Carolena Nericcio Fuses Forms to Inspire New Generations of Belly

Carolena Nericcio Fuses Forms to Inspire
New Generations of Belly Dancers By Rob Taylor
This article was originally published in the April 2013 issue of In Dance, a monthly magazine published by Dancers'
Group, serving the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. dancersgroup.org
The sun never sets on American Tribal Style Belly
Dance®. From Sydney to Stockholm, and Tel-Aviv to Taipei, one
can find an American Tribal Style® (ATS®) class in more than 270
studios in 20 countries—including 151 studios in 37 US states and
Puerto Rico. Ground zero for this modern fusion of North African and
Middle Eastern dance forms is San Francisco’s Mission District, where
ATS’s creator, Carolena Nericcio, operates the
FatChanceBellyDance® Studio and Resource
center.
But before we get to Carolena, and ATS, a
little context is in order. Imparting the full
history of belly dance is a task better suited for a
book, so please note that this is a very simple
review of the roots of ATS1. In 1893, indigenous
dances of North Africa and the Middle East
were introduced to the United States at the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and then
appropriated into American culture through
exoticized depictions in movies and burlesque
shows. Elements of these exoticized forms were
then re-appropriated by Egyptian dancers and
transformed in the 1930s into what is still known
today as Egyptian Cabaret Style.
The roots of ATS are found in the work of
Jamila Salimpour, a dancer who studied
Egyptian dance and recognized possibilities for
combining of different Middle Eastern and
Arabic dance forms. She created a new
vocabulary for belly dance, based on frequently
repeated movements she saw in what were
normally considered improvised dances. She
moved to San Francisco in 1958 and began teaching and eventually
performing with her company Bal-Anat.
One of Jamila’s students, Masha Archer, formed her own company,
San Francisco Classical Dance, in the early 70s. Masha fused many
different forms of dance in a form she simply called “belly dance.” She
also drew on a much wider set of cultural and folkloric styles for
costuming and music, including Indian and European traditions.
Carolena was one of Masha’s students.
After San Francisco Classical Dance disbanded, Carolena began
teaching her own classes in a studio at Noe Valley Ministry in 1987. She
began teaching what she learned from Masha, but returned to a primary
focus on North African and
Middle Eastern dance and
costuming traditions, although
ATS has incorporated elements of
Flamenco and East Asian dance
into its vocabulary of movement.
Unlike the single dancer of
Egyptian Cabaret Style, women
dance ATS as a group, with
choruses and formations. The name “American Tribal
Style” came about when belly
dance traditionalist took umbrage
with Carolena describing what
she was doing as belly dance. She
recalls:
“I didn’t mean to step on
the toes of the
traditionalists; I just didn’t
want to have anything to do
with what they were doing.
It’s not my thing, and it’s not
what I was raised in. I didn’t
want to argue with them
about it not being real, because I knew it wasn’t real. I
also knew that people who didn’t know the difference
were seeing what I do as the real thing, so I understood
the conundrum. Eventually a prominent dancer named
Morocco, from New York, called it American Tribal Style
In Dance | April 2013 | dancersgroup.org
1 Belly Dance—American because it came out of fusion of
forms that is uniquely American, tribal because it’s
danced as a group, and style meaning it’s just a style—it’s
not purporting to be an authentic North African or Middle
Eastern tradition. I just accepted it and thought to myself,
good. Now can I go play?”
As her classes grew, Carolena opened her own studio and core
performing company, named FatChanceBellyDance. San Francisco is
famous for its transitory population, and people who had been studying
with Carolena moved elsewhere, and wanted to teach what they had
learned. This began the process that lead to American Tribal Style’s
global expansion.
“It got out of
control, and some
of what was being
taught under the
name ATS was so
different from what
I was teaching. I
was trying to
tighten my ideas
and concepts,
while other people
were taking what I
was doing and
making something totally different with
it. Eventually, to help standardize the form, I offered a 4
day intensive called General Skills, which immerses you in
all the concepts, all the steps, all the formations, all the
performances.
“People who advanced to a point where they could take
General Skills and teach ATS told me they wanted their
Studios to be affiliated with FatChanceBellyDance, so we
created Sister Studios. Some people teach only ATS just
like we do here, but for others it’s one component of
what they teach.
“Recently we trademarked the name ‘American Tribal
Style Belly Dance.’ People are free to use the term and
don’t have to pay me anything, but they need to do ATS.
It’s fine if people want to take it and then create
something else, they can’t call it ATS.”
My own introduction to FatChanceBellyDance reveals some of the
challenges of perception that many newcomers have with ATS.
Watching FatChanceBellyDance I felt as if I was watching something
from the distant past, but I was actually watching something less than
30 years old.
“The problem is that people who have really never seen
belly dance see us for the first time, they think they’re
watching something folkloric and original, and that the
sparkly girl in the pink chiffon outfit [in traditional
Egyptian Cabaret Style] is a fantasy, but it’s the reverse.
The pink sequined outfit is actually a very powerful
statement from its time. You have to imagine living in
Egypt or Turkey in the 1930s. It was an empowering way
for a woman to make her own money and be visible. That
is an authentic tradition.
“I think audiences see ATS and feel they are being
transported back to a different time, but they are
watching something contemporary. It is a successful
fantasy and looks like you’re watching tribal dancers out
in the desert. Even when people find out that they’re
watching a fantasy, they still want to see it as authentic.”
More widespread, and
equally difficult to overcome,
are continuing stereotypes
about belly dance in general.
Belly dance is an
empowering way for women
to celebrate their femininity,
their bodies, and their
friendships, but societal views
about belly dance are implied
in the name of Carolena’s
company. The “fat chance” in
FatChanceBellyDance is the
response to men who would
watch the dance and then ask
for a private show, or something more.
“The majority of people who hear the word belly dance,
male or female, imagine a false stereotype. When I tell
people what I do, I say I’m a dancer and I resist adding
“belly dancer” because I want to have as much of an
actual conversation as possible before they drop out.
“Every belly dancer you talk to wishes they didn’t get
that response. My desire is to help push it out of the
realm of fantasy and hoochie-coochie and into the realm
of a respected tribal folk art. And something that makes
women feel good about dancing together.
“The definitive part of this form is the community of
women. Even if women come to the studio just looking
for a workout, they leave with a powerful sense of
female camaraderie.”
The FatChanceBellyDance studio is immersed in the textile artistry
and beautiful jewelry which is vital to the presentation of ATS, but
which has also helped the studio build a successful business outside of
the non-profit dance company business model.
“My ability to continue as an artist is tied to a number of
revenue streams that go beyond teaching. We sell
jewelry and costumes, offer consulting, and manufacture
instructional DVDs. We make the products that promote
the form and help pay the salaries.
In Dance | April 2013 | dancersgroup.org
2 “I’ve considered taking the company non-profit, but it
doesn’t seem worthwhile. We are a modern dance
company, but we don’t look like ‘modern’ dance. We
aren’t tied to a particular culture, and it would be
incorrect to call us traditional. We just don’t fit into preconceived categories used by funders in deciding how
to distribute their funding. Fortunately, we’ve found a
solution in the support of our community, and through
new crowdsourced fundraising tools. We’ve turned to
Kickstarter to raise funds for our June show, Devotion,
and with success, this kind of fundraising could play a
bigger role in supporting FatChanceBellyDance.”
This spring Carolena and company will be touring and teaching
and continuing to spread the gospel of American Tribal Style. In June
they will present their yearly Devotion performance at the Julia Morgan
Theater in Berkeley. Devotion has brought guest dancers from around
the world to share the stage with the FatChanceBellyDance. Watching
a Devotion performance, one sees that the American Tribal Style
community, separated by great distance, is as close in spirit as a dance
community can be. A worldwide community of women, connected at
the hip.
1
More detailed history can be found at fbcd.com. For information on
Tribal, and other styles of Belly dance, visit gildedserpent.com.
Rob Taylor is a grant writer and arts administrator who has worked with many different Northern California dance companies, most notably at
World Arts West and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.
Photos: (pg 1) by Kristine Adams; (pg 2) by Lee Corkett
In Dance | April 2013 | dancersgroup.org
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