THE NAKED ANIMAL

The Naked Animal was present at last week's LA Burning Man Decompression party in a warehouse district under a bridge east of 1st and Alameda, where he shimmied and swayed until his hips could switch no more.


I wore a skirt that I had made with what was available the day of Beltaine 2003 at the Short Mountain Sanctuary. That sunny afternoon, the universe yielded me several large heaps of colorful rags that had just been torn off the recently felled previous year's maypole. They were faded, ripped, shredded and distorted in a multitudinous fashion after a year in the elements, which made for a psychedelic effect once I had knotted over a hundred strips to a string and tied it around my waist. After the new maypole was up, the clouds swirled and burst upon us, and I danced like a slave girl breaking free from her chains for four hours straight while a group of drummers kept the beat going higher...and higher...and higher. It was raining, and we were in a pavilion on stilts in the low, leafy woods. I swear that at the height of our jam session the whole building rose a few feet off the ground and possibly rotated a few times. It was most assuredly vibrating.

My ecstatic dance last Saturday was the supernatural skirt's only other wearing, and though it did not match the intensity of the legendary (in my mind) Short Mountain Beltaine Pavilion Jam '03, I did make the same sizzling connection I had made that May Day. It was a pure, joyous, passionate connection with the part of me that just wants to be a magic dancer, weaving spells for universal integration with the interlocking shapes that my arms and hips describe in space. There was a moment when I was urged to take over the dance floor at the small and groovy breakbeat space near the entrance to the whole shebang, and I did, with aplomb, radiating and concentrating at the same time, flowing in and out of myself and the world around me in a sweet yet demanding convulsion of love, awareness and the beauty of being lost in it all. Meanwhile Kardinall Ofishall chanted "a belly dancer, a snake charmer, a belly dancer, a snake charmer," supported by a super funky mix by the long-haired DJ who'd probably put it on with me in mind--my hips have a life of their own, and I was buck-naked under the lanky strands of my skirt. That song became my anthem for the week, and I've been chanting it ever since like a mantra. Later, while I was waiting in line for a Margarita, a nearly transparent and elegantly wizened fairy named Xanadu dubbed my look and my dancing style "Psychedelic Hula," and that's a pretty good description of it. I do communicate with every part of my body and beyond when I dance, though I have no idea what I'm saying.

And I don't have to, and on that day, nobody else did either, which epitomizes the beauty of this kind of barrier-busting event: We all knew what each other was saying already without having to say it, so all we had to do was smile and hug and dance and chat about marvelous things that tickled our funny bones or stirred our souls. For a whole week after that day, I thought, "Fuck this word bullshit. Who wants to add to the overwhelming chatter that keeps us disconnected from the true flow of the universe? Language is merely an interloper upon this supernaturally synergistic life of ours. Fuck words. Fuck language. Bring on telepathy!"

Then I got caught up in workaday reality again, and saw that there was still a need for words, for language both written and spoken, that not everyone was ready to let go and dance their hearts on at the universal disco, that many were still scared to come out on the dance floor, or possibly didn't even know that there was a dance floor.

If you can feel the rhythm in your souls, I highly advise heading towards the music you hear, whether in your own head or somewhere out there--even somewhere WAY OUT there.

Meanwhile, I'm really sick of getting up early and having to wear a tie to work--does anyone by any chance know of any paying gigs that might be open for a 39-year-old white male self-trained belly dancer?

tra la la....

Categories: psychedelic, dance, faeries, evolution, language, community