Celebrating the Feminine
"Belly dancing gives a woman the possibility to discover herself. More than words or thoughts, it reveals her feelings toward herself and her sexuality, toward men and other women. It gives her the possibility to communicate with the eternal woman in herself, to accept herself and to learn to love. Through the movements of belly dancing, a woman expresses her courage to love and to live. Knowing that the very same movements she is making have been performed by women since time began gives her faith and self-confidence." -- Rosina-Fawsia Al-Rawi, Grandmother's Secrets
“WomanDance” is a series of images of contemporary female “belly” dancers. The images were taken during a live performance at a summer dance festival in the mountains of northern New Mexico.
Belly dancing began in ancient times as a means of communicating body wisdom for one generation of women to another. In the past century, pop culture has used belly dancing as a means of exploiting women for entertainment. The modern day belly dance movement, however, is reclaiming this ancient female art form as a path to acceptance of their bodies and their identity as women.
A deliberate choice was made to omit the faces of the dancers. This compositional technique, generally used by the fashion industry to objectify women by stripping them of their identity and humanity, was chosen so as to emphasize the universality of the female spiritual journey. Ritual belly dancers are taught to separate themselves from their egos and real-world identities so as to be able to connect with their collective identities as women -- in doing so, they are continuing the tradition of the ancient temple priestesses who danced not for individual recognition, but to create a connection, as a group, with the universal feminine experience.
The contemporary belly dance (aka tribal) dance movement includes women of all ages, shapes and sizes – most of whom are not considered beautiful according to our fashion magazine standards of beauty. WomanDance seeks to encourage women (and men!) to broaden our definition of beauty, as well as to empower more women to reclaim the value of the feminine experience through connecting with ancient archetypal imagery and ritual.Click here to view the complete WomanDance exhibition online.
A piece from WomanDance is currently showing in the Pacific Northwest Center for Photography's 3rd Annual Plates to Pixels International Juried Exhibition, "Body Pulses"
Click here to see the "Body Pulses" exhibition onilne.