Tales Told by a Closet Belly Dancer: Her Travels, Travails, and Thoughts

By Jeanne Sandberg Fuller

Light and lively. Part travelogue, part reminisces, part belly dances. You name it, it's here. Written in Jeanne Sandberg Fuller's delightful style this third book is a look at her adult life. The first two, The Day the Bathroom Ceiling Fell and Nice Girls Are the Best Kissers, are the stories of her childhood and young adult life and are also written in her inimitable if quirky style.

Fuller gives her impressions as a dancer and artist as she visits Egypt, England, Greece, and Istanbul. The anecdotes of her family on these trips make us feel we're right there with her. She has been an avid fairy tale, myth, and history fan from the very beginning which makes the travels come alive in a most unique way.

"Whether an armchair traveler or a world traveler this book will take you places as never seen before."

-Diane Yost Roush, B.A. Albion College Retired International English Teacher

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491779217

Jeanne Sandberg Fuller

Jeanne Sandberg Fuller, writer, artist, wife, mother, and grandmother won the award as the American Belly Dancer on a Nile cruise boat. She served for thirty years as a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts of St Petersburg, Florida and worked on their Catalogue of the Collections, wrote slide lectures, study sheets, and labels for art works. A born story teller, a trait inherited from her father, Fuller, has been writing since childhood. She relates amusing and touching tales about her parents, relatives, friends, and children. Her essays and stories have won numerous prizes, appeared in magazines and newspapers. She enjoys sewing, decorating, reading, and world travel. After years of collecting treasures at yard sales and antique stores, she is trying to downsize She and her retired Eastern Airlines captain hail from Jamestown, New York and after countless moves they now reside in Seminole, Florida.

Book preview

TALES TOLD by a

CLOSET BELLY DANCER

Her Travels, Travails, and Thoughts

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JEANNE SANDBERG FULLER

COVER PHOTO

Sassy JeMira Semir waking up those elders in nursing homes.

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Tales Told by a Closet Belly Dancer

Her Travels, Travails, and Thoughts

Copyright © 2015 Jeanne Sandberg Fuller.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7922-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7921-7 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/23/2015

Contents

1 The Closet Belly Dancer is Born

2 The ‘Compleat Klutz’ Becomes a Belly Dancer

3 Making My Practice Skirt

4 Now I’m Taking Ballet and Belly Classes

5 Real Live Belly Dancers

6 My First Seminar

7 Queen of the Middle Eastern Dancers

8 Learns Time is Oh, So Relative

9 Another Learning Experience

10 Not Bad for My First Effort

11 A Piece of Cake

12 The Show Must Go On

13 Smile Darn You Smile

14 My Time in Reston was Running Out

15 The Sands of Time

16 The Closet Dancer Meets a Cross Dresser

17 Teacher Flips Her Wig

18 Dancing with Snakes

19 Better Luck Next Time

20 The Quick and The Nearly Dead

21 ‘Show and Tell’ at the Museum of Fine Arts

22 Dancing in the Parlor of the Cary Hotel

23 The Closet Belly Dancer and the Man in the Gorilla Suit

24 Putting on the Glitz at Home Backfires

25 Dreams of Egypt Come True

26 What! Only Two Hours at the Egyptian Museum?

27 The Reknowned One-Step Belly Dancer

28 On Stage at Sahara City with the Nubians

29 Abu-Simbel or Bust!

30 The Closet Belly Dancer Escapes Death on the Nile

31 A Wedding Dance on a Wet Day in Paradise

32 Salome Writhes Again!

33 Come with Me to the Kasbah!

34 Dancing at My High School Reunions

35 It’s All Greek to Me!

36 It’s Not Constantinople it’s Istanbul

37 The Greek Islands

38 My Friend, My Teacher, and ‘Adopted’ Daughter

39 Dance is the Fountain of Youth

40 Dance is Still Therapy for My Body and Soul

41 The Dance Lover

42 You Danced Where?

43 One Day in May Changed my Life

44 A Never to be Forgotten Baby Shower

45 The World’s Oldest Belly Dancer

Histories by Jeanne Sandberg Fuller

John Wilson Fuller, Esquire – The 1870 Diary of a Country Gentleman Farmer

The 1893 World of Mary Perry Fuller

Laura’s Family – Mother Always Told Me to Write a Book About our Family And So I Did!

Edited, Designed, and Illustrated

A Chattanooga Childhood – A Memoir/Cookbook - Stories and Favorite Foods as Chosen Cooks Share Their Secrets - by Charlotte Colby Andersen

Memoirs

The Day the Bathroom Ceiling Fell and Other Entertainments

Nice Girls Are the Best Kissers - The Years between WWII and the Korean War

Slide Lectures

Dance in Art – Dance, the mother of all the arts from Stonehenge to Degas’ ballet dancers.

Jewelry from the Land of the Pharaohs - Tut’s jewels and more.

Understanding or Reading Egyptian Art – Naming all the gods and goddesses

Dedication

A driana Miller, my first teacher had taught me well. She coaxed, she pleaded, she yelled, Suck in those bellies, girls! Stand up straight, look proud, and for god sakes smile if you can’t do anything else! We were all terrified of this Greek/Italian Sophia Loren look-alike bomb-shell, so we did as we were told. I began my belly dance career at what I thought was a rather advanced age. I never admitted it to anyone, but I was 45. When age was mentioned I never said a word, but oddly enough the dance was changing my thoughts about my age. I felt younger!

I can hardly believe it has been 40 years since the day in March of 1974 when I went to my first belly dance class on Michigan Avenue in Georgetown, Washington, DC. Many dancer friends and teachers are no longer able to dance or are appearing in dance heaven, but at 84 years old, I am still dancing! Although I haven’t felt able to perform a belly dance anymore, I can still do the moves and fortunately I’m still able to dance the hula.

Never more than an amateur performer, I believe the truest meaning of that word is one who loves the art. We all fervently want the public to respect the dance that we love. Adriana shrieked and screamed at us as she laid down the law: But ladies, I just want my girls to look their best. You all reflect on me and what I have taught you. It was true then and it still is now. Not only does each dancer reflect on her teacher, she reflects on all of us who love the art of belly dance.

Our compulsion to create art

is the need to establish calm within life’s

turbulent flow. Religion, ritual, and art began

as one, and a religious or metaphysical element is still

present in all art. It is a ritualistic reordering of reality. The first artist was a tribal priest casting a spell, fixing nature’s daemonic energy in a moment of perceptual stillness. Art is spellbinding. The art of dance fixes the audience in its seat, stops the feet before a painting, or fixes a book in the hand. Contemplation is a magic act.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence.

From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

By Camille Paglia

Acknowlegements

D iane Yost Roush, my friend from the Chatterbox Book Club, loves reading and taught English in Germany, Lebanon, and Egypt She has some fond memories of Egypt, but they weren’t about her living conditions, which were not up to snuff. The noisy traffic and the non-existent exhaust systems not only stunk up the apartment, they covered everything with a film of dirty greasy fumy black gunk. It wasn’t such a pleasant time for her, but she did have some fun experiences.

The local Egyptians were really wonderful to her even if they couldn’t understand each other. What little Arabic she spoke, she was told, had a Lebanese accent that they couldn’t understand.

The very first night she was there, the school took all of the teachers out to eat. It was an outdoor top-floor restaurant so close to the pyramids they could see their night lights and just barely hear their recorded tour messages. She thought it was beautiful. After dinner they were treated to lots of dancers including belly dances by women and whirling dervish-type dances by men. Then they had some audience participation that was fun. It was all so different from anything a small town girl from Michigan had previously experienced.

She proofed one of my stories from Nice Girls Are the Best Kissers, found reading it like eating peanuts, and kept offering to do more! Then she volunteered to go over the entire manuscript with a fine tooth comb!

For this book, Tales Told by a Closet Belly Dancer she has proofed all 400 pages and offered editing suggestions to my long-winded volume. Consequently I have shortened it considerably, so I could afford to publish and perhaps sell it.

There are no words to express my gratitude!

A bird doesn’t sing because he has the answer, he sings because he has a song.

—Joan Anglund

Foreword

L ong before I even knew there was such a thing as Middle Eastern Dance, I had already fallen under its magic spell. Before I could read for myself, Mother read fairy tales to me at bedtime. I loved the fairy rings, where dryads and maidens danced, trailing their filmy veils. Movie musicals were filled with the songs and dances of Ruby Keeler, Eleanor Powell, Fred and Ginger and especially Shirley Temple. I danced around the house scaring Mother to death as I attempted to recreate the stair routines of Shirley and her partner Bo Jangles.

While Daddy was reading the Sunday comics to me, a new kind of comic strip was introduced in 1937. It was a beautifully drawn historical epic of the days of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Artist Hal Foster had recorded historical events with meticulous accuracy of costume, settings, and weapons. Although now drawn by younger artists Hal Foster’s award winning strip still lives on every Sunday morning. The hero, Prince Valiant, from Thule, traveled the then known world and through his travels I learned to love history. Artist Foster recorded historical events with meticulous accuracy of costume, settings, and weapons. Each frame, expertly composed, stood alone a work of art. I filled scrapbooks with my favorite stories. The prince’s adventures took him to the Mediterranean where he met Aleta grey-eyed golden-haired queen of the Misty Isles. He was so bewitched by her that he kidnapped her and chained her to him for her supposed treachery to him and his men. The two traveled the nations of the earth and naturally, one day the thick-headed Prince discovered the bewitchment was just another case of love and he released her from her chains.

My favorite adventure took place in Carthage where they encountered a Taureg prince with his men at an oasis camp in the North African desert. Of Berber stock they were nomadic desert tribes that lived by breeding livestock and trading. They were called the blue men because the indigo used to dye the veils they wore stained their skin. Seated around a campfire they were making wild music to forget their loneliness. Suddenly they saw before them a desert phantom, beautiful and evil. The phantom spoke, Play! I shall dance for you. I ask only food in payment. For weeks the men had traveled in caravans never hearing the sound of a woman’s voice. Silently, with glittering eyes they watched. To the throbbing music and the weird, thin sound of the pipes Aleta danced. Like two white moths, her small feet fluttered over the rough sand. Wilder and wilder grew the music. The men swayed as though bewitched by her movements and saw her as a desert sprite, too wondrous and radiant to be real. When at last she stopped, the lilt of the flutes and the deep beating of the native drums died away. She stood, golden in the firelight, while one by one the desert men with respectful admiration placed gifts of honey, cheeses, fruits, spiced meat, and wine in her cloak that she had spread before her. All smiled gratefully for she had brought them great joy.

Daddy noticed how eager I was to be able to read each installment for myself that he helped me sound out the words and before I knew it, I had learned how to read! What a role model Aleta was for me. She was intelligent, clever, beautiful, and spunky. I never forgot this magical world, full of adventure, costumes, strong women, and Aleta’s dance! It differed from the routines I had seen in the movies in that Aleta swirled a veil around herself as she whirled about on bare feet. I never saw anything like it until I discovered belly dance.

As a closet belly dancer, I have always played my cards very close to my beaded bra. Most people had no idea that in addition to my writing and painting talents I possessed another skill that I kept secret, because it embarrassed my husband and children. As a matter of fact, I even purchased a black Elizabeth Taylor wig in an attempt to hide my identity. Unfortunately it didn’t always work. Early one Saturday morning in Kmart’s Garden Shop I was stunned when a couple came over to greet me. Last night dancing at Steak and Ale for the woman’s husband’s 40th birthday I was in full regalia, but this morning I was in shorts, no makeup, and my own blondish hair. How had they recognized me without my disguise? We’d recognize your smile anywhere! My husband looked the other way, pretending he hadn’t heard.

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Predicament

Can I trust my eyes?

Is that a dancer that I know

In the street-clothes disguise?

Should I say ‘hello"?

Should I stop by?

I could be embarrassed,

What a predicament, Oh, my!

Hmm, shorter hair, little makeup,

No jewelry and lots of clothes,

Will she glare at me and ask,

Do you think I’m one of those?

Yet, she stands so proudly,

And there’s that special glow,

Yes, I think I’ll take a chance

That it’s someone that I know!

Nancy Redig aka Halimeda/ ‘Aukai 6-25-1993

1

The Closet Belly Dancer is Born

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I meekly purchased a bag of coins, some lengths of chain, and jump rings from her boutique.

A lthough I did not realize it my closet-dancer career began in 1974 at Adriana’s Mecca of Middle Eastern Dance in Washington, DC when fellow art teacher, Cathy Hatchet, had invited me to join her and some other ladies at a belly dance class the following morning at 10:30 am. We had met that day at the Safeway and although we usually discussed problems of teaching students with no talent, this time she had been bubbling over. "I’m having the best time! Instead of boring old exercise classes, I’m taking belly dancing! I just love it, and even better, I’m making a costume ." Before I could reply about my leg that wouldn’t bend, she continued, Why not come along, it might even help your leg. Although the image of a fifty pound overweight woman in a skimpy costume was not appealing, I agreed to go anyhow.

Thursday morning promptly at 9:30, Cathy honked her horn in my driveway, and we were off. Forty-five minute later after she had picked up two other students, Kitty and Marge, Cathy pulled into the parking lot of Adriana’s Mecca. The three of them had been discussing the teacher’s mood after undergoing a single mastectomy. "After all, having a breast removed had to be even more traumatic for her than one of us, Kitty remarked. And she has to be completely healed from the first surgery before she can have her reconstruction."

To hide her considerable scars, Cathy had designed and made a top for her to wear that would hide them. "I heard that she is still going to the rehab center to demonstrate to the patients how belly dance arm movements could aid in their recovery." They all agreed that she had been decidedly cranky. "Don’t worry. When she sees the problem you are having with your leg she will be sympathetic."

I was more than concerned, "Maybe this isn’t the best time to introduce a rank beginner. After all, I’ve never had a dance class in my life, unless you count the minuet I learned in fifth grade." However, all three insisted that a new student would direct her attention away from each of them. I was not so sure that was a good enough reason, so from the moment we walked in the back door, I was terrified. Whatever possessed me to agree to such foolishness? But as I looked around the dressing room at this gang of nine obese ladies, they hardly looked like dancers either. The shape of their pudgy forms became increasingly apparent decked out in two-piece black leotards. Although dark colors are reputed to make one appear slender, bulging bare bellies don’t.

A shrill hoarse voice floated from the front of the establishment. Good morning girls! Line up along the barre. I’ll be with you in a moment! The studio, like Gaul, was divided into three parts: boutique at the front facing onto Massachusetts Avenue, dance studio in the center, and dressing room at the rear. We docilely paraded into the lion’s den and took our places as instructed. Suddenly from around the partition sprang a creature with a face and form that looked like a cross between Sophia Lauren and Gina Lollobrigida with flaming red hair. I was soon to learn that she had a disposition to match, a heritage from her Italian father and Greek mother. She literally pounced on me with a flashing smile of delight.

After she had led us through a ballet barre exercise to strange foreign sounding music, we sat on the floor for Yoga stretches, and then stood in a line with our backs to the barre, facing the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She said pleasantly, Ladies, just do your best to follow me as we practice the steps. Then she proceeded to move her head from side to side and then in circles. Her upper body followed the same pattern, and then her hips, while her arms moved in what she called ‘snake arms.’ It all looked impossible to me. My three teenaged children would think their forty-something mother looked ridiculous if they could see her now. I certainly looked out of place in my shorts, tee shirt, and sneakers, but Adriana must have seen something different. It never even occurred to me at the time that she saw me as a promising student.

After class Adriana sold me a red two piece leotard and tights, "I’m all out of black, but I think the red suits your coloring much better." I meekly wrote out check for my new uniform and a month of classes.

The following week, in the dressing room at the back of studio, I obediently changed into my new outfit. Adriana smiled her approval. Then, during the dance step part of our lesson, we were sent to the dressing room to select a skirt. There, on a pipe rack in the corner, was a dazzling array of beautiful, full, flowing costume skirts. We were all dazed by such glamor. For me she chose the red and as she wrapped it around my hips, I was entranced by ten yards of chiffon swirling around my ankles. Wow, my childhood dream!

Back at the mirror she barked, Now, girls, you are dressed like dancers, so I want you to look like dancers! Stand up straight, boobs out, tummies in, look proud! Be arrogant! Like a drill sergeant, she passed between us, poking and prodding to achieve the desired result. Next week, girls, I want you all to bring a chiffon veil. Depending upon your height, you will need two and one half to three yards. You can either hand or machine hem the edges.

As the weeks went by, I was beginning to get the hang of the art. I forgot all about Jack La Lanne, and practiced the steps every day because it was so much more fun, as Cathy had promised. The record from Adriana’s boutique transported me to an exotic kingdom on the other side of the world. I was trying to learn to manage my newly-acquired zills, or finger cymbals. She had cajoled me into the bare midriff leotards that she demanded. That was about all I could stomach at the time, but she failed to convince me that I needed a coin belt. The music was absolutely necessary, and I had to have the two and one half yards of red chiffon in order to learn to master ‘veil work,’ but why on earth did I need a coin belt?

Adriana did not understand the meaning of the word ‘No,’ and argued her case at every opportunity. If our hips did not snap forward and back fast enough to suit her, and they never did, she promised, Girls, coin belts will really help you to get those hips moving. Hip shimmies were a mystery yet to be unraveled. Ladies, you have no idea how easily ‘this here’ would come to you, if you would just make yourself coin belts. As she pronounced ‘this here,’ her hips began a slow shimmy that steadily increased, until they became but a blur to our unbelieving eyes.

I failed to comprehend the necessity for a coin belt, but I NEEDED my own skirt desperately. As long as I could remember, I had longed for a full skirt that would stand out straight all around me when I whirled around. At family gatherings at our house, my favorite story-telling aunt always inched me up the stairs one by one, closer to my bed, with tales of rose-colored crepe paper skirts that she would create for me and my cousin. Sometimes the paper would be red, another yellow; never mind we never got them, but the vision of the skirt was quite enough then. Finally this fiery Greek and Italian beauty had provided a good solid reason for that full skirt at least.

And so finally, I bought my first twelve yards, the first of many. Ten yards would make three half circles, but I was determined to ‘go the extra yard.’ I cut carefully, exactly as Adriana had instructed, gathering the four half circles, and sewing them between the two layers of one-inch grosgrain ribbon that she used for her own skirts. She fastened her waistbands with safety pins that she called ‘the belly dancer’s friend.’ "Girls, a good old-fashioned safety pin is far more reliable than hooks or Velcro!" After all, a professional dancer who appeared at the famed Astor Restaurant on K Street must know the right stuff. After allowing my treasure to hang a few days to stretch, I measured and trimmed the bottom, nice and neat and even. The narrow rolled hem around the bottom must have been a mile long!

Did Adriana praise me for my efforts? I should have known better by now. She had succeeded into talking me into the skirt, and cajoled me into subscribing to the fledgling Middle-eastern magazine, Arabesque, but so far she had failed to convince me that I needed a coin belt.

However, between the lure of bangles, baubles and beads, and Adriana’s relentless nagging, I no longer had any will of my own. I raided my husband’s toolbox for his needle-nose pliers. I had to admit, in my bare midriff red leotard, skirt and veil, and now my jiggling coin belt at my hips, I was beginning to look and feel the part. Ah, but that was just the beginning!

Dance may not cure your problems, but it feels good

to let down your hair and let your feet do the thinking, and let your spirit be lifted by the magic of movement and music.

Bohemian Spirit

2

The ‘Compleat Klutz’ Becomes a Belly Dancer

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If a ‘Compleat Klutz’ like me could learn

to be graceful, anyone could!

F or most of my life I have been a ‘compleat klutz’, and although I loved dance, I never expected to accomplish something that required coordination. I would always miss the softball thrown to me at home base, trip over a footstool in the class play, or drop my mother’s beloved blue bubble depression glass when we had company. I was always embarrassed, but it was serious stuff the day I walked through a sliding glass door. Perhaps I should tell how that came about.

Back in the 70’s we were among the first 700 families living in Robert E Simon’s new planned town of Reston, Virginia. Everyone was eager to volunteer to make this experiment a success by forming all sorts of community activities. At a patio party for my sixteen year old son’s swim team, I had just delivered a large platter of sandwiches to the hungry teens seated at tables on the deck. Hurrying through the wide open sliding glass door into the kitchen where the other mothers were busily arranging food, I grabbed another tray. We were rushing to feed the ravenous young people that had skipped breakfast for the early morning swim meet. Quickly turning I attempted to dash back outside. However, I didn’t notice was that the family hosting the party had washed and polished the glass doors until they were practically invisible. My right knee and my face met the un-tempered glass that shattered into shimmering sharp slivers. In those days there was no statute requiring glass doors be made with tempered glass. As I looked up at shivering shards of glass looming above me and down at those imbedded in my right knee, I backed away in horror. The mothers gathered around me. There was blood everywhere. Someone asked if I was all right, I’m OK, but I’m so sorry I broke your window, and passed out with my head resting in a large plate of watermelon slices. I came to for a moment, saw a hand wiping blood from my face and beyond that a blood saturated towel wrapped around my leg, and passed out again.

I don’t remember anything after that, until I woke up on the examining table of the closest and only physician in our town, Dr. Cassidy. Fortunately he was a surgeon and he explained as he stitched, that the muscles and tendons in my right leg had been deeply severed. Since my cuts were pretty deep, the medication wasn’t sufficient, and he kept apologizing as he sewed. It went on forever, all 58 of them, and after his nurse had given me another injection, I began to giggle and tried to hug the doctor. Don’t move, he cautioned. You’ll make me drop a stitch! By now I was feeling no pain and seeing little creatures frisking on the ceiling. Both the doc and his nurse were having trouble keeping straight faces.

The next day Dr. Cassidy told me because I was losing so much blood that he feared that my main artery had been cut open. As it was I was pretty lucky that my face had had only superficial wounds that would probably heal without any scars. My leg was another story. Meanwhile my son was complaining bitterly about how embarrassed he was when all his friends heard his silly mother apologizing about the broken glass.

My poor husband, frightened out of his wits from seeing so much blood, carried me to the car with my leg heavily bandaged. I don’t want her moving around for at least ten days, Dr. Cassidy ordered, so I spent several weeks flat on my back in bed, and several months on crutches. My doctor offered little hope that my knee would ever bend. Physical therapy was not an option in those days, except swimming. Back and forth I swam valiantly in our neighborhood pool, but my laps were diagonals instead of straight. The scars were prominent, bright red, sensitive to touch and developed keloids, additional scar tissue. Fortunately short skirts were in fashion so I shortened all of mine since I couldn’t endure fabric brushing my wound. A year later there had been little, if any, improvement.

Then on that life changing day, when my friend brought me to Adriana’s Mecca, I had no idea that the Goddess of Dance would work her magic on me, and change me in more ways than I could possibly imagine. Nor did I realize that Adriana Miller thought she had found a priceless pearl when she spied my slender body lined up among a group of pudgy, out-of-condition housewives. But then she had no idea that I possessed no coordination skills whatsoever. She probably caught on when