/8
and Turkish Romani, but I felt hesitant to do so right away.
It took me 11 years before I finally made the decision to
teach dance and to offer my cultural knowledge. Thankfully,
I had the support of my family and friends to begin teaching
as well. Then, in 2013, I met Serkan and the next year in
2014, I met Reyhan for the first time in Turkey and it’s been
so wonderful to have the connection to others who love and
teach this dance form as well.
With your increased teaching opportunities you also
had to perform for larger audiences; it seems like such
a change. How did you feel going from more intimate
community parties/spaces to dancing on stage?
Reyhan: Each space has certain benefits and drawbacks
but I do love to perform on stage and I do prefer stage if
I’m a hired performer, rather than house party, because the
audience can really see what you are doing. But just for fun,
of course, I love community dancing; you can be relaxed and
have so much fun.
How has dance also given you an identity or shaped how
you think about who you are/your mission as a dancer?
Reyhan: It’s very important to me because this is my
culture. I feel that I am helping to open a door to Romani
culture that otherwise might not have been opened to
others. Sometimes it can fee l difficult to express ourselves as
Romani people, but we can express ourselves through dance.
A lot of people are supporting me on this journey and it
has been amazing so far. I am so happy to have all of these
opportunities to share this culture with others and bring a
positive representation of who we are. (Here we all paused to
72
The Belly Dance Chronicles
July 2017
hug and got a bit teary-eyed).
Reyhan: People in my community will always tell me,
we can’t do this because we have other responsibilities and
we can’t go out and do this like you can (travelling, teaching
etc.), so please do this for all of us too. I feel that I not only
have better status in the community due to my role as a
teacher, but that I have a responsibility as a kind of cultural
ambassador as well.
Serkan: At the beginning, no one was very accepting
of what I was choosing to do, as a male dancer. But over
time, after others had the opportunity to see me dance, they
recognized that I have good skills as a dancer. It’s important
for me that when they see me they can see the dance and
can see beyond just male or female. I also feel responsible
to help others recognize belly dance as an art in the same
class as ballet, as tango, as flamenco and so on. People have
so many ideas about what belly dance is, and often their
expectation of what a belly dancer is can be wrong. So it is
my job to represent the dance as an art, and the dancers, as
well, as artists.
In addition, I am teaching Turkish Romani, but I am
not a Romani person so I am sensitive to how I present
it, and at the same time I am proud of this dance form as
well. In terms of Turkish Romani, I see myself as a bridge
to connect this culture and dance with others, even though
it is not my own.
As a final thought, I don’t say I’m just a teacher, but that
I’m sharing. Because we also learn from our students, every
class there is something new that I learn from them and our
understanding grows the more that we both share.
Rabia: For me I want to “build a bridge” and what I
mean is to not only teach people about Turkish culture, but
also to create community wherever I may be, because to me
this dance form is about connection. We need connection
to learn, to dance and to thrive. This is what I hope to
accomplish through my teaching and dancing.
Serkan: Yes, when we dance on stage we are speaking
the same “language” and we communicate through our
movements. With each performance we leave a little bit of
ourselves on stage and I hope the audience can connect with
that.
As a final question I’d like to know your thoughts on
representations of Romani arts; what are your feelings
about how Romani dance should be learned, represented
or labeled?
Reyhan: I think there needs to be first of all a grounding