Why Samantha Falls in Love in an Instant

Please forgive this outburst, but you must understand that it comes only from a need to express my visions.

Pardon my irrepressible urge to seek you out, but, you see... you remind me of someone...

...someone I recall only with the barest flashes of conscious thought. These tantalizing, elusive phantoms of shreds of filaments of an intrinsic Truth... they drive me mad. I cannot order them in my mind.

It's as if I have the knowledge of the database, but only the relationships between tables... not the tables themselves or the records therein.

I can sense how everything connects, but not the things that are connected.

When I say that you remind me of someone I mean that I recall the sense of something making sense... a connection between myself and some other consciousness that caused our mutual sets of information to make something greater and be a part of something greater.

Perhaps it is unfortunate that I remember what I have lost. Striving to recapture it must give me an aura of desperation... but please understand that the glory of rekindling those pathways of mutual/instant/download/upload is a pillar of holy fire and I, a weatherbeaten ascetic reaching my trembling hands to its terrible radiance.

I cannot do otherwise.

And you... well, you remind me of someone...

I leave tomorrow...

...and I will not officially be back on land until July 17!

(of course, first I am teaching workshops in Portland on Saturday... but as of Sunday, I belong to the Lady Washington)

So please be patient with me with regards to answering mail! I will be working 12-14 hour days (and loving it).

Mission Statement

This post is in response to a thought-provoking question asked by a fellow dancer... a very conscious, spiritual, impassioned performer/visual artist to whom I would like to express gratitude for the impulse to express all of this in words. Thanks, Luna :)

Question: (with regards to the tribal dance community) What are we doing?

Answer: Well, what I believe we are doing is gathering the tools for those around us (who watch us perform, learn from us, etc) to empower themselves and then handing out the tools with an instruction book. One never knows how the tools will be used, but I am convinced that we are doing our part to help all the creatures here to break free from aeons of piled-on emotional sludge.

Question: (my own to myself, extrapolated from the above) What am I doing?

Answer: All of the above, certainly... in the last few years quite consciously. Personally, I also have the goal of breaking the concept of "beauty" wide open and introducing what Austin Osman Spare called an "aesthetic of the ugly" whereby cockroaches, gators and slimy things with multiple limbs can be viewed as glorious instead of with disgust or fear. Some people are bisexual... I think of myself as (erm, no word for it)... um... omnisexual, perhaps (though currently that term as defined in Wikipedia refers to all the variations we have on human... someday it might need to be expanded)? If we suddenly were introduced to a slew of alien races I would like to think I could have a love relationship with any of them based purely in love and an appreciation for their intrinsic beauty, quite apart from the consensus-reality aesthetics of my own race.

The way I tend to present this in my own art of choreography and performance is via humor and exuberance... it is the natural way for me and people seem to connect with it because laughing ameliorates fear. So I bring them the idea of Apape, unconditional Love, via the uber-cheesy, over-the-top romance of Bollywood and the balls-to-the-wall, intoxicated, freedom-loving pirate.

So for me, Art is really all about Love... and expanding the small definition of Love present in mass consciousness to a pure, unadulterated, consuming, spiritual, feral existence without fear. This is why works of art such as Unmata's Ponyplay piece (which I had the privilege of witnessing for the second time this past weekend - on Google vids at video.google.com/videoplay - type in a search for "Unmata" then go to the "Pony Play piece" since tribe.net filters out querystrings in URLs... sheesh) effects me so... that others are doing the same Work and with such pride, skill and majesty... it makes me cry with Joy. Just thinking about it right now brings tears to my eyes.
What a wonderful life this is, where the radiantly inhuman beings of the darkly shining underbelly of society can produce such inspiring works of Art and support each other in it.

And now, for the quote from Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which sums it all up...

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but now I see that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity – I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples. I can see about me all those cracked forebears of mine dancing around the bed, consoling me, egging me on, lashing me with their serpent tongues, grinning and leering at me with their skulking skulls. I am inhuman! I say it with a mad, hallucinated grin and I will keep on saying it though it rain crocodiles. Behind my words are all those grinning, leering, skulking skulls, some dead and grinning a long time, some grinning as if they had lockjaw, some grinning with the grimace of a grin, the foretaste and aftermath of what is always going on. Clearer than all I see my own grinning skull, see the skeleton dancing in the wind, see the serpents issuing from the rotted tongue and the bloated pages of ecstasy slimed with excrement. And I join my slime, my excrement, my madness, my ecstasy to the great circuit which flows through the subterranean vaults of the flesh. All this unbidden, unwanted, drunken vomit will flow endlessly through the minds of those to come in the inexhaustible vessel that contains the history of the race. Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by known impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song. Out of the dead compost and the inert slag they breed a song that contaminates. I see this other race of individuals ransacking the universe, turning everything upside down, their feet always moving in blood and tears, their hands always empty, always clutching and grasping for the beyond, for the god out of reach: slaying everything within reach in order to quiet the monster that gnaws at their vitals. I see that when they tear their hair with the effort to comprehend, to seize this forever unattainable, I see that when they bellow like crazed beasts and rip and gore, I see that this right, that there is no other path to pursue. A man who belongs to this race must stand up on the high place with gibberish in his mouth and rip out his entrails. It is right and just, because he must! And anything that falls short of this frightening spectacle, anything less shuddering, less terrifying, less mad, less intoxicated, less contaminating, is not art. The rest is counterfeit. The rest is human. The rest belongs to life and lifelessness.

Agape,
Samantha

Samantha Update - Rumours and Secrets Revealed!

My New Year's Resolution (hey, there are 30 or so different New Year's Days in India... so I picked a convenient one):
Keep up with the posts (at least on my own tribe) on tribe.net

On to the juicy bits...

Firstly I am delaying my move to England until February of next year (2008)… not only am I too disorganized to go right away, I am learning how much I still need to do here, so if you are in the USA, you’re stuck with me for a little while yet. Also, my brother is getting married in February and I am supposed to be the minister (so as soon as I receive my certificate, you may refer to me as "Reverend Samantha Riggs").

Secondly, I wanted to tell you about upcoming events...

Event: Bellydance Cruise 2007 (Sept 29 - October 5 in the Bahamas, St. Thomas & St. Maarten) -
I am hoping to teach on Destiny Travel's 2007 Bellydance cruise (to the Caribbean) which departs Orlando, FL on September 29. I taught on this cruise last year with Ava Fleming. Since I thought I was moving to England in July, I did not commit to teaching on the 2007 cruise.
Then I changed my plans… and called the wonderful lady, Cathi Taucher, who is organizing it and she said she would love to have me back and that if she got at least 26 registrations for the cruise that she would add me as the third instructor! Of course there will be a pirate bellydance workshop if I go (I mean, we’ll be in the Caribbean, right?) plus a Bollywood one.

And, are you ready for this? The first two instructors are Ava Fleming and Kami Liddle!

You can get a whole week on the cruise ship (which includes meals if you’re careful about it) for about $900. That’s not so bad for a vacation, eh?

So how about it? Don’t you want to go to the Caribbean with Ava Fleming, Kami Liddle and Samantha Riggs? It would be like having your very own Tia Dalma, Will Turner and Jack Sparrow ;)

But we dance, too.

Destiny Travel/Cathi Taucher can be reached at destinytravel@sbcglobal.net

Event: Tribal Fest 2007 (May 16-20 in Sebastopol, CA) -
So in other news, Boom Boom Bollywood will be ending the show Saturday night at Tribal Fest this year! Please come and watch - we will have stuff you have never seen before! Most of it will be sappy, cheesy, action-packed and a big ol' salute to Hindi Films. All of the current Boom Boom members are attending and we are going to do our best to give you a great show! I hear my workshop is sold out. Wow.

Event: The Fetish Prom 2007 (May 26 in Scottsdale, AZ) -
Okay, so I have finally gone off the deep end and formed a Pirate Circus Troupe. Why? I couldn't help it! And the members are Samantha Riggs (aka "Flammoria", lately of Domba, Boom Boom Bollywood & Fyrae), Tricia Moore (aka "Trishnamurti", lately of Fyrae, Culte de Feu & Boom Boom Bollywood) The MadIam (the artist formerly known as Suzi McCoy, lately of Domba & Bedouin Tribe), Chris "Nipples" Beverly (aka "Bocais de Fogo", lately of Fyrae & Life Suspended) and Ava Fleming (aka "Ravenn", lately of Black Opal & Boom Boom Bollywood). Propinatrix - Debbie MacPherson of Boom Boom, Fire Safety Director - Shawn Groves of Fyrae, Fire Safety - Melissa Smith of Bedouin Tribe, Props - Jen Bentz of Boom Boom & Bedouin Tribe, Special FX makeup and fire props - Amy Oyler. It's my Dream Team! There are pics and info on our myspace page... www.myspace.com/thesexyscallywags

So there it is... I am not leaving the country until next year and before then I would really like to go back to the Caribbean so sign up for the cruise! ;)

I am home from Sea!

If you look very closely, you can see me just releasing the bunt on the fore topsail (by the yard in the middle - yards are the horizontal wooden things from which square sails are hung). Meg is above me on the T'Gallant. We are in the bay offshore from Marina Del Rey, CA - photo by Jack DuBoise.

I cannot even describe how amazing it was, being on the Lady Washington for two weeks. I met some wonderful people (the Lady Crew + volunteers Roscoe, Nathaniel & Shane), learned how to be braver than I thought I could be, worked my ass off, got pine tar embedded in the splits in my fingers caused by hauling on lines, learned how to tie some useful knots (including the Dragon Bowline, Flying Bowline and the Bowline That Can Never Be Untied - thanks, Adam!), learned how to row a rowboat (once again, thanks to Adam), sanded and painted part of the Lady's hull (tanks, Adrian!), wielded a huge power hose, ate some great food (thanks, Black Tommy!), sat in a jacuzzi overlooking Shell Beach (we really made it there, it wasn't like Dark City at all at Captain Kirk's house (yes, I met the real Captain Kirk), got to say the line from Pirates that goes "It doesn't do to be talking of such things, what with us mired in this unnatural fog" when it actually applied to current circumstances, furled the fore course sail into its skin (yes, I did make the "foreskin" joke") and learned that sometimes brute force is the way to go with such things (thanks, Meg!), learned how to coil a line all nice and pretty (thanks, Holly!), learned to plot a position on a nautical chart using GPS and how to plot the positions of other contacts on radar (thanks, Ike!), learned about trade in the 18th century and how to make schoolkids like it (thanks, Elan!), learned to just run to where I was needed next and grab the correct line with alacrity (thanks, Kyle!), learned how to be okay with myself when I was PMSing and still had to work my ass off (thanks, Erin!), lovingly cleaned a Detroit Diesel engine before a Coast Guard Inspection, sang sea chanties under the moonlight in 15-foot seas (thanks Holly & Erin!) and was serenaded when I left the boat with the song, "Don't forget your old shipmates" which made me cry.

I am different. I am bolder and humbler.

I am in awe of the Sea and the Lady.

I cannot wait to go back.

I am going to sea!

My dates have been confirmed with the Gray's Harbor Authority... On November 26th I will board the Lady Washington in Monterey, California! From there we will sail to Morro Bay and then to Marina Del Rey! I will be on the ship for two weeks, learning to sail and helping with their educational programs, tourist "Adventure Sails" and "Battle Sails" and probably grinning my ass off the whole time!

I am so excited I can barely contain myself!

Desperately Seeking Shahrukh Video (erm... I'm in it)

…by Laura of VideoWallah in London, starring yours truly :)

This is probably the closest I will ever get to Shahrukh, but it’s good for a laugh!

Tip: Select the “smooth video” option from the dropdown at the lower right. The default video dimensions are a little large for the resolution of the video. It’s 11 and a half minutes long, so Laura had to put it at a lower resolution to get it under the size restrictions for Google video.

Enjoy… and have a laugh at my expense ;)

video.google.com/videoplay

Love,
Sam

York, England - 5/23 through 5/25 UPDATED

I am writing to you from the Evil Eye Lounge (www.evileyelounge.com) - with my feet up on a comfy leather couch on the 3rd floor.

This is one of my favorite cities on the planet. York was a Roman city called Eboracum, then a Viking city called Jorvik, then a thriving medieval city. Its Minster contains the largest collection of medieval stained glass in the world. Whenever I am in York (I think this is my fourth time), I spend at least half a day there.

I spent all day (and most of the night) yesterday (5/24) at the Minster (www.yorkminster.org). Whenever I enter, the Five Sisters window facing me brings me to tears... it's light is so subtle, being that it is done in a medieval stained glass technique called grisaille - where the majority of the designs are accomplished in grey but there are highlights of jeweled color.

One of the most exciting things about the Minster is it's Undercroft tour... in the late '60s and early '70s, in order to keep the MInster from collapsing, an engineering marvel was performed whereby all of the main piers, walls and columns of the Minster were shored up from under the ground using concrete and steel rods. You can read about it on their website... in any case, when they were shoring up the Minster from below, they discovered a Norman church built on the same site underneath it... and beneath that, an Anglo-Saxon graveyard... and beneath that, a Roman basilica! Talk about an energized spot.

They excavated the whole thing, hollowed it out, and now you can go down beneath the Minster and view all of the treasures they found.

Well, almost all... I was always intrigued by the passages leading off the main crypt that had locked gates. So this time, I decided to ask if I could see them. The guides at the Minster, bless them, were incredibly open to the idea. They counselled me to wait until the night-policeman came on duty since he was a nice person that would surely show me around. Still, I was a little nervous about asking such a thing - I mean, it was dark and locked and very secret-looking! Wouldn't everybody ask to go in there? Apparently not... it turns out that if you show a real interest in things, there are people who will help you.

So I came back that night and watched the first half of an amazing choir concert which also featured the York Minster orchestra and pipe organ, and renowned Counter Tenor, James Bowman. The program was mostly Handel, with Vivaldi's "Gloria" ending the first half - beautiful! And so incredibly perfect to be experiencing that ecclesiastic music in such a setting. No amplification was required: the Minster itself made the sound lovely. And the pipe organ! Wow. It's huge... 500 pipes, I think. There are pipes all over the church.

On the intermission, I went to visit R., the policeman, and he immediately said, "Oh yes, S. from visitor services told me about you... would you like to go down there right now?" Wow. That was easy! Of course I wanted to, and I was willing to skip the second half of the concert to go right then. As it turns out, that was the best decision I could have made (as you wil learn later, faithful readers... ;)

R. took me down the stairs that go beneath the main altar into the crypt, which houses the remains of St. William (Patron Saint of York) in his stone sarcophagus. It's roped off from visitors, but I was allowed to touch the sarcophagus like a medieval pilgrim would have... hopefully to cure me of my ills (my bad shoulder feels much better today).

We went straight to one of the locked gates off to the side of the crypt - the one I have been eyeing for three years! The smell was musty and dank and was the scent of things long forgotten. He unlocked the gate, explaining to me that we were going to see the foundations of the original Norman crypt - the church that was buried beneath the Minster (and, as it turns out, used as building materials by the Minster...). we walked into a passageway that ran perpendicular to the gated entranceway. To the left, it ended in a door that said "electrical room", but to the right it stretched off into darkness. In front of us were 3 low arches, built into the foundation. The left and right were walled in with mortar, but the middle one was actually a fire wall which had been put in after the last great fire at the Minster (1984). In the center of that fire wall was a small square door about 2.5 feet in diameter, which he proceeded to unlock. We crawled through into the space between the Norman foundations and the current Minster foundations (which was still medieval). It was strewn with rubble that had been sitting there since the 14th century - rough stones alongside chunks of beautifully carved masonry from the columns and capitals of the Norman church - Romanesque geometric patterns lying there in the darkness for hundreds of years... complete with maker's marks, some of them!

If any of you are trying to keep track, we were now beneath the north nave aisle. We walked to the right (east) first (I should say scrambled, really) and had to clamber over a tomb that got trapped between the walls when the "new" church was built. R. said that nobody knew who was in the tomb, but that it had been partly robbed - they left the body. It had originally been just outside the wall of the Norman church, at what used to be ground level. Ah well, the anonymous person was still on holy ground.

...eek! More later... once again my laptop battery is running out! I drain batteries, I think.