As a social scientist and amateur anthropologist, I have found being a professional belly dancer a great source of data collection. I have danced at weddings and celebrations of people who are from a wide range of cultures, (a fair percentage being from Eastern societies.) These gigs embrace a wide range of human experience embracing, - the posh to the disadvantaged. Intellectuals to people with learning difficulties .The straight to the gay and the clearly gendered to the transgendered. Old people, young people, big people, small people, I could go on. I have learned so much about people and what makes us different and what connects us. In weddings, I have had a chance to witness the behavior of folk at a time that often encapsulates so many elements of a culture which is marriage. I have also danced at many mixed race, British/ Middle Eastern

 

weddings. Here I have had a great opportunity to observe cultural differences.

 

I have danced at many all women Muslim parties and have enjoyed being part of this secret exotic and glamorous world, where I am exhausted by the line of those waiting to have danced offs, which have taught me so many moves. Gestures and subtle nuances.

 

 As a belly dancer, I am an entertainer so I belong outside the normal boundaries of culture and social class. I am a gypsy who is frequently a paid guest. I facilitate the fun, entertain and act as a bridge between cultures and individuals. However, I go home before the end sober.

 

 Some of the worlds I have been invited have been exotic, strange and even disturbing. All my gigs have enhanced my understanding of human nature, in mostly good   but sometimes bad ways. This is just ten, for now!

 

 To prepare for this gig I had to have a dental impression made, so I could have fangs made to fit my teeth. Cool! The person who done this, was a special effects expert that had worked on the alien films. It was disgusting but worth it. I roped my friend Jeannie in to be my dance partner. We planned and quite recklessly did not bother to rehearse our special effects,- which was me ripping her white frilly nightgown  off with my bare hands, to reveal a belly dance costume. (I was the vampire, she the willing victim.) I had a syringe of trick blood in my belt which I would craftily pull out and pretend to bite Jeannie, using slight of hand I would secretly depress the syringe and blood would go all over Jeannie’s neck and boobs! Wow!!! The choreography was to Voodoo Child by Hendrix.

 

The gig was in Whitby because it was Bram Stoker’s centenary. We arrived and checked into a B&B .The guys who got us the gig visited us in our room. Then something very disturbing happened. I will digress but stay with me. it’s worth it. My sister was with a rather ugly guy for 2  years, during which  she was constantly stalked by his oriental eXx called Ski. The organizer was with Ski only she/he was wearing man's clothes!!!!. This is Alan he said. ‘Didn’t you used to be called Ski?’ I asked nervously. He ran out with tears in his eyes.’ That’s a woman’ I said.

 

‘No it’s not it’s a man’ the organiser said’ I’ve seen his d**k’. This was going to be weird.

 

After getting ready (which included putting denture stuff on my fangs to keep them in) we made our way to the venue. It was an extremely beautiful large Baroque style building, filled with about five hundred  beautiful vampire people... We gorged our senses on Victorian dress, fetish wear, medieval gowns and androgynous men with long hair and eyeliner. Unexpectedly for the stereotype of the vampire, everyone was really friendly. The gig went amazingly well and incredibly, including special effects,- all to plan. Everyone loved us.

 

After our spot a famous guy (I have forgotten his name) from Sweden did a gig which just seemed to be him in grotesque scary makeup like an Ork, ‘killing’ a young girl then dancing around her.

 

Sadly I was showing off my fangs to some friends lately and broke one. I took it as a   depressing sign that my vampire belly dance days are over. Or are they……..???

 

 

I got an email from someone who had bought my DVD asking me if I was ‘open minded’ and checking my availability to do a gig at their club. Intrigued I gave the guy a call.’ Hi we really like your dancing are you available on the 13^th?’

 ‘Yes’ I said.’ Its for a swingers club’.

‘Oh’ I said. Ever the social scientist, anthropologist and intrepid explorer I agreed. (For a healthy fee of course!).   Pete my partner  came with me. ‘We will be in and out I said’. Hoping we did not get hit on by a swinging couple.

The club was local, ‘We might see someone we know’ I joked. When we arrived the guy who owned the club was wearing nothing but a towel, as were some other people. (He must have just shagged someone I thought starting to panic). I put on my brave face as guys looked on. ‘Come to the dressing room’ said the owner's wife wearing only her underwear. ‘Ok,’ I said thanking the gods I had the good sense to put my costume on first under my coat, as it turned out to be mixed .(No point in being shy I suppose). I got chatting to a girl who seemed nice. I turned to speak and looked quickly away as she was brazenly changing her knickers. I did my lips stick so I did not have to look.  Directly parallel in the reflection in the mirror to my lips, was a middle-aged guy’s flaccid penis. I clumsily dropped my lipstick in shock and had to pick it up, my face  nearly colliding with said girl’s bare bottom.

 

Time to go on .I was on after the pole dancer. The club was surprisingly posh and tasteful .What amazed me is that my audience of swingers looked so damn normal! Much more normal than most of my friends. Whilst I performed, there was some bad homemade porn on the TV screens. At the end a small man with red hair introduced Pete to his rather mousy looking wife; ‘She does belly dancing you know…’

 

I got paid and we made our escape. As we went I noticed a couple in the corner that looked like they did not want to be seen. ‘Was that Rosy and George from the corner shop?’ I asked. We can’t be sure, but it damn well looked like. Arh well, another day another dollar.

 

 

 

It was a few weeks before Beltane (May day) I got a call from a very well spoken guy. .After questioning me for quite a long time, he seemed satisfied that I was the right person for the job. I had said I was a nature worshipper and pagan. He made out to me it was a pagan event he was booking me for, which was great . However reading between the lines I could not help but feel it was something far more sinister. I am a pagan as well as other things. Having been a big fan as a child of Hammer house of horrors . I felt excited at the prospect of going to an old gothic mansion and seeing some sort of dark ritual. I got the impression I was there as some sort of symbol of the fertility goddess. That can only be an amazing thing to be, I thought. He asked at the end of the conversation if I minded if performing for Satanists . ‘Er no’ I said. After all,he’s only a fallen angel I silently mused ,perhaps I can bring some light into their situation, I reasoned.

 

Pete my partner came with me. We were very disappointed to find not the imposing detached stately home we imagined,  but a council house in a sprawling estate in nowheresville. (Satan obviously not been too helpful then!) The ‘priestess; had her husband upstairs with the kids where and  you could clearly hear the telly. (The well-spoken guy was the priest. (Later turned out he had recently done time in mental hospital, but he did go to public school).The décor was disappointingly pedestrian, with virtually no sign of the occult. Everyone put on black robes. We did not have any. A very straight forward ritual was performed. A fire was not burned and the devil did not manifest. I did my dance in a very self-conscious way, fitting to a rather uninspiring living room. The priestess decided to see if she was could out dance me. She did a performance inspired by the one Brit Elkland’s body double did ,in the Wicker Man including slapping her own rather large bottom. I really did not know where to look!

 

 

 

 

A few years ago my sister(who is also a dancer) and I ,got invited to a billionaire’s house in the Isle of Man. We flew over from Liverpool in no time.  My sister and I were the only ones in the airport to get searched . My Mum always says it’s because we look ‘Foreign’ my sis looked quite terrified, I was later to find out why.

 

We got there and were given a room to stay in. It was in a big house .Our room had immaculate pristine white walls. Whilst applying my body make up a young man barged in. I was in an awkward position doing my inner thigh and kind of tripped with fright. I steadied myself by putting my hand on the wall. ‘I’m getting changed ‘I growled. Me and my sister both looked at the wall in horror, a disgusting brown stain of body make up now tarnished the immaculate white walls. We tried to get it off but an ugly stubborn brown residue remained.

 

Outside was a big marquee, unfortunately on an incline, although there was a wooden dance floor. Would you like a drink? In them days I drank before gigs (Something I never ever do now because alcohol makes you uncoordinated the last thing a dancer wants). They kept bringing us drinks and we kept drinking them, Come the time for our performance,  we were drunk and performing on a slope. A big fat ugly guy kept rolling down the slope to look up our skirts. I would cry if I watched a video of our performance it must have been awful.

 

I fell into bed in a drunken stupor only to be woken up with my sister who was smoking pot and blowing smoke out the window. ‘Do you know the penalty for possession of cannabis in the Isle of Man ‘I hissed? ‘No’ she said coolly inhaling. Why do I always have to be the sensible one?

 

We got paid and flew home hung over. We were a bit worried about what they would think the brown stain was. Moral of the story? Never  drink before gigs, take drugs or wipe poo coloured substance on white walls in rich people’s houses.

 

 

Yey! Ishtar hits the US. When  I arrived after a long and disorientating flight I was in  Cincinnati airport. I realised that those paranoid yanks had ripped open my guitar case just in case I had put a bomb in it. I got screamed at by the workers in the airport and felt a bit confused as to why everyone wasn’t telling me to’ have a good day’ like they do on the telly. I was doing a short tour. I got the chance to express my views about the invasion of Iraq, goddess worship and other subversive topics  to fundamentalists who never seemed to have anything to the contrary to say. I sang political songs and did my dancing. A girl came up and helped, as she went to a belly dance class. ‘Are you from outa town ?‘ she enquired . Yes I’m from Liverpool in the UK I said ‘.Oh is that in London?’  said the graduate student.

 

I learned a lot about Americans which confirmed my suspicions, but I did meet a lot of radical intelligent types. I had a really good time and everyone seemed to really like me. I was amazed that I got attention from some young men because I supported Liverpool FC and so did they. Surreal!

 

The phone rings and it is my agent. ’Hi got a gig for you promoting  Indian food in the  ASDA in Runcorn’

 

‘ Erm great but I am not an Indian dancer .’

 

‘

Oh its ok they want Indian belly dance’(What the hell is that) ? So using the moves I had learned from classical Indian dance workshops, I devised my first version of Indian/Arab fusion. I arrived in Indian clothes .Some of the staff had got into the spirit of things, wearing ridiculous fancy dress Indian attires. Thank god there are few Indian people in Runcorn, I am sure they would find this a bit insulting I thought.

 

I began to dance to the haunting music of Sheila Chandra over the speakers in ASDA. It was VERY surreal. People like mindless automatons seemed to able to have their  perceptual systems edit me out .Robotically taking tins of beans and the like from the shelves and depositing them in their  shopping trollies .Kids could see me and  fun people. Everybody else could not accept the weirdness of an Indian Belly dancer in ASDA.

 

 

Cosmopolitan magazine phoned me and said a girl had won a competition and her wish was to belly dance on the chess board at Portmerion  in Wales (where the cult hit ‘The prisoner’ was filmed ) and belly dance. So they got me involved and I appeared in the magazine.

 

If you have been you will know that the Eastern-inspired architecture is so beautiful ,dancing there  was like a sublime dream. We shot some video you can see it on the video gallery.

 

 

 

Me and my dance group were asked to do a show in a Liverpool nightclub supporting 70’s band Oddessey. Sounds straightforward? Not if five belly dancers are sharing a dressing room with nine drag queens all hungry for the mirror. The air was made caustic with hair and glitter spray. The drag queens were all hyped up and snorting coke. One of them implied that he thought I was a drag Queen! But I think he was just a jealous bitch! Time to go on we had to fight our way past all the ravers to get to our ‘stage’. Unfortunately, this was not to be  the main stage where the band performed, but a brick structure probably meant for one or two people it was full of beer. All five of us climbed on gingerly. Our costumes got wet. We did our bit and everyone seemed to love it.  

 

 

 

I arrived a bit late as usual. I found myself in a big old beautiful Anglican church in Liverpool. Belly dance was to be integrated into the nativity play. The Vicar and his wife were kind of trendy (She had an art degree). I was very happy to be conducting the workshop standing at the altar and reveled slightly in the fact. I taught a Beledi style choreography . I had worn a long white galabiya ,which I felt was fitting. I taught belly dance by the altar, as a stained glass Jesus Looked on approvingly. My daughter Tara had to come with me, as I did not have child care. While my back was turned she went up to the pulpit and started singing down the mike .I thought it was funny but tried not to laugh, the vicars wife was not amused . Later the vicars wife invited me and Pete for dinner, where the conversation strayed dangerously towards the inappropriate, then orbited into the shocking. His wife joked how she would pretend to be a dog!!!!. It seemed they wanted to talk lewdly about their sex life. Help! Very disturbingly during the main course, the couple began to explain to us that through philosophical deduction both had come to the conclusion that their was no God!! AHHHH we did not stay around for dessert, it was just too weird even for us. But we loved it.

 

 

One day whilst walking Fifi in my scruffy tracksuit, ponytail, bleary eyed and looking my age.IO met a strange  old woman. She had orange hennered hair, bright blue eye shadow and  red lipstick, which was smeared where her lips used to be, before they retreated to thin lines with age.

 

‘Isn’t she lovely’ she cooed . Obviously not talking about me, her eyes looked on at my pet Chihuahua and sidekick Fifi. ‘Look ! She’s one of your kind. ‘Her eyes looking adoringly at the little bundle she was carrying. Fifi and I  both noticed she also had a Chihuahua.(although he was jet black and fat .Fifi is slim and white) Obviously too spoilt to walk, she had him wrapped in a pink fleece, his bulgy eyes looked on burning with jealousy as the attention was suddenly off him .’ Oh I recognize you, you’re Ishtar the belly dancer!’. The old lady suddenly exclaimed . ‘You danced at my friends  eightieth !’ Amazing she could recognize me without the copious makeup I wear for gigs.

 

I spluttered ‘Yeah that’s me ‘ and gave a weak embarrassed smile.

 

’ Could you come and do a dance for Henry it’s his birthday next week, some of his friends are going to come round and it would be lovely for everyone to see you dance.’

 

 ‘Cool is Henry your husband?’

 

‘Oh no dear he died years ago, thank goodness, he was so boring. No this is Henry’. Her black obese Chihuahua gave both me and Fifi a look of unprovoked sheer contempt.

 

’Yeah. I’m free that night’. I said trying to sound business like.

 

 Me and Fifi had a good time playing with the other dogs. During my performance, Henry kept sexually harassing a male Westy who was a lot bigger than him. Over on the other side of the room a little Yorky was pooing..  Fifi made some new friends and got lots of attention and treats off the other old people and I had earned enough money for my gas bill. Result.!

 

 

I was surprised that at the height of the obscene Invasion of Iraq that British officers would consider having an Arabic-themed party. We arrived and got ready .The environment was predictably opulent. They had made a room up amazingly fabulous in Arabic style. In another room a long wooden dinner table was set and decorated with ornate candelabra. Mick the drummer came with me as requested by the agent. We were to perform once during dinner and again in the themed area. I took my chance and walked along the table. It felt good to be Ishtar who is after all, an Iraqi goddess and have all those people looking up and clapping for me. Putting my stiletto marks on their wood table. This was my revolution!

 

Later we noticed some officers in fancy dress in the orange uniform of captives of Gutanimo bay ,which was both  distasteful and weird. Others had really made the effort and dressed up in eastern garb. Some for some strange reason had dragged up. (Apparently cross-dressing is an army tradition.) I got them all dancing. Mick had brought some drums and they were drumming also. They loved us and treated us really well. It felt good bossing these people around. I liked it and so did they. 

 

Soldiers obey the orders of government. Blair did an evil thing when he sent solders to fight an illegal illogical and obscene war.

 

 

That’s it  for now readers!  

 

I would like to have told you about the secretive Masons, The time rival belly dance teachers circulated a picture of my pubic hair, The Chinese mafia gig, The Kora player collaboration, The gig for a couple in their  house, The transgender conference, The women’s institute, The supposed titled persons birthday, The Indian ritual dance, Dancing with someone dressed up as an even more grotesque than normal George bush . My experience of dancing in a time slip in Bold street Liverpool., My belly dance UFO adventure And so on. Also the many more that no doubt will happen. I believe we create our own reality . I know I could not live an unadventurous life. Each day I never know what will happen, who I will meet or even what I will do. Every day is unique and special .I make it like that and so can you. Watch this space for more weird gigs.