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This time, Prolix Footle had some tricky questions, mostly about art and life after being a JW....
1. What caused the JW break, and how on earth did it result in exotic dancing?
This is a big question, and a bit of a red herring, too. For example, I've never been an exotic dancer, so there goes that. I'm a raqs sharqi performer, which is about as close to stripping as ballet. My Mom, who is still a JW, has even taken dance classes from me. I figure it's probably ok for JWs to study middle eastern dance, so long as they dance in a "modest" fashion.
But back to the first part....
I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. My parents are JWs, my grandmother is a JW, and my great-grandfather was a Bible Student (what JWs were called before they became known as JWs). I don't think there are many fourth-generation JWs around, but my sister and I qualified.
Anyhow, I was brought up believing all sorts of cultish nonsense. From the time I was conceived, I attended about five meetings every week, plus quite a few week-long conventions. The method of indoctrination is essentially brain-washing, so I was good and solid in the JW beliefs. But all was not happy in JW-land. It might have been fine had my family stayed in one place for an extended period of time, but we were very nomadic.
As we moved from town to town, I noticed some parallels in behaviour between suspicious schoolkids and suspicious JWs. The new kid is always picked on at school. JWs, who are supposed to be above that sort of behaviour, do too. So I rarely had friends, either at school or at the Kingdom Hall.
This, of course, isn't a big reason for leaving the JWs. There's much more to it than that.
I had difficulties believing much of what we were told was fact. I couldn't stomach the fact that soldiers and war veterans are to be looked down upon. Although I agreed that war was a horrible thing, I could see no reason why veterans should be reviled when they honestly believed they were doing the right thing. As a kid, I knew a lot of veterans and ex-soldiers, and the vast majority of them were really terrific people. I remember watching a Remembrance Day tv special about a veteran who had to hock off his medals in order to buy food and medicine, and I bawled my eyes out.
I remember thinking it wasn't right for someone who'd sacrificed so much, ostensibly for the benefit of others, for those others to turn a blind eye to him in his hour of need. I cried and cried, and at the same time, I felt like I was spitting in the eye of God. I knew my pity for these people was evil behaviour, but at the same time, I didn't give a shit. I felt what I felt, God be damned.
And I think that might have been the first crack in my JW shellac.
The realizations were gradual. I was brought up to believe homosexuals were disgusting creatures whose only hope in being saved was to renounce their horrible ways and become JWs (who are straight, by default). So I made mean-spirited homophobic jokes, and meant them. AIDS was like Raid. It killed fags dead. Stuff like that. At the same time, I had some confusion about the whole issue. I had a really pretty female friend, and I liked to see her in her underwear (or less, but I didn't get the chance). I also loved to draw female nudes. So I certainly had more than my fair share of issues.
Now, I'd always been rankled by the idea that homosexuality was unnatural. I've seen lesbian cows go at it, udders flopping and banging against one another. I'd seen plenty of gay dogs, and even a few faggy roosters. I was willing to believe that maybe it was ok for animals, but by reason of our intellect, it was wrong for humans.
But then a few people I knew came out of the closet. I realized that they were not horrible people. They were the same people I'd always known, and they just happened to like people of the same gender. So gradually, I realized that there was nothing particularly wrong with homosexuality. And that was another crack in my beliefs.
More and more things like this happened, and finally, I decided that the best course of action was to take an entirely skeptical viewpoint, and let facts and experiences speak for themselves. And so I stopped attending JW meetings, and stopped going out from door to door, and then, the next thing I knew, I was a worldly person (a JW term roughly analogous to Gentile), and I knew there was nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
This is a very short version of it all. I know I could write a whole book on this stuff, and maybe I will, one day.
2. Can you describe the differences in mindset/emotions/mentality between when you’re dancing and when you’re doing Kung Fu? I know that they are both very physical activities, but do they ‘take you to different places’?
There is quite a difference in the mindset, even if there are a lot of similarities in the basic movements. Generally, when I'm dancing, I'm doing so to educate or to entertain. When I do kung fu, I'm doing it to learn or to fight. So the basic approach is quite different. When I'm dancing, if it's a light-hearted sort of piece, I tend to grin like I'm having the time of my life, and chances are, I am enjoying myself enormously. If it's a more serious piece, then my facial expressions and mood will reflect this. So if I'm dancing to a sombre piece of music, my mood is probably the closest to when I'm training in martial arts.
In both kung fu and raqs sharqi, there is a sort of trance I enter. When I'm doing martial art drills, my mind moves inward, until everything I'm doing is automatic. Although I can react to my surroundings, my attention is not upon them. My eyes defocus slightly, and all that really matters are the movements, my stances, and my breathing.
The trance state in dance is quite different. The movements are much more automatic, probably because I've been dancing longer than I've been studying martial arts. I don't have to think about any of what I'm doing, except for the most complicated things. I don't use a choreography, so everything is freestyle and spur of the moment. I'm lost in the dance, but at the same time, aware of what's happening around me. I'm conscious of the times when my balance is slightly off (even if no one in the audience can ever tell). I'm also very conscious of my audience.
When I'm dancing for performance, I'm constantly gauging the audience's reaction. Does the audience seem to really be into this sort of move, or that sort of move? Does someone in the audience seem shy? Is someone eating up everything I'm doing? I completely feed off my audience. As a performer, I am a total psychic vampire, although I do give back in the form of entertainment.
As a dance instructor, again, I'm always watching my students, seeing if they understand what I'm doing. I analyze everything I'm doing--from the weight changes to the angle of my knees and pelvis to the roundness of my arm movements and head placement. It's all important, if not all to the same student, then broken up in bits for each of my students. This is a burden, but one I don't mind bearing.
When I do kung fu, it's generally less of a burden. I don't have to worry about all the little details of movement. However, this is changing as I progress. I am being called upon more and more to help introductory students, and in helping them, I must be more analytical about what I'm doing.
When I fight, it's different again. I'm not given enough time to think about what I'm doing. Everything has to be automatic. To an extent, I can make a plan of attack, but I must pay very close attention to my sparring partner.
Oddly enough, I vacillate between big, cheery grins and grave glowers while fighting.
The other big difference between dance and kung fu is that dance rarely hurts, whereas kung fu almost always has an element of pain associated with it.
3. f00? Come on, seriously. f00?!? And while we’re on the subject, what do you think about the allegations of his social gracelessness?
He is a social retard. The very first thing he ever said to me was either "Fuck off" or "Sod off." I'm not sure which. I met him over the equivalent of ICQ, by the way. I was intrigued by his rudeness, of all things, and was determined to find out why he'd be such an asshole when he didn't even know who I was.
Ends up, he thought I was a friend of his who was just bothering him by opening a new account to bug him with.
Despite his rough social ways, he is not a malicious person, whatsoever, and goes far out of his way to help pretty much anyone (friend or foe). When it comes to small talk and social niceties, he just doesn't give a flying fuck.
In a way, we're very similar, because I think smalltalk is a total waste of time. However, I am willing to engage in it, for the sake of peace. I guess I bridge his social gap, while he appeals to my love of bluntness.
4. What types of artistic endeavors do you enjoy most and why?
I like an enormous range of art forms. It might be a better question to ask which ones I don't like (freeform jazz, modern country music, wanky poetry, impressionistic paintings).
Prose is probably my favourite artistic medium. As soon as I learned to write, I was forging stories and songs (but not the music) and poems. I've been writing since I was about four or five, and throughout my school years, I won heaps and heaps of writing contests. Writing is what I do, foremost of all. I can't help but do it.
I love theatre, and have my degree in English drama. However, I have not been involved in theatre for quite a few years, partially because when I work in theatre, everything else in my life falls by the wayside. It is all-consuming.
I love dance, although I'm not what anyone could ever consider a purist. Although raqs sharqi is my favourite "pure" dance form, I actually prefer to mix it up with other things I've studied (including martial arts). I dance the salmagundi. I love martial arts for similar reasons--I love the way people and things move, and I thoroughly enjoy feeling movement happen. It takes a lot of work to make movement happen with grace. I'm sure I look just as weird learning a complex kick as I did back when I was learning to walk. But now I can walk without crashing into things or stumbling. Most of the time, that is....
Dance costuming grew from my dancing, and is very closely related. Different clothes make me move in different ways. An extremely full skirt encourages spinning. Noisy or flashy elements at the hip make a dancer move his/her butt. A slim-fitting skirt makes movements much more demure, by necessity. I like exploring the relationship between clothing/body adornment and human movement.
My life is also filled with music, although I haven't been listening to a whole lot over the past week. My head's been too sore. Although I can't write a decent melody to save my life, I really appreciate a catchy tune, or sculpted noise. I'm a big fan of industrial noise, and also of middle eastern music. Rhythms don't have to follow a 4:4 time signature, although you wouldn't know it, listening to commercial radio. Music changes the way I move, so it's closely allied to movement arts.
I also really enjoy visual art, whether it's in the form of paintings or photos or sculpture. I've always wanted to be some sort of artist, ever since I was a wee brat. And even if I was terrible at staying in the lines, back in grade one, I've since learned that you don't have to stay within the lines. And often, the best art happens when you don't. My metal arts studies are a continuation along this, er, line.
5. Donnatella Versace is touring eastern Canada. She happens upon a fair where you are selling your hip scarves and such. She is so impressed that she immediately offers you a job making a ludicrous amount of money. The only caveat – you must move to a remote location in Milan. f00 will have few if any opportunities to communicate with colleagues due to the remoteness of the location. What happens? (As an aside to this career question, just what are your future plans for this area?)
I'd probably do it for a year or two, until I got sick of it (and I would get sick of it, too). f00 could follow me. It's his turn, anyhow. And it's not like Milan could be any more of an intellectual wasteland than other places we've lived! In the meantime, I'd save up enough cash so that we could go somewhere where we both wanted to go for a while.
My future plans are to continue as I have been: working in a dizzying array of artistic/creative pursuits, all while continuing to learn new things.
1. What caused the JW break, and how on earth did it result in exotic dancing?
This is a big question, and a bit of a red herring, too. For example, I've never been an exotic dancer, so there goes that. I'm a raqs sharqi performer, which is about as close to stripping as ballet. My Mom, who is still a JW, has even taken dance classes from me. I figure it's probably ok for JWs to study middle eastern dance, so long as they dance in a "modest" fashion.
But back to the first part....
I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. My parents are JWs, my grandmother is a JW, and my great-grandfather was a Bible Student (what JWs were called before they became known as JWs). I don't think there are many fourth-generation JWs around, but my sister and I qualified.
Anyhow, I was brought up believing all sorts of cultish nonsense. From the time I was conceived, I attended about five meetings every week, plus quite a few week-long conventions. The method of indoctrination is essentially brain-washing, so I was good and solid in the JW beliefs. But all was not happy in JW-land. It might have been fine had my family stayed in one place for an extended period of time, but we were very nomadic.
As we moved from town to town, I noticed some parallels in behaviour between suspicious schoolkids and suspicious JWs. The new kid is always picked on at school. JWs, who are supposed to be above that sort of behaviour, do too. So I rarely had friends, either at school or at the Kingdom Hall.
This, of course, isn't a big reason for leaving the JWs. There's much more to it than that.
I had difficulties believing much of what we were told was fact. I couldn't stomach the fact that soldiers and war veterans are to be looked down upon. Although I agreed that war was a horrible thing, I could see no reason why veterans should be reviled when they honestly believed they were doing the right thing. As a kid, I knew a lot of veterans and ex-soldiers, and the vast majority of them were really terrific people. I remember watching a Remembrance Day tv special about a veteran who had to hock off his medals in order to buy food and medicine, and I bawled my eyes out.
I remember thinking it wasn't right for someone who'd sacrificed so much, ostensibly for the benefit of others, for those others to turn a blind eye to him in his hour of need. I cried and cried, and at the same time, I felt like I was spitting in the eye of God. I knew my pity for these people was evil behaviour, but at the same time, I didn't give a shit. I felt what I felt, God be damned.
And I think that might have been the first crack in my JW shellac.
The realizations were gradual. I was brought up to believe homosexuals were disgusting creatures whose only hope in being saved was to renounce their horrible ways and become JWs (who are straight, by default). So I made mean-spirited homophobic jokes, and meant them. AIDS was like Raid. It killed fags dead. Stuff like that. At the same time, I had some confusion about the whole issue. I had a really pretty female friend, and I liked to see her in her underwear (or less, but I didn't get the chance). I also loved to draw female nudes. So I certainly had more than my fair share of issues.
Now, I'd always been rankled by the idea that homosexuality was unnatural. I've seen lesbian cows go at it, udders flopping and banging against one another. I'd seen plenty of gay dogs, and even a few faggy roosters. I was willing to believe that maybe it was ok for animals, but by reason of our intellect, it was wrong for humans.
But then a few people I knew came out of the closet. I realized that they were not horrible people. They were the same people I'd always known, and they just happened to like people of the same gender. So gradually, I realized that there was nothing particularly wrong with homosexuality. And that was another crack in my beliefs.
More and more things like this happened, and finally, I decided that the best course of action was to take an entirely skeptical viewpoint, and let facts and experiences speak for themselves. And so I stopped attending JW meetings, and stopped going out from door to door, and then, the next thing I knew, I was a worldly person (a JW term roughly analogous to Gentile), and I knew there was nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
This is a very short version of it all. I know I could write a whole book on this stuff, and maybe I will, one day.
2. Can you describe the differences in mindset/emotions/mentality between when you’re dancing and when you’re doing Kung Fu? I know that they are both very physical activities, but do they ‘take you to different places’?
There is quite a difference in the mindset, even if there are a lot of similarities in the basic movements. Generally, when I'm dancing, I'm doing so to educate or to entertain. When I do kung fu, I'm doing it to learn or to fight. So the basic approach is quite different. When I'm dancing, if it's a light-hearted sort of piece, I tend to grin like I'm having the time of my life, and chances are, I am enjoying myself enormously. If it's a more serious piece, then my facial expressions and mood will reflect this. So if I'm dancing to a sombre piece of music, my mood is probably the closest to when I'm training in martial arts.
In both kung fu and raqs sharqi, there is a sort of trance I enter. When I'm doing martial art drills, my mind moves inward, until everything I'm doing is automatic. Although I can react to my surroundings, my attention is not upon them. My eyes defocus slightly, and all that really matters are the movements, my stances, and my breathing.
The trance state in dance is quite different. The movements are much more automatic, probably because I've been dancing longer than I've been studying martial arts. I don't have to think about any of what I'm doing, except for the most complicated things. I don't use a choreography, so everything is freestyle and spur of the moment. I'm lost in the dance, but at the same time, aware of what's happening around me. I'm conscious of the times when my balance is slightly off (even if no one in the audience can ever tell). I'm also very conscious of my audience.
When I'm dancing for performance, I'm constantly gauging the audience's reaction. Does the audience seem to really be into this sort of move, or that sort of move? Does someone in the audience seem shy? Is someone eating up everything I'm doing? I completely feed off my audience. As a performer, I am a total psychic vampire, although I do give back in the form of entertainment.
As a dance instructor, again, I'm always watching my students, seeing if they understand what I'm doing. I analyze everything I'm doing--from the weight changes to the angle of my knees and pelvis to the roundness of my arm movements and head placement. It's all important, if not all to the same student, then broken up in bits for each of my students. This is a burden, but one I don't mind bearing.
When I do kung fu, it's generally less of a burden. I don't have to worry about all the little details of movement. However, this is changing as I progress. I am being called upon more and more to help introductory students, and in helping them, I must be more analytical about what I'm doing.
When I fight, it's different again. I'm not given enough time to think about what I'm doing. Everything has to be automatic. To an extent, I can make a plan of attack, but I must pay very close attention to my sparring partner.
Oddly enough, I vacillate between big, cheery grins and grave glowers while fighting.
The other big difference between dance and kung fu is that dance rarely hurts, whereas kung fu almost always has an element of pain associated with it.
3. f00? Come on, seriously. f00?!? And while we’re on the subject, what do you think about the allegations of his social gracelessness?
He is a social retard. The very first thing he ever said to me was either "Fuck off" or "Sod off." I'm not sure which. I met him over the equivalent of ICQ, by the way. I was intrigued by his rudeness, of all things, and was determined to find out why he'd be such an asshole when he didn't even know who I was.
Ends up, he thought I was a friend of his who was just bothering him by opening a new account to bug him with.
Despite his rough social ways, he is not a malicious person, whatsoever, and goes far out of his way to help pretty much anyone (friend or foe). When it comes to small talk and social niceties, he just doesn't give a flying fuck.
In a way, we're very similar, because I think smalltalk is a total waste of time. However, I am willing to engage in it, for the sake of peace. I guess I bridge his social gap, while he appeals to my love of bluntness.
4. What types of artistic endeavors do you enjoy most and why?
I like an enormous range of art forms. It might be a better question to ask which ones I don't like (freeform jazz, modern country music, wanky poetry, impressionistic paintings).
Prose is probably my favourite artistic medium. As soon as I learned to write, I was forging stories and songs (but not the music) and poems. I've been writing since I was about four or five, and throughout my school years, I won heaps and heaps of writing contests. Writing is what I do, foremost of all. I can't help but do it.
I love theatre, and have my degree in English drama. However, I have not been involved in theatre for quite a few years, partially because when I work in theatre, everything else in my life falls by the wayside. It is all-consuming.
I love dance, although I'm not what anyone could ever consider a purist. Although raqs sharqi is my favourite "pure" dance form, I actually prefer to mix it up with other things I've studied (including martial arts). I dance the salmagundi. I love martial arts for similar reasons--I love the way people and things move, and I thoroughly enjoy feeling movement happen. It takes a lot of work to make movement happen with grace. I'm sure I look just as weird learning a complex kick as I did back when I was learning to walk. But now I can walk without crashing into things or stumbling. Most of the time, that is....
Dance costuming grew from my dancing, and is very closely related. Different clothes make me move in different ways. An extremely full skirt encourages spinning. Noisy or flashy elements at the hip make a dancer move his/her butt. A slim-fitting skirt makes movements much more demure, by necessity. I like exploring the relationship between clothing/body adornment and human movement.
My life is also filled with music, although I haven't been listening to a whole lot over the past week. My head's been too sore. Although I can't write a decent melody to save my life, I really appreciate a catchy tune, or sculpted noise. I'm a big fan of industrial noise, and also of middle eastern music. Rhythms don't have to follow a 4:4 time signature, although you wouldn't know it, listening to commercial radio. Music changes the way I move, so it's closely allied to movement arts.
I also really enjoy visual art, whether it's in the form of paintings or photos or sculpture. I've always wanted to be some sort of artist, ever since I was a wee brat. And even if I was terrible at staying in the lines, back in grade one, I've since learned that you don't have to stay within the lines. And often, the best art happens when you don't. My metal arts studies are a continuation along this, er, line.
5. Donnatella Versace is touring eastern Canada. She happens upon a fair where you are selling your hip scarves and such. She is so impressed that she immediately offers you a job making a ludicrous amount of money. The only caveat – you must move to a remote location in Milan. f00 will have few if any opportunities to communicate with colleagues due to the remoteness of the location. What happens? (As an aside to this career question, just what are your future plans for this area?)
I'd probably do it for a year or two, until I got sick of it (and I would get sick of it, too). f00 could follow me. It's his turn, anyhow. And it's not like Milan could be any more of an intellectual wasteland than other places we've lived! In the meantime, I'd save up enough cash so that we could go somewhere where we both wanted to go for a while.
My future plans are to continue as I have been: working in a dizzying array of artistic/creative pursuits, all while continuing to learn new things.
