Patricia Cumbie
I’ve been studying Middle Eastern dance for a decade and
what I learned early on in my dance studies is that Middle Eastern
dance is many layered—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Studying and performing Middle Eastern dance had brought me
a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction: new friends, an
outlet for positive creative expression, self-assurance. So
I was driven by a desire to share with others what I think are
the good things that have been obscured by our culture’s
misperceptions of the Middle East and belly dance.
As I worked on this essay, I realized that studying Middle
Eastern dance had also allowed me to uncover and release layers
of shame and guilt about my own body that kept me from living
a full life following a sexual assault. Dancing in front of
an audience, using my body as an instrument for communication,
has given me immeasurable courage and confidence. I’d
known this intuitively about my dance studies, but had never
had the nerve to really articulate on paper what had happened
to me.
As I set out to address Middle Eastern dance as an intellectual
topic of my writing, I found I couldn’t ignore the simple
truth of what my body was telling me, what was at the heard
of my dancing. By putting into words how I feel about my love
for dance, I could understand that part of my recovery from
rape meant helping my body feel its goodness and resilience,
and using it to express joy rather than hide sorrow.
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