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Interview: Alisha Hattaway August 3, 2005
1. How long have you been a resident in Siskiyou County?
I have been here since last November. About nine months.
What brought you here?
I came up from Santa Cruz to visit some friends who bought a house here. I just fell in love with it and my family fell in love with it. It just felt like the right place for us to be.
2. Can you give a short explanation of your specialty or your artistic medium?
I am a Middle Eastern dance performer. Specifically, I do mostly Egyptian Cabaret. Sometimes I do more Egyptian Gypsy. But, I also do Turkish Gypsy which I am very passionate about. I perform often times in restaurants, birthday parties, wedding celebrations and at various local events here in town.
3. How long have you been making art (professionally and unprofessionally)?
Well, I have been dancing since I was six so I have been making art most of my life. I also work in other mediums. I do paintings with oils and acrylics mostly for my own personal expression. I danced all the way through college and I have been dancing professionally now for close to three years.
4. Is art your full time career?
No. I dance, I perform and I teach part time. I also do various forms of healing arts work part time. I represent and help people have access to herbal medicines and I am a mother. My focus with the healing work is in women's sacred sexuality. I do Swedish message, aroma therapy, reiki, and then some tantric style women's work.
5. How have you learned your art? Have you had any formal art education? If so, where, when and for how long?
Well, I have taken various forms of dance throughout my life so I have a pretty solid foundation in terms of taking on movement. I first started bellydancing close to eight years ago. I took a workshop about bellydancing pertaining to pregnancy at a midwifery conference. That was my introduction although I had seen it before then. From there I have taken various classes with different teachers here and there and learned from videos. Most recently and most significantly I had a teacher in Santa Cruz with whom I took classes and did performances for the last two and a half years. I still go down and have classes and performances with her on a pretty regular basis. Her name is Helene.
6. Have you had any special mentors that have influenced you and your style?
Definitely Helene. I sought a teacher by attending classes with different teachers in Santa Cruz and different areas. I found other teachers who I liked their performance style or I liked some things about their classes. Then, when I first went to Helene's class I saw one of her dancers and I said, "who is your teacher?" and she said, "Helene." So I was like, "Great, I'm going there." I went to see Helene and I took a class with her and we immediately had bonding with each other. She invited me to be part of her performance troop. From there we just had a very precious relationship with each other; with me taking in all that I could from her and her helping to build me as a solo performer and giving me lots of encouragement to go professional.
7. Can you talk a little about your experience as an artist in Siskiyou County? (In other words, what is unique about being an artist in this area?) (Pros and Cons) (economic, cultural, physical/geographic)
I have had some very significant experiences in the short time that I have been here. The two that stand out most are that I began teaching when I came here. I had not been teaching before, outside of teaching a friend here or there. Ra-el, the director of the Flying Lotus asked me if I would teach bellydance classes at the Flying Lotus. I was like, 'great, let’s do that.' Teaching has been a new chapter for me in bellydance and I have been really enjoying it. Then, we did a performance here for equinox called Resurrect. The heart of the performance was to go into ourselves and from our own experience express what our crucifixion had been in our lives and then what our resurrection as a woman had been in our lives. For me, it was one of the most challenging experiences I have had as a performer. It helped me to go into who I am and what my life experience has been and to bring that out through my art. While a lot of my dancing has to do with joyful expression with the music or even a more passionate expression with the music, this once was different. This one was much more down in the depths of my emotional being and that coming out through me. That has been significant and it seems very related to being here and being a part of the performance community that I have been part of here.
I think the most challenging thing I have found so far is that in Santa Cruz there is a huge belly dance community. There are always parties or events where bellydancing is the single focus of the event. I have not seen that here since I have arrived. So that has been challenging, not to have a hub or continuity in relating to other bellydancers, the people who are specifically performing my art form. That is a place that I would really like to grow here. I would like to collect everybody together so we can share our art. The other thing that is very challenging for me here is that there isn't a lot available in terms of live music. It's here but it hasn't been easy for me to connect with. Whereas, in other places it has been really easy for me to find. Other then that, my biggest challenge is how to connect myself as an entertainer with people who would be looking for entertainment.
8. Do you feel like living in Siskiyou County has influenced your art? What aspects have you drawn inspiration from?
yeah, I think that is a lot of what I was just naming about the Resurrect performance and being here as a part of this community. The kind of different twist on performance art that is here is what Ra-el calls living room theatre. There is an aspect of being very intimate with the audience as apposed to being up on a stage and the audience looking up at me. I am here, in front of my audience and being able to feel them and them feel me. Being able to connect with each other. I think that is a pretty unique and precious part of the venues that I have been part of here. That has been a big influence in terms of what is happening in Siskiyou for me.
9. Do you feel like art in Siskiyou County has any prominent trends or patterns? If so, how do you see your own art in relation to these?I don't know that I have been here long enough to see trends or patterns. One thing that I have recognized is that there is an acceptance of and a desire for, it seems, the goddess in art forms. Whether it is through dance performance or in Tony's paintings here.
10. Are there any other things you would like people to know about the relationship between your art and the place that you live?
Yes, actually. I know for myself a lot of my inspiration and desire for creation comes to me through my dreamtime. I have noticed since I have been here, and I relate it totally to Mt. Shasta, that my dreamtime is very active. My juices that come to me through the dreamworld have been more prominent since I have been here. I have always been a dreamer and dream very actively. Specifically it comes through in creativity, like, what’s the next costume to make or what's the next piece of music going to be. That has been very prominent for me since I have been here.
11. If you had to describe your style in a few words how would you do this? First 5 words that come to mind?…
Joyful, passionate, exuberant, elegant, classy, and playful.
12. What is it about making art and the creative process that you find most interesting or are most passionate about?
Definitely the piece I just named about my dreamtime. I am always just amazed every time it happens and I wake up and I think, 'oh yeah that's a great idea.' It's always surprising and it feeds me so much. Another thing I find interesting about the creative process is how much a piece of music can change and flow and evolve. I can create one performance with one piece of music which will always be improvisational. I very rarely choreograph anything that I perform. It's almost always improved with awareness of where the music changes are or when a particular drumbeat will come into the music and I want to catch that in my movement. Say I create one piece and I perform it five times, every time will be different. It’s always changing, flowing and moving. It’s never static and I find that fascinating. I really love that about the process. The other thing that I find very interesting about myself as an artist is that I can go through periods where I can play a piece of music that I have always had a lot of juice for and I have performed five times already and I play the music and I have nothing for it. Then I go into this inner space and I think, 'oh, have I lost something, am I missing something here? what is it that I need to do? I should be dancing right now.' What I find to be most true about that part of the process is just to be with it and to allow whatever is. Yeah, I may not feel like dancing to that piece of music today, but tomorrow I may be in a whole other realm with it. It is interesting how much fear that can bring up for me. Some how that seems to be an integral part of the creative process. It is kind of like a continual birthing process.
13. Do you teach art in anyway or are you interested in being a teacher?
Basically, right now I am teaching two classes here at the Lotus. Basic classes. I have a level one and a level two with some students who have grown beyond the level one basics. It is basically the foundational pieces of bellydance to have a place to grow from. Also, this summer I have been teaching workshops. Just more intensive sessions.
14. Is there anything else you would like people to know about you that we haven’t already discussed?
Particularly through teaching and through performance, what I am most passionate about and most want to convey to other people is the expression of feminity as empowerment through dance, through being grounded in our bellies, through being connected with the life force that is in our bellies. Being able to express that for others to connect with.
15. Is there any way you would like to see your county arts organization better assist you?
Yeah, I could really use some help in the realm of how to connect me as entertainer with people who would be looking for entertainment. I guess marketing. That would be handy.
16. Because of current trends in funding for art programs, all SAC involvement is done through volunteers. Is there anything that the SAC is doing that interests you and that you would like to help us with in the future? Some options: art walk volunteer, teaching program, becoming a member…
I have fanaticized about being a part of that (the art walk). Perhaps having a little dance program going on down on the street. I would also like to be part of the Arts Bus. I am interested in teaching children about the different cultures that bellydancing stems from, getting them involved in different cultures early on.
