Close friends and a common love for belly dance.

Debbie Smith and Karen Barbee discuss culture, dance, and the transformative effects of falling in love with both the art and science of belly dance.

We are so pleased Debbie came in from Arkansas to San Antonio for this "performahearsal weekend" with her fellow Project Band members and our musicians.

During this episode of the Baby Boomer Belly Dancer, we talk about:

00:00 This could take a while... how long Debbie has been studying belly dance

02:30 When Debbie and Karen met at Mirage

04:02 Hearing the music and following the breadcrumbs to experience the culture

09:48 Meeting her first musician in Austin and developing cultural habits

13:34 Realizing that the main thing she loved about dancing was the music

16:27 The energy of the whole band, how people react to it, and feeling it

19:47 When Judy invited Debbie to come to Karen's classes in San Antonio

20:49 How Debbie decided to get her degree in Middle Eastern Studies

24:35 Meeting Georges Lammam for the first time

27:02 When Karen and Debbie took classes together at UT Austin

29:05 Moving to San Francisco and meeting Amina who produced live music events

30:56 Performing in local showcases and going to workshops

33:12 Sincerity and dancing -- freely following and going deep into what you love

35:30 Learning how to speak Arabic and Persian at UC Berkeley extension classes

37:34 Starting to go to Egypt because of VHS tapes

43:32 Becoming an Arts Administrator for a non-profit dance studio

46:03 Joining a Palestinian Debke troupe... from MIT

47:50 Producing her first annual Arab Cultural Festival to elevate Arab artists

49:53 Working at the Dance Mission Theater and the Arab Cultural Center

52:04 Panel of musicians at the Arab American National Museum in Detroit

54:04 Decision to move to Egypt and advocating artists and musicians

55:22 Being taken seriously and not having dance and professional life intersect

57:07 Finding the perfect job in Egypt and how her Arabic got even better

1:04:48 Debbie is not a former dancer... since Project Band is infinitely fungible for any level

Debbie's thesis was about the aesthetic values of Arabic music, including improvisation and the sacred repetition of shapes, and how oriental dance movements were perfectly suited to express the subtleties of the music. You can see why Karen and Debbie get along so well!