As of yesterday (1 August 2016), Rusty Belly Dance was rebranded and became MiTribe Oriental Dance Collective. I asked Lizelle Vermaak what was the reason behind this change.
"Our reasoning behind this move is to clearly define what we do as an Oriental Dance Studio. Although we still firmly base our foundation, and especially that of our Beginners in the fundamentals of Belly Dance, we have steadily become more Fusion orientated over the past three years. We aim to combine different dance forms, such as Tribal Fusion, ATS (American Tribal Style), Ballet, Contemporary, Cabaret, Kathak Indian, Bollywood and Spanish Fusion into our unique choreography and technique classes. We still feature Classical Egyptian and Turkish Belly Dance, but it is not our main focus.
Most importantly, we have to rebrand to suit the conditions of the extremely conservative, predominantly Afrikaans, “small town” mentality we face in our city. Rustenburg is growing and evolving, but it is not as cosmopolitan as the larger cities in the country and if we hope to sustain our growth, we will have to move away from the “Belly Dance” reference. It is a sad state of affairs that, even in this day and age, women are still led to believe that Belly Dance is something akin to stripping. In our town, this radical step is needed to change the attitude towards our dance form so that women would no longer be afraid to be associated with Belly Dance. We understand that we run the risk of being seen as taking a cop-out by Traditionalists, but we daily face comments from unenlightened women asking “Don’t you only dance for men?” or “What does your husband think?”, not to mention the negative body image issues that are associated with our costuming. This lack of education and exposure is harming the dance form, not helping.
The rebranding of our studio is therefore not a move away from spreading the knowledge and joys of Oriental Dance, but an action to strengthen it. Our studio ethos and mission statement had and will always be that of a tribe of women who collectively share the same standards and values and who embody the power and passion to motivate each other to be the best they can be. We strive to always represent Belly Dance in all its associated forms with the reverence and respect it deserves."
Congratulations MiTribe for taking this step. I think it is important to always evaluate yourself, your studio and your troupe to see where changes need to be made.
"[T]hat which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" (Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II).
