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INTERVIEW FIELD NOTES
Interviewer: Nadia De Leon
Interviewee: Leora Day
Institution: Western Kentucky University
Course: Folklore Fieldwork
Professor: Dr. Erika Brady
Term: Fall 2008
Interview Date: 11/908 and 11/29/08
Interview Location: Leora Day’s home in Greyson County, KY
Voice Recorder: Sony IC-P620
Through my undergraduate years at Western Kentucky University, I had heard of
the local belly dance troupe, The Lotus Dancers. I knew about their classes, but was
never able to afford them. I even saw their stand while working at the Bowling Green
International Festival year after year, but was never able to meet them. Soon after
returning to Bowling Green, a friend of a friend mentioned she knew one of the Lotus
Dancers, after finding out that I was a belly dancer myself. I met them briefly at the
International Festival, have had several of them join my classes, and cooperated in
performances around town. However, I had not had the chance to talk to Leora Day, the
founder of the troupe, more than five minutes. Therefore, when it came time to interview
a local folk artist for this assignment, I chose her immediately.
On Sunday November 16, 2008, I was armed with an H2 audio recorder and an
HP digital camera, ready to make the trip to Leora’s house in order to interview her. The
directions provided to me by Leora varied greatly from those provided to me by
Mapquest.com. She claimed her house was an hour drive from Bowling Green; Mapquest
indicated an hour and forty minutes. Additionally, Leora’s directions started in some
obscure highway out of town, to which I was not sure how to get; while Mapquest
directed me from my doorstep to hers, up the familiar Natcher Parkway. I thought of
earlier this semester when the second year students were presenting on their summer
internships. One of them had conducted interviews in western Kentucky and told us how
he got lost following internet directions instead of his interviewee’s. He had to call his
interviewee from the road to explain that he was lost, and was scolded by the old man for
not following his directions. Nevertheless, I decided to take what seemed to me the
longer but safer route and hoped to God that Mapquest was indeed directing me to her
house.
About an hour later, as I drove East in the right lane of Western Kentucky
Parkway, I leaned over to change the CD that was playing in the car. As I lifted my gaze
back to the road a second later, I saw some type of four legged animal on the side of the
road. “A dog!” I thought. Another second later the “dog” had walked into the middle of
my lane and clearly turned into a deer, followed by two smaller deer. Another second
later I had changed to the left lane, and the deer was standing in the middle of both lanes.
As I drove through I held my breath and prayed the deer would not get scared and run
right into my car. Luckily it turned around and ran back to the side of the road, followed
by the two little ones. I thought of the many accounts of deer-related road accidents I had
heard from my peers, and pictured Dr. Brady warning us to watch out for mating season.
Once the shock was gone and I was breathing normally again, it felt like some sort of
Kentucky initiation.
After driving over endless small roads and many miles of trees sprinkled with a
few conglomerations of houses and churches I wondered whether to call towns (the last
of which were Caneyville and Pine Knob), I made it to Leora’s blue-roofed grey trailer.
Six dogs ran around fenced areas surrounding the house. A cat was perched on the porch
staring suspiciously at my arrival. As I parked, Leora came out of her house all smiles
and wearing an abaya and a headdress
– most definitely not the outfit you
would expect the person to walk out of
that farmhouse in the middle of rural
Kentucky to be wearing.
As soon as I stepped in, she
started talking about how glad she was
that I had found the house and was
interested in interviewing her. She
went on about how Andrea Kitta, a girl
from my program at Western Kentucky
University, who also happened to
dance with her for a few years, had interviewed her in the past. As I wondered whether to
start the recorder already, I looked around the house in amazement. I had asked her on the
phone to pull out any pictures, costumes, or dance props with stories to tell, so that I
could ask her questions about them. She had picture books, presentation boards, and
outfits sprawled all over her living room, spreading into her kitchen and bedroom. She
said she had already pulled out the pictures when I called, but then also selected some of
her outfits, carefully placing them around the house: one laying over the couch complete
with a dancing cane, one on the love seat, one hanging from the bedroom door, one
laying on the bed complete wit headdress, and other pieces laying on each and every
single chair around the house.
“I have every edition,” she announced proudly as I picked a copy of Arabesque
off the pile on the couch. Arabesque is
a discontinued journal of Middle
Eastern dance, difficult to find, and
loaded with immensely valuable
material, articles, pictures, and
information. She was making some
precious statements about how
seriously she took belly dance and what it meant to her as she spoke about her collection,
her books, and her pictures, so I switched the recorder on. As soon as she made a pause in
which I could truly interrupt, I asked her if we could sit somewhere so I could formally
begin the interview and ask her some questions before we came back to all these items.
She made some space on the kitchen
table and I handed her the informed consent
form, which she looked over as she made
some tea. “Erika Brady, why is that name
familiar? Who is she?” she asked. “She’s my
professor,” I said, “but you have probably
heard her on the radio.” Leora got incredibly
excited and went on and on talking about the
radio show and imitating Dr. Brady’s voice
and radio lines. As I took pictures of her farm
out the back glass door, she told me about
having inherited “a magnet for stray animals” from her aunt who used to live in the area.
Finally, our formal interviewee began. In answering my questions, she explained
that she grew up in Nashville, where her father, a comedian who went by the name of
Lazy Jim Day, performed at the Grand Ole Opry. She had had some background in
theatre, but no dance, when she enrolled in a belly dance course that was part of an adult
education program in Orlando, Florida, where she lived around 1980. She said belly
dance reminded her of biblical passages and oriental tales with stole-wrapped dancers.
She fell in love with the dance, and continued studying at a local belly dance studio, The
World of Middle Eastern Dance, where she learned both of the dance styles the belly
dance community now recognizes as folkloric and cabaret. She enjoyed both, but clearly
developed a preference for the folkloric style dances. After a few years, she was asked to
teach the beginners’ classes at the studio. She then began teaching independently. At
about that time, she began using the name The Lotus Dancers for her group of performing
students and herself, a name she continues to use at different times and different places
since then.
She moved to her current home in Grayson County in1995, and began to look for
venues to teach belly dance. Soon after, she was teaching in a small room at a local health
food store, Whole Earth Market. From there she moved to the Performing Arts, Dance,
and Cheer Center, where she taught for six months. At that time, some of her friends
opened a metaphysical store in Bowling Green, The Dragon’s Rainbow, and kept a room
where she could teach. She taught there for about a year and a half, and put up a few
performances with her students. She also taught at 6-week course at WKU’s Preston
Center one Fall. However when pressed for a date she said it was probably in 2004,
which I later realized is impossible, because I taught at Preston from 2003 to 2006. In
2000 they performed for the first time at the Bowling Green International Festival.
Almost immediately after The Dragon’s Rainbow closed, Leora received a call from
Martha Madison asking her if she would teach at Dance Arts. Leora never did find out
how Martha had come to hear of her, though she guesses it was from the International
Festival. Leora taught for over seven years at Dance Arts. In 2007, she stopped teaching
at Dance Arts because she was unable to even make the gas money, but has continued the
Lotus Dancers with her students: Gloria Dockery, Lee Ann Bledsoe, Robin Stout, Julie
Alexander, and Jessica Gibbs. Since new year’s 2008, they had been performing at
Anna’s Greek Restaurant on Thursday nights. However, Robin is the only one still
performing once or twice a month. Leora has stopped performing until after the surgery
she needs to have on her right foot.
As she spoke of The Lotus Dancers, she led me back into the living room. She
had a poster board that read “The Lotus Dancers” with pictures of the troupe performing
and posing, newspaper clips, and pictures of a younger Leora dancing. There are three
black and white pictures of them dancing around and apparently gathering water from a
well. She explains that the pictures were actually taken around “The Kissing Bridge” on
top of the hill on Western’s campus in 2003. She had been looking for a place for that
photo session for a long time, and had a professional photographer, Brandon Ralph, shoot
it beautifully. Leora then pointed out to a picture of one of her students dancing,
remarking how her expression seems to reflect the joy of belly dance exquisitely. She
explained how she has no children of her own and becomes very motherly with her
students. She said she hopes they will continue dancing and pass on the tradition. The
newspaper clippings on the poster board were of the troupe at the Owensboro
Multicultural Festival and the Bowling Green International Festival. The picture in the
lower right corner is of Leora dancing in a cruise she took on the Nile.
In November 1992, and
after much saving, she achieved
her dream of traveling to Egypt.
She went with her brother on a
cruise down the Nile. She
pointed out that she booked the
trip with Nagar Tours, an
Egyptian, and not an American
or European company. The experience clearly marked her life. She showed me pictures
of the pyramids and talked about the awe she felt standing near them and walking
through the ancient temples. She spoke of the friendly guides and the children from
whom she bought souvenirs, some of which hang from the walls of her trailer. She also
showed me a picture of a kitchen in a living history exhibition, which she considers to be
one of her best pictures from that trip. She also spoke of a giant granite statue of Ramses,
which she had seen in an exhibition in Jacksonville, FL, which she also found at the
lobby of the Ramses Hotel in Cairo. Finally, she ceremoniously pulled out of a drawer a
bottle of Nile water, displaying it with pride for my camera.
Afterwards, I asked her about the second poster board on the couch. She told me
she once had a book about belly dance costumes, which was unfortunately lent out and
never returned. However, she had made copies of the illustrations before hand. She
colored them and displayed them in a board for The Lotus Dancers’ stand at one of the
fairs where they sell belly dance items. From left to right, the top line shows the
following costume styles: Hollywood fantasy (based on 19th
Century European
Orientalism), Egyptian Ghawazee,
Tunisian, and Baladi Egyptian.
Also from left to right, the bottom
line displays: American Tribal,
fantasy Gypsy, based on Indian
Kathakali, and Algerian Ouled
Nail. I noticed that the board
included, and appropriately
labeled, both ethnic costumes as well as Western made-up variations, designated with the
term “fantasy” in the belly dance community.
Finally, she gave me a guided tour
of the outfits she had laid out. First, she
talked about the Baladi dress she purchased
in Egypt; as well as the coin belt, necklace,
and cane that went with it, which were also
from Egypt. During that trip, she also
purchased the headdress she had been
wearing during the interview, a gorgeous
turquoise two-piece abaya, and a colorful
black and blue veil. She also showed me a
Ghawazee inspired outfit that her student
Gloria sew. On the bed she had laid a Turkish-inspired fantasy outfit – complete with
veil; harem pants; Egyptian-inspired headdress; and tribal style coin belt, bra, and
necklace.
Once the interviewee was finished, we shared a few anecdotes about books we
had both read, and teachers we had both taken workshops from. She promised to come to
my next performance at Anna’s, and I promised to bring her a copy of the notes from the
latest workshop I attended on North African folk dances. As I drove away into the pitch
dark road, she screamed: “Drive carefully!” I thought of the deer and yelled back: “Oh, I
will!”
Field Notes Part II
It turned out nothing of the two and a half interview recounted above was
recorded. So I ended up returning to visit her and redo the interview two weeks later. I
filled in names, dates, and other details in the field notes above, which escaped my
memory after the first interview, with the information she gave me during the second
interview.