.copycat.

Mimicry, the imitation and recycling of previous aesthetic styles, appropriating someone else's work as one's own, simulation, camouflage and counterfeiting are all means of deliberately thwarting the development of one's own work so that it no longer functions in sync with the proper historical development of art, as we have come to understand it... These actions directly violate our notions about creativity, particularly according to the modernist canon, as being based in innovation, authenticity and originality." -Suzi Gablick, The Reenchantment of Art

 
One of the major disadvantages that we have as bellydancers is that most of us start studying well into adulthood.  Unlike nearly every other style of art, we don't begin training until much later in life and yet we are burdened with the same expectations people place on art forms people begin studying when they are very young.

Aside from the years of formative training before entering a professional world, one of the key things we lose is that juvenile experimental period of copying.  For most artists, spending a large amount of time copying the work of Masters is a necessary part of the stylistic development process - finding things that appeal to you, dabbling in them and seeing what works for you and what doesn't. Most of this work takes place while the student is still in school and is never seen on a professional platform. Ample time is given to figure out that painting just like VanGogh is great, but not an expression of oneself and ones own work. But when you look at the later work of that same student, you may see elements of VanGogh's influence that the artist has made uniquely their own through exploration, study and deep reflection.

As adult bellydancers we're expected to know better intuitively; to develop our own style automatically without that period of experimentation and exploration. I've personally seen so many rants and ravings about the masses of Rachel Brice clones populating the fusion bellydance scene to which I can only say this: They Are Young. Maybe not in age, but certainly in experience. I went through this period myself - we all do - copying what other dancers were doing in order to figure out what worked for me. Unfortunately in the Tribal and Fusion genres of the dance, all of our "Masters" are very young as well - we don't have a vast history of experimentation (of that particular style) to look upon and so we take what we can and do what we can. It's all a part of the learning process - and it is vital to the development of young dancers.

However, this is not an endorsement of taking that exploration to a professional platform. As teachers it is important to guide our students and help them to understand the difference between taking influence from another dancer and copying them outright. Copying during the learning period is fine. Copying another dancers work and presenting it as ones own unique ideas is something else entirely.




*Most of what has become my dance philosophy over the last few years came directly from my experiences in art school - and transmuting them into something applicable to dance has in turn made them make so much more sense in relation to fine/commercial art.