Elenie Vlismas-Smith is classically trained in ballet, jazz and tap. She has performed professionally as a Polynesian dancer, in leading dance and character parts for the Spotlight Theatrical Company, in melodrama and as a Middle Eastern Dancer/Entertainer since 1979.

Elenie was Co-Founder and Director of the Gold Coast Light Opera Company, and is the creator and director of the Araby Belly Dance Academy and the Jewels of Araby.  

Elenie, you have a rich background in dance and theatre. Can you tell us how you came to your number one love, Middle Eastern dance?

After my husband and I created the Light Opera Company, out of the blue, a restaurant owner asked me to do belly-dancing. He hadn’t even seen me dance but he knew I was a dancer. The first time I danced what I thought was belly-dancing, it wasn’t! It was what I picked up out of the movies and it was very melodramatic and I only did one night there, and I was replaced by a belly-dancer from Sydney.

I was asked to dance again two years later by another restaurant owner. It was a nice little restaurant in Surfer’s Paradise. The owner had a restaurant in Sydney, so he knew what he was talking about. He had a video, so I saw what real belly-dancing was. I watched that and worked out what they were doing, what I liked, what I didn’t like, how they were working their body, how they positioned themselves, what muscles I thought they were working, and saw some costume ideas.

This restaurant owner made a beautiful twenty minute show tape for me, with an  entrance, slow music, dance, stick and drums and an exit. So, I choreographed my show to that. (I learned later, it was George Abdo’s music.) There was another dancer doing it with me so I helped her and we learned our belly rolls and hip lifts and bend backs together.  There were no teachers then. Whenever there was a function on the Gold Coast or Brisbane, they brought up a dancer or singer or a band from Sydney or Melbourne.

I was only there three months, and I was approached by another family who had a restaurant in Jindalee, out the back of Brisbane. They doubled my money, and that’s when I started dancing in Brisbane.

At the moment I’m on a roller coaster. I have about five restaurants I have to juggle between and it’s really fun. And my Academy keeps going, that’s an inspiration, working with choreography, creating costumes, keeping hands enthused, me going to workshops because I’m still learning. I tell my girls all the time I’m still a student, I’m still learning and always creating something new, I’m evolving all the time. If I stopped learning I’d go backwards.

In the early days, I wouldn’t teach because I hadn’t been taught. I had no idea what all the movements were called because I’d created them myself. After I’d been dancing for nine years, I went on a two year learning thing to workshops, physiotherapists, doctors, getting back to the ballet training, aerobics to work out what was safe, discovering the history of the dance. Then, and only then did I allow myself to teach.

You’ve absorbed a lot of influences and poured them into what you do. I imagine your classical ballet training was an important part of that.

Yes. Classical training taught me to focus and to work really hard towards something. I loved my classical training. I had a well-rounded dance training (I did ballet and modern jazz and I also did tap dancing). It taught me how to use my body, about line, and it gave me carriage and elegance.

Then, for seven and a half years, I did Polynesian dancing. I fell into that as well. I just kept winning competitions all the time and so they gave me a job! That taught me to isolate, so I was working my lower torso and not my upper torso. The theatre got me out and about and enjoying life Then I was into melodramas and that got me involved with up-front talking to people in an audience. We started out for three weeks, it became a whole year in one show, then they wanted another show. That was a cheeky expression of life, and it was scary. After the melodrama show, we had to go out and talk with the audience afterwards. And I was so shy at first, then I looked forward to it. I loved it! I went out there and I kept on acting, but it was me. That was self-discovery. I didn’t know that, it was through the belly-dancing that I discovered so much more about myself. I slowly evolved. Getting older helped too. I slowly evolved into a really comfortable person. Now I really love dancing, I love getting the excitement, I love expressing myself, I love seeing the audience’s faces change when I change my expression. That’s powerful.

All that training got me ready for working in restaurants. I knew how to work a room, I knew how to hold myself, I knew how to talk to audiences.

You have to try and read your audience. Sometimes you can sense a fun crowd or you can sense a reserved crowd. It’s a juggling act. You travel around from one end of the restaurant to the other. I try and be “big” so if I’m at one table, other tables can see as well. In my early days, I used to do floor-work, but I realised that when you got down on the floor, only the tables around you could see…and I’m not going to deny anyone in the audience, not to see, not to enjoy. I want them to have fun. I want me to have fun. I want to grab their attention, then I want them to notice me doing technical stuff so they can go “wow!” then I move somewhere else. I like restaurant work.

Some dancers don’t like restaurant work, it’s too close. But when I see a show, I like to be in the front row. I like to see every little expression. I have a conversation with my audience, I don’t feel threatened by them. I’m the one who’s in power, I’m the one deciding whether I dance at that table or not … I can be cheeky, naughty, bossy, I have a lot of fun. People enjoy what I do – they’re being entertained. People need that because they have no way of understanding how to appreciate a belly-dancer. They don’t know where to watch and what to look for, nor do they appreciate the work that goes into the costume. I grab their attention, and then I draw them into what I’m doing and I give them the technique. I demand their attention then I educate them. I love it. 

Besides enjoying my work dancing in restaurants and private and corporate parties I also love dancing on the big stage, because I am first, a theatrical entertainer, maybe that is why I am a little “over the top”.  I believe that the person in the back row paid his money to see the show, he should have every bit of energy aim at his enjoyment also.

So, my life until I became a belly-dancer was all the training I needed to be the entertainer that I am now. I’ve had the classical training, the Polynesian dancing, theatre, the melodrama, directing theatrical productions and reviews. With my Academy, I’ve put that all together now.

Is this what you mean by belly-dancing being a “wonderful expression of female empowerment and discovery”?

It allows you to express yourself and with that, the strength to be able to express yourself. You’re not exposing yourself to a vulnerability, you’re actually showing strength in having emotion…instead of hiding as a timid little dancer and going out there hoping the audience will like you, you can go out there and be a sweet innocent girl, you can be a real bossy femme fatale or a seductive person, but keeping your distance, controlling even the breath of your audience… with you showing emotion, the audience can share your emotion. You’re telling a story with your dance, you’re play-acting with emotion, and that emotion goes out into the audience …you’re telling a story with your dancing and you can take them anywhere you want. You have control of your audience.

You said yesterday that you dance from the heart and that emotion comes before technique for you…

For me, yes. I love music. I love storytelling, I just love playing with emotion. With each phrase of music, I’ll change two or three emotions just in a couple of steps. When I’m dancing, I have so many little audiences all around the room. I can’t just tell one story and let the whole audience pick it up so I work one table, then turn around so they’re looking through the back window, then I might turn somewhere else and say something different…like Om Kolthsoum when she’s singing, she’ll re-sing a phrase but change inflection then she’ll sing it again and change the inflection on another word, so when I’m dancing I’ll do things like that. I love a lot of change, I like to be totally unpredictable. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I’m totally inspired by the moment, by a look in the audience. Sometimes I don’t plan what I’m going to do, it just happens. Not always a good thing.

It’s probably nice to have a choreography to fall back on …

… with choreography, sometimes it restricts me, and I can’t be creative. I love to improvise. I can do the same piece of music for years and years and every time I do it it’s as fresh as the first time. If it’s a really good piece of music, I will purposely never choreograph it, so that every time I do it, it’s totally new and fresh, and I get a buzz when I do it…I dance with the heart, I pick up on energy in the room, I like to share my energy and give it out to everybody. I like my audience to feel special. I love my audience, I really do. I love being able to make them as happy as I am … And every audience is new and different and special. I hope I never get tired of that.

I’m not one that gets so nervous I get sick. I get excited, I get butterflies occasionally, but I’ve never had rocks in my stomach!

So, it would be a very different experience when you put on your Dance Spectacular with the Academy, when you’ve choreographed the show, and trained the girls.

That’s a different feel, yes. Because they’re students, they need a choreography, it structures what they do. I’m telling a story with all the choreographies and the costuming.  With my shows I’m creating a story, and the girls come along as part of the story and they have their little bits. But also with the show there’s a feeling with the students for each other. They work together as team, they’ll help each other, share ideas and talents…there’s a lovely bonding together of women

They love making the costumes! Last year, they had to make milayas, three metres of fabric and crocheted sequins all around the edges. The beauty of making them was to choose the colour of the sequins…and now they’ve learned how to crochet with the sequins, they’re making baladi hip scarves. It inspires them.

When you play with props,  that’s a rediscovery, an addition to your repertoire and it enriches your dance, it enriches you as an artist and an entertainer. With each prop, it’s a different personality. You have a delicate personality with the veil and you have a strong personality with the finger cymbals and you have a mystic feeling with the sword rather than a powerful one. The saiidi is playful, I like to show strength when I’m twirling it, but I also play with the stick. The props are part of a story and you take the audience along with you.

I wanted a language with the milaya, I didn’t want it to be thrown around, it wasn’t supposed to be a veil, it wasn’t meant to be catching air, it was meant to be part of the woman’s body and she could use her body…I won’t use it in a restaurant, because they’re too closely packed, but the sword is exciting, it’s dramatic and the audience loves that. If you bring out a stick or a sword, you hear an intake of breath…and I love demanding attention in a restaurant.

In the workshop on fusion, you talked about how the same movements occur in so many different cultural contexts

That’s why I did the show Along the Silk Road to Cairo. Travellers from China were crossing lower Russia and Afghanistan across to the Mediterranean and Egypt and the steps were crossing  backwards and forwards between the cultures. There are Chinese steps in Persian dancing. There is a little Chinese step in Persian dancing which is also Nubian. Same step. Steps I learnt in Nubian dancing are in Indian dancing. Sometimes the same step is done in all the different regions of Egypt, but the attitude changes the whole style and feeling of the step. And the steps haven’t changed that much over the millennium. That surprised me too.

I know there’s a step in Indonesian dancing which is a hip lift. And they do shoulder shimmies. Did it start in Indonesia or did it come from India? We don’t know. All these movements are natural movements, the body is just playing with doing things, catching rhythms or beats in their own cultural music.

I do other fusion dances where I put jazz movements in, nightclub movements, funky arms – that’s fusion too, taking the modern way of movement into the dance.

You talked about capturing the flavour of another dance …

That’s all you need to do. If you do more than that you might as well go and study another style of dance. A flavour is enough. An eye movement, a gesture, a feeling, an inclination into a movement, picking up a movement from that culture - and making it Middle Eastern. That’s all you need to do.

You mentioned hearing an Indian instrument in a piece of Middle Eastern music, or Latin American or Andalusian rhythms…

For example, if a dancer has a piece of music with an Indian instrument or singer, an Indian hand movement lets the audience know that she recognised that there was an Indian sound in there. It adds to her dance and makes it richer.

A person who’s first learning to dance is lucky enough to hear the rhythm and then, as they continue to learn, they’re lucky to know there’s more than one instrument in the whole piece. Then, as their knowledge and confidence grows, they’re going to realise that the rhythm changes pace every now and then.  So, to hear something that has another language takes experience. People who are in the audience who have Indian background recognise that. The same if there is Spanish in there, or even a modern funky sound , and you put in a funky roll of the shoulders or a head slide – it’s a fun thing that can lighten up the audience.

What is your response to that well-publicised comment by Dina that Westerners can never dance like the Egyptians do because it is not “in their blood.”

If you are inspired by something, it comes from your heart, it doesn’t come from your head, and you put more into it, because you are passionate about it. The more you put into it, the better you get at it. If you love what you do, you can have an Indian person doing Russian dancing. You can learn it…You don’t have to be Spanish to learn flamenco. Anyone’s got passion! So anyone can learn Middle East dancing. They can hear a piece of Middle Eastern music and think it’s gorgeous. They’re hearing it, they’re feeling it. Dina believes it with a passion and she has every right to believe that, but she’s not right.

2 September 2001