Nagging Ache....

First of all, I would like to thank you if you are a regular reader of my blog. There is nothing more natural for me than to share my belly dancing journey with you all. In between with my very stressful job, traveling for workshops, learning how to dance, holding a dance event, etc and etc. I'm learning more and more that people in the local dance community are teaching when they have no business doing so and its hurting dancers left and right. I see it happening too often.

When I started using Facebook, it was largely something that I used for real friends to share updates of what I was doing. And today, my facebook became less and less relevant to my real life friends and family. I’m usually pretty positive but actually I do worry we have now been too exposed. As a result my facebook friends grew, half of whom I don’t actually know in real life. Good or Bad?

Copying others choreography - My good friend told me this is the side effect of being creative. There are people who wait to steal the ideas from others because they are lazy or simply lack imagination. It is supposed to be flattering, but it is frustrating instead. It has happened to me so many times :-( But this is when I realized that I was not giving my work the value it deserved. Other people were willing to copy and even damage friendship over it, and I thought I was just playing around. I KNOW that my creativity is worth a lot. Stealing by others made me stronger and even more creative. People can copy but it will always be an imitation.

Promoting - My student told me I should go ahead and “re-brand” the word to sell myself, but I don't like to ‘big talk to promote’ so I have never seen it as any serious option. So my reply was simply to do this in a truthful and honest way. I remember my best sister told me last few years this : “The more people knew me, the more people jealous about me” She said my personality is more the kind that will do it for others. If I want to become REALLY famous, I probably need to find a manager, simply because my personality is not the self-promoting type. I laughed and said : “Sister, you really understand me well!”

Famous & Talent - There are many types of artists (dancers in our case). The extremes are those who use their art to glorify only themselves and those who share their art while keeping themselves unknown. And all the dancers in between. The ideal is a balance of both. There are ultra famous dancers without much talent, and there are ultra talented dancers without much fame. The difference is how one is able to use promotions, and sometimes luck of being in the right place at the right time. This is sad, but true. You see the same happen in all forms of art: writing, painting, acting, music, etc...I truly believe that a genuine talented artist is always respected for their work, but promotion into fame is something totally different.

Sorry to nag here! I just need to ‘gotong royong’ all the messy thoughts then I will have a good creative spark to get going.