Guest Post: Belly Laughs & Belly Dancers

by Joann Storck

What could create more belly laughs than a bunch of 60 and 70-somethings dressed in exotic belly dancing garb hoofing around the dance floor, facing an entire wall of floor to ceiling mirrors? 

My wonderful group of lady friends that I have known and worked with for over twenty years, are capable of finding any and every amusing situation for us to dive into.  A two-hour belly dancing session was just the latest laugh-in.  We also have a book club to keep up a modicum of respectability, though our Literary Ladies Book Club boasts that “Our book club can drink your book club under the table anytime!” with an upturned wine bottle and glass painted on the sign which hangs above the door of the current host.

Getting back to the belly dancing… one of the ladies in our group brought beautiful, bejeweled “caps” (for wont of a better word) that looked like ten Cleopatra impersonators had invaded the room.   Bev had actually bought them in Egypt on a trip there with her husband.  There were a few of us that didn’t “get it” that the long strings of beads would go in the back and the short ones on your forehead, so that misinterpretation began the belly laughs. 

Our instructor, Della, who moved like a Python, started the music and began with the basics of the hypnotic dance.  Let me say that while some in the room were better than others, no one moved like her.  The coins on her hip scarf bounced and tinkled and drew gasps from her appreciative audience.   She had grace; she had great timing and moved her hips like a seesaw, only faster!  The mysterious, hypnotic music filled the room and our eager hips twitched in anticipation to begin this dance of seduction!  Della stopped her dancing to instruct us on what we had just seen her do.  You would have to imagine this bloom-off-the-rose group, some with knee problems, arthritic fingers, one with a new hip, and one with steel rods and pins in her back trying to appear liquid and alluring.  The sight of us in the wall of mirrors set up a howl that passed down the whole row of gals.  The “cap-things” had dipped over our faces and two hip scarves lay on the floor tangled in feet. 

She introduced us to the veils.  Who knew there were so many moves and meanings with those gossamer yards of silk?  Everyone loved them and secretly compared herself to Salome.  We veiled our faces and became fascinating as we wrapped them around ourselves and crossed them in the air in a captivating maneuver that, along with the right configuration of hands above our heads, framed our faces and necks as we began the “walk-like-an-Egyptian” trick.  No one in our group could master the side-to-side motion, so we all walked like Canadian geese.

Della held her veil in front of her with arms extended.  She said we could “move seductively forward into your veil”, then quickly back up so the veil is no longer hugging your body.  At this point there was some “tooting” from the gals, but the in and out action of the veils quickly dispelled any lingering odor. 

No one could believe that 1-1/2 hours had passed since we had started this fun.  Well, perhaps Della could.  She invited us to sit and have refreshments while we got our second wind.  We all found a chair and drank tea and lemonade and ate her unusual phyllo dessert.  Della sat in the middle of the floor and we bombarded her with questions about herself and about her belly dancing.  She agreed to put all the moves together and give us a show of what we could look like.  She was adorable and lithe and rhythmic and everyone in our group knew that this was a good place to end the evening.  Creaks and grunts were heard as we rose from our chairs and turned in our costumes and wondered when, exactly, our muscles had turned to putty?