Hi, All,
Don't know if you all had a chance to see the preview of the
Miles Copeland/Ark21 Movie American Bellydancer last week. I
offer below my unvarnished opinion.
Yours in dance,
Karima Nadira
*************
On April 8, 2005, I had the opportunity to view the much ballyhooed film by Ark Enterprises and Miles Copeland, a venture that is part of his efforts to promote his views of the American "bellydance" scene in conjunction with the troupe of his creation, the "Bellydance Superstars." I have never met Miles, but I have seen 2 shows in person of the Bellydance Superstars in performances in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I am also familiar with the debates in the Middle Eastern Dance community about this project from the start.
Overall the film was in some ways better than I expected (less T & A, more about the business of show business), though I see very limited market appeal for it (mostly us dancers who get to watch people we recognize; and we would likely see it just once). The film was being shown twice in an art house location in the East Village with about 200 seats, and neither showing was more than half full (This is in New York City!). Miles makes much (in many of his communications with the dance community as well as in the film) of his intentions to reach a wider mainstream audience with his BDSS franchise, and supposedly this film is to be a vehicle for such a crossover. But this film is certainly not something that I see Miles' supposed target audience- the mainstream- running out to see or telling their friends to see. It has a very insider feeling, and much of it would be hard to understand outside the context of the dance scene. I do like how he allowed himself to be put on the spot, perhaps as a deliberate foil, but the film fails to fulfill his promises of showing why the mainstream should appreciate this dance. If I was not already a dancer, I am not sure that seeing this film would convince me that I need to see this dance in any venue.
The film got off to a fairly good start and was on its way somewhere with all the great up-front quotes, the depiction of a 90 year old dancer ,and some footage of heavier dancers, but then it just left that great opening in the dust and diverged to some of Ark's internal debates. In the same way, the later introduction of male dancers (besides the fact that the first cross-dressing male shouldn't even have been shown, as he was in no way representative of males on the scene) was just left hanging after the clip with Tarik Sultan. The film had a major identity crisis: is it a documentary? an ad for BDSS? an exoneration of Miles? BDSS: the tour??- and did none of those things well. And in any case, what exactly *is* "American Bellydance," and, as opposed to what??? Didn't address that either. The MTV/ home video style that dominated throughout made much of it hard to watch- that stuff works great on shorts, or for shorter sections of longer films but here was overused. Some very good, on-target footage was clipped too soon, and some "artistic pauses" were senselessly placed, seemingly emphasizing irrelevant or tangential stuff to the detriment of more substantive stuff. Also the one thing that would have helped the film a lot, more actual dance footage, was in short supply- perhaps so people will buy the DVD? The one continuous section of dance footage toward the end was actually clips of several different dances strung together to an altogether different soundtrack which sometimes made the dancers look out of sync with the music.
There was way too much extraneous, irrelevant footage (1 sound bite of the suicide was enough- we didn't need the additional 30 seconds; all that BS about security in Bali got way too much time-having shown clips of the bombing was sufficient to set the stage; too much of that dancer-in-the-woods, and besides what relevance is the fact that Mohamed Atta was in an audience?, etc etc). They could have made better use of more fast-motion on&off the bus stuff, which certainly conveyed the hectic goings on , and left out some of the same w/ chit chat.
Although the Suhaila footage was good and added spice, the context and reasons for the importance to the dance community of that particular debate are not made clear to a non-dance audience because the nature of the dance and its origins are never delved into. Basically, it's insider stuff. Aside from some quotes here and there about the dance, real authorities got short shrift. It would have been far better if Morocco, for example, had not been restricted to short sound bites only; I'll bet she contributed plenty more useful context in that interview that ended up on the cutting room floor.
The limited effort at context, indeed, relied instead on cobbled together images and unsupported statements, and was awkward at best. Some jarringly inappropriate political footage did nothing to enlighten the viewer as to the real political or cultural issues underlying the dance, or how the dance could possibly serve as a cultural bridge. Especially with the later discussion regarding the dancer-as-prostitute stereotype, a viewer not already familiar with Middle Eastern culture would likely be confused as to why anyone would think this dance could be a cultural bridge.
I recently got, along with Rashid Taha's new cd, a free 40 minute promotional DVD all about Rashid's Mexican Tour; it was boring to watch the first time & only had a few good scenes worth watching so it was certainly not worth watching twice. This BDSS film reminds me a LOT of that, now that I think of it. Basically in both cases, the filmakers failed to make their content relevant to the audience. And neither one succeeds as a documentary. As far as documentary goes, anyone who would like an excellent behind the scenes look at the BDSS tour can read Dondi's excellent series on the subject, written while she was on the road with the troupe, which is hopefully still up on her website.
A lot of the dance footage, while scarce, was great, and would have added much to the movie if more had been included. How could it have hurt to show a full 30 seconds of Morocco's fabulous shimmies, or Rachel's incredibly sinuous moves, or Bellyqueen's tight synchronicity instead of the occasional 2 second clip? The enchantment of the dance is in the marriage of the movement and the music, and this movie is so busy doing everything and anything else that the enchantment got lost. It is my sincere hope that Miles will re-edit this film to recapture the magic and to develop better context before he allows a general release of a film that currently does not do justice to the Superstars or the dance.
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