Judgement and Art

This week, I hit my nose smack on that irritating wall called judgement. Now, we all should exercise assessment. Assessment is good. It allows us to look over a situation and weigh the pros and cons and decide that texting while driving 75 mph down a crowded rush hour freeway MIGHT be a bad, bad idea! Judgement, however is another thing all together. Judgement weighs two things, people, situations, etc and decides that one is BETTER than the other. So this week I got JUDGED. Yuck!

This week it was judged that only one belly dance performance could be included in a local festival. Now this is a festival that I've danced in for many years, but evidently there was this unwritten rule that there could be only one - that I was unaware of. There can be unending numbers of cloggers and country line dancers (which I totally enjoy doing and watching - mind you) and multiple jazz numbers, hip hop, and tap. Multiple rock bands are evidently a plus - but horrors of horrors let there only be one belly dance number! Why if we allow more than one - I don't know maybe the world would come to an end or HORRORS we might multiply and there would be more of us! Gasp! (I truly hope the fact that my tongue is firmly in cheek is coming through here)

<SIGH> So, we will be unable to dance in a festival that my performance class looks forward to all year. We make a day of it. Getting dressed together and helping each other do make-up. Then we drive over together and saunter through the crowds until we get to the performance area. We are always stopped for photos and occasionally we end up in the local paper. We enjoy cheering on and applauding the other performers in our school and then we use the gardens to take some really nice photos while we've got all our gee-gaws on! We pass out flyers for class and sometimes we all stop in and have lunch or dinner (depending on our performance time) and rehash our day. It's a bonding experience for the students and a great deal of fun.

My question is "Why can there only be one?" This is where the wall of judgement comes in - belly dance is judged as being too "iffy" to allow more than one. Some folks don't see us as family entertainment. Never mind that for thousands of years belly dance was done in families. Never mind that even today having a belly dancer at your wedding is a must in many Middle Eastern countries. Never mind that we wear more clothes than most of the other dancers - and truly do not compare to the hip hop dancers where risque dance moves are concerned. At least we're adults and not 12! Some unnamed "people" get upset that we're there so the festival organizers feel like they have "bent over backwards" (yes that is a direct quote) to include belly dance. Perhaps they have. I don't know. My point is that it is a shame that they might have to do such a thing in the first place. Truly this is an example of how my area is sooooooo not an artistic community. Way too much judgement!

Art doesn't really flourish in a judgemental atmosphere. Now, we all assess which arts we like or don't like. But if you judge art as it is being created - you sort of kill the creative spirit. This festival is local and not that big. It's an opportunity for the local folks to shine. Because if you want super talented professional performers at your festival - you pay them. Mostly local clubs and students perform and those people who are trying to move from amateur to professional. I enjoy supporting the arts in my community so I have performed in the past, but these days it's just as likely that I won't and let my students do the performing. So, a little less judgement please and a little more support for the arts would be nice!

Next year, I will make sure (now that I know there can only be one) to have my application for the festival in on the very first day - since acceptance is done on a first come first served basis! But this year - I'm feeling judged!

Halleyah