Jade Belly Dance

A memorial and heartfelt reminder to take face your fears and to follow your dreams.

Some of you may know that a well-known belly dancer has recently passed. Elisheva of Bellyqueen will not be gracing the stage in this world any more.

I am pretty shocked because it was only a year and a few days ago that I was dancing in the Perth show of Journey along the Silk road with her. Thus my recent Facebook feed has been full of those memory reminders from a year ago featuring her and the other women that made it such a memorable experience and I have been happily reminiscing.

Such a fun person to be around! I wish my hand was steadier for this selfie but she had me giggling!

To then see Kaeshi, Irina, Maki and Nathalie posting memorials just seems bizarre! How can it be that one so vibrant is no longer with us any more?

I learnt so much by participating in that show but I particularly learnt a lot from Ellie. She drilled me in her sword dance and I took a fantastic workshop on choreography theory. Several concepts from which I have been incorporating into my own pieces and dance. Only last Friday I was thinking of her while participating in a Biodanza class. I was again playing with the feeling of leading from different parts of the body – being aware more consciously of where the energy starts – in my own improvisation.

Journey along the silk road after party, Elisheva and I at the back.

To be honest, I was not even familiar with Elisheva’s work before the show, but sometimes someone crosses your path for a brief time (in this case 2 weeks) and makes a profound impact. She was a great teacher and a very friendly and caring woman who danced with great feeling.

Signing up and sending in audition videos for the show was utterly terrifying for me. I had to face some deep-seated beliefs.

Some of you may know that I have had to face many auto-immune issues, and at one point was so ill I couldn’t walk more than a block (and that was with assistance). When you have been that ill and ill for a prolonged period of time; even when you work so hard on your health and make great gains; it is hard to think of yourself as truly vital. I was so scared I would not physically be able to keep up, that my body would revert to all the issues of the past, that I would become an object of pity and waste everyone’s time.

I was also scared that I would not be able to keep up with the last-minute choreography changes that are often common in such productions. Learning choreography has always been a challenge for me and again, even though I made great gains and learnt so many way to improve on it (hence the ebooklet I wrote). I was still fearful I wouldn’t adjust in time.

Fear and anxiety are crazy things, they can make simple tasks difficult and difficult ones seem insurmountable. Yet I really wanted to try out, so I faced all those fears and went ahead. If I hadn’t gone ahead, I would not have met Elisheva and the opportunity to learn from her in person would have passed for this life time.

So I am sharing this story to express my grief that one so young has died, but I am also sharing this so that anyone that is standing before a big opportunity in hesitation and needs a bit of a nudge of encouragement to go ahead, does so.

This is the hint, the sign you were wanting

– if there is something you have always wanted to do but haven’t, take the plunge!

In memory of Elisheva ❤