Mendocino to the Middle East:
Belly Dance and Trillium Tribe

Story by Margi Gomez

Nicole Fish began her love affair with dance in the Santa Cruz area. “I was twenty-two, and a girlfriend of mine and I had gone to see a Middle Eastern dancer. We were immediately taken with the form, and were especially drawn to the way Middle Eastern dance honors the feminine.” She began taking classes with a dancer named Helene and attended Middle Eastern music camps whenever she could. When Nikki’s first child Sam was one year old, the family moved to Elk, where she had her second child, Lila. “I really missed dancing, and when I learned that Erin Smith was teaching Tunisian-style dance, I began working with her. I started teaching, even though I wasn’t really prepared.” Nikki explains that she began learning to dance in a North African folkloric tradition, but that as time goes on, she has incorporated other Middle Eastern styles, including the cabaret style from Egypt that most people associate with Middle Eastern Dance.

Lavender Kent-Cinnamon smiles as she remembers being “raised up” in Middle Eastern dance. “My mother was a performer at the Northern Renaissance Faire from the time I was an infant. She sold something called Eastern Star Cream as part of the Traders Bazaar, which was the area set aside for all ‘non-European’ characters to trade and perform.” Lavender’s mother and aunt regularly danced on the stage there, and the little girl grew up amongst the swirling scarves and the heartbeat rhythms of the Middle East.

Lavender credits Comptche resident Deborah Fishbach with her earliest formal dance instruction. “I took lessons with Deborah as a preteen, and later delved into jazz and classical dance with Camille Parsons at Second Story Studios in Fort Bragg.” Lavender left the area for fifteen years; she studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and later attended classes at the New School in New York City. “I took classes in Jazz Improvisation and World Rhythms, and it was there that my love for the frame drum began.” When she returned to the Mendocino area, she joined Erin Smith’s dance classes, where Nicole Fish, Jan Hinson, Theresa McNeal, and others had begun to form the core of Middle Eastern dance on the Mendocino Coast.

Jan Hinson is another local powerhouse who has championed Middle Eastern dance on our coast. Jan, who is well-known in the area for her visual art in glass, metal, and mosaic, had studied ballet since the age of eight and has always had dance as one of her enduring passions. “I really wanted to study belly dance because I knew about its emphasis on isolations, learning to move one muscle or muscle group at a time. I wanted to apply isolations to Lindy Hop, a style of swing dance that I had studied for three years. It worked! And in the meantime I fell in love with belly dance.”

Jan also initially studied with Erin Smith. “Erin studied North African Tribal dance in Tunisia and initially set the tone for our group,” explains Jan. “She taught us the traditional style of dress, which includes a top called the choli, along with pantaloons and a pleated skirt.” After Erin moved away, Jan worked closely with Nikki Fish, and soon began teaching belly dance, along with another Mendocino native, Havana Davidson.

Jan says that initially the emphasis of the fledgling dance group was not on performance. “I myself never intended to perform. We were asked to play at Dana Gray Elementary for their Diversity Week. It was a revelation. We got a great response, and we even got paid!” The group began performing regularly at The Great Day in Elk, and soon was in great demand for a variety of fund-raisers and private events, including MUSE events for Mendocino schools. Last year, members of Trillium Tribe performed to accolades in the popular Spring Dance Concert in Fort Bragg.

Nikki Fish says a dance collective was formed gradually. “Women drifted in and out, and it was all very fluid. It was really when Lavender joined that we began to envision a new focus for the group. We came up with the name Trillium Tribe and started to work more towards choreography and performance.”

The group began organizing a yearly Hafla, which is a traditional gathering of dancers, friends, and family. “It’s really meant to be a very intimate gathering, similar to the Juergas in Flamenco dance,” Jan explains. “The first Hafla that we produced at the Caspar Community Center was successful beyond our wildest dreams.” Another yearly performance for Trillium Tribe is the Hafla produced by another well established belly dance group, Rock Rose, in Point Arena.

All of the Trillium Tribe dancers honor their longtime drummer, Johnny Qwest. “There is nothing like live music for dancers,” says Jan. “Johnny has stuck with us for years, adding his wonderful musical talent to our troupe. I guess you could say Johnny is also a member of Trillium Tribe!”

Lavender Cinnamon points to the amazing lineage that she feels she and others have had to draw upon. “There’s an incredible sense of connection with our ancestors and with the female form. There’s a great feeling of support, community and sisterhood.” Lavender is passionate about the connections that can be attained through the Middle Eastern tradition. “Revisiting this ancient knowledge allows me to flesh out some of the mystery of how and why I am the way I am. It has created a path for me to follow and to carry on this lineage for future generations.”

Nikki recently took some time off from belly dance for an intensive study of an ages-old Indian dance, Bharata Natayam, or Devadasi Sadir, with master dancer Bonnie Nabakov Lawlor. She presented the culmination of her nine years of study last fall in a major dance concert at the Caspar Community Center, and after a few months of rest, is again working with Trillium Tribe.

Nicole is currently teaching choreography and performance on Thursday evenings at the Caspar Community Center, and another dazzling Trillium Tribe dancer, Elika Freeman, teaches beginning belly dance on Wednesday evenings. Other full- and part-time members of the Trillium Tribe collective currently include Theresa McNeal, Miel Newstead, Holly Newstead, Christine Berchen, Lynne Butler, and Lia Miyamura. In past years, other dancers such as Heather Chappell, Tabi Korhummel, and Jade Golden have also brought their unique spirit to the troupe. “Everyone brings something different to the experience,” says Nikki. “We have developed a fusion of dance styles, combining traditional, indigenous roots from North Africa with showier Egyptian cabaret styles and our own California sensibilities,” she adds. Trillium Tribe members have choreographed and performed cane, sword, jar, tray, basket and veil dances, delighting audiences up and down the Mendocino Coast.

All of these accomplished women point to a profound sense of community as well as renewed self esteem that comes with learning the art of belly dance. Jan Hinson says that everyone needs to take an occasional break for a variety of reasons, as she has done during a recent period of personal transition, but she says that there is an inevitable return to the fold. “We have a perennial joke,” she laughs. “You’re never released from Trillium Tribe!’”

Lavender concurs. “Whenever I try to take a break, even for a week, I feel an absence. At times we’ve had our differences, but we’ve learned to humble ourselves and get along for the love of the dance and of sisterhood. It’s worth it!”

Lavender points to some profound wisdom from the book, Grandmother’s Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing, by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi, which illustrates the depth of the well from which these dancers draw their inspiration. “ ‘The women dance their dance, a dance that corresponded to their body and expressed all the moods and feelings, all the longings, sufferings and joys of being a woman.’ ”

For more information about Trillium Tribe, check out their page at www.lavendergrace.com/tt/ttinf.html (the Web site of Lavender Grace Productions). Also, keep an ear out for their upcoming spring Hafla at the Elk’s Greenwood Community Center on May 22, and the Spring Dance Concert in Fort Bragg.

Come, sit next to me, says Grandmother.
Take this chalk in your hand.
Now draw a dot and concentrate all your energy
into this one dot.
It is the beginning and the end, the navel of the world.

—Grandmother’s Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power
of Belly Dancing, Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi, Interlink Books

Other Middle Eastern Dance Internet Resources:

The Institute for Traditional Studies, ITS
www.itsArt.org
Provides links to local Middle Eastern musicians and events
Founder — Deborah Fishbach, Ukiah, CA

Miriam Perez
www.miriamdance.com
A Bay Area dancer who has been a Trillium Tribe guest teacher.

Middle Eastern Music and Dance Camp
www.middleeastcamp.com
Right here at the Mendocino Woodlands, offering Middle Eastern folk dance classes, belly dance classes, instruction on Middle Eastern classical and folk instruments, parties with live music, ensemble coaching, performances, and ethnic cuisine.

Shoshanna
http://www.shoshannaland.com
Great resource for North Coast Middle Eastern dance events.