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Dance, Dance, Dance

Dance, Dance, Dance

Shireen Rahimi’s first memories of dancing are of doing traditional Persian dances with her family at the time of the Persian New Year. She discovered dancing by herself and developed her own relationship with dancing when she was introduced to the hip hop scene in the Bay Area in California. After having been a member of various dance crews on the West Coast, she moved to New York to experience the club culture and vogue scene. Voguing is a culture that grew up among racialised gay and transsexual youths in the ballrooms of Harlem in the Eighties. Inspired by the fashion world and Vogue, the dance and expressions were developed on the catwalks of the clubs. True Womance Lisa Carlsson met dancer Shireen Rahimi in Prospect Park to talk about discovering your persona, dance as a means of telling a story and writer’s block.

Was it just dancing that got you interested in voguing, or did politics play its part, too?

In the beginning, it was just dancing. But I was forced to immerse myself in the culture in order to become a better dancer, and so the rest just came along into the bargain. From the start, I didn’t really appreciate how much of a lifestyle and community thing this is. I knew that it began among gay and transsexual blacks and latinos in the Eighties. At the time it was mainly men, but now many women are keeping up the tradition, too. I was a tomboy when I started dancing, and very shy, but people were telling me to be daring and to live out my femininity more. “You’re a woman – you have all of this. We have to create it and make gender adjustments, but you were born with all of this. Embrace it! Show it!” They made me start to feel more secure in myself. Of course, I’m also Iranian, which is something I’d like to celebrate but also something that I’m judged for. Being a woman from the Middle East makes you vulnerable. But the lovely thing about the culture and fellowship of vogue is that you can be whatever shape, size and colour you like: Male, female, both or neither. You can be yourself. You accept what you are and what you have and celebrate it.Agnes_Thor_Shireen_531_021D2

The vogue scene consists of houses, which have a collective structure like families. What does being part of a house involve?

It’s a means of support. It’s a family. The older ones take care of the younger ones; they are alternative parents. They’re the people you turn to when you need help or advice. When you need someone to talk to, or you need somewhere to live. I didn’t properly understand in the beginning. I thought it was more like a hip hop crew. But a house doesn’t practice together in studios like a crew; instead, it’s about supporting and representing each other. My surname is Rahimi and I belong to the House of Mizrahi, and this is how people know who I am. And I represent my house with style and grace. Of course!

From the beginning, houses were developed because young people really needed the support, as many still do. Many young people have run away or been expelled from home and are homeless. There are some whose parents have no idea of what they’re doing, and there are some whose parents are extremely supportive. But yes, there is a great need for support and connection.

Being a woman from the Middle East makes you vulnerable. But the lovely thing about the culture and fellowship of vogue is that you can be whatever shape, size and colour you like: Male, female, both or neither. You can be yourself. You accept what you are and what you have and celebrate it.

Do you have a persona when you’re dancing?

My persona is in the process of developing just now. She’s been inside me for a long time and is just about to emerge. I give a lot of thought to who she is and what she wants to say. I know more about my own story now and what I want to say, but for a long time I was extremely unsure about it. It takes time to find it, and it takes time to feel security and self-assurance in my stories.

I did ballet as a child and then went on to write, but I think both expressions come from the same place:

the soul. It comes from within.

I also think that dancing and language clearly go together. And that dancing is a language.

A few years ago, someone asked the question what dancing was for me, and I answered that dancing is a language. This is how I learned to express myself and to communicate with others. I remember watching dancing for the first time and recognising myself in it. Seeing a character and a story. It was an expression of something that I loved. And now, after coming to New York, it’s part of my family here. I mix with many dancers from other countries and we don’t speak each other’s languages, yet through energy and the feeling in the dance we still talk to one another. We can hang around together for hours and have a great time while barely saying a word.

Can you observe various dialects in the movements of each of the different dancers?

Absolutely. But as for my own movements… I’ve had a block for a while now. You know when you have writer’s block and you’re trying to force out a story but it just comes out lousy? Well, I’m just emerging from a phase like that now. For a year now I’ve been forcing out the movements, and it was so clear to see. It was obvious that I was going through a difficult period. But now you can tell that I’ve been practising and have changed. I’m trying out new things and my style is developingAgnes_Thor_Shireen_531_017D2

How did you manage to overcome your “dancer’s block”?

It was a difficult summer. I ended a relationship and there were a lot of emotions and a lot of pain and frustration. But then I was at a ball in LA and I decided to take out all my pain there, on the runway, instead of on other people. I was going to go there and I was going to win. It wasn’t about winning the trophy or the money, but rather about demonstrating something. Life isn’t always easy, and if you know this then you can get through difficult phases and be calm in the knowledge that you will get through it. Life becomes much easier then. Once I realised this, I started to blossom again. I started to figure out where I come from and why I do what I do.

But I need to dance, and I need to breathe. I need healthy lungs, and I need to dance so that I can breathe and live. This was my conclusion. It doesn’t make any difference where I am and what I’m doing – I need to dance.

So what was your conclusion? Why do you do this?

Because I love to dance. But I got stuck in a pattern of thinking: am I tall enough? am I slim enough? am I doing the right thing? But I need to dance, and I need to breathe. I need healthy lungs, and I need to dance so that I can breathe and live. This was my conclusion. It doesn’t make any difference where I am and what I’m doing – I need to dance.

Are there any similarities between Persian dance and voguing, in the movements? And do you make use of your roots when you’re dancing?

Persian dance is mainly about the upper body – you dance using your shoulders and hands. But I’d never linked the two until I showed a friend, who asked me why I didn’t use it when voguing.

There are similarities, but I want to get it hundred per cent right and practise more Persian dancing before I merge the two completely. I’m not entirely there yet.

In fact, though, I’m in the process of developing some choreography now where I mix them together a bit. When people think of Iranian women they often imagine women completely covered in a burka, but this is a very narrow picture. Religion was forced on Iran; it was the government that controlled it. But it’s a stereotype, and after 9/11 it’s been worse. My parents fled here and I was born here. I struggle a lot with identity and a feeling of belonging. But I’ve used costumes quite a bit in the dancing. I’ve worn what my mum was forced to wear after the revolution of 1979. I’ve danced completely covered up to convey that “This is what you think when you see me”. Then I’ve removed item after item of clothing, and through this what I was saying was: “Look at me. This is me, and this is what I am.” It’s been very liberating. For me, it was about telling various stories from different perspectives: about my upbringing, where I come from and where I’m going.

Of course, there are people in Iraq who dance – but not in public. They dance in secret studios with the blinds drawn. I often think about this when I’m dancing – about the women in Iran and the restrictions they face. I remind myself of this so I can continue to be grateful that I’m able to dance.

There are many layers to this.

I develop my persona interlinked with my story. What do I want to say? I can feel it, but I want to be sure that it comes out the right way. There are many layers that need to run parallel with each other.