Buggirl's Increasingly Strange Tokyo Tales...

An update on my stagename.

I’ve been Ozma for a few months now and I am happy with my choice. True, troupe mates enjoy teasing me for being the ruler of an imaginary land, but it is good natured teasing. Gaijin #4 asked me to fill in for her at Yokohama restaurant gig one day next month, and she’s already encouraged the loquatious Turkish man who works there to ask me for the full story of where Ozma comes from.

I’ve found that anyone who is knowledgeable about the ways dancers take on Middle Eastern names inevitably asks one question: Ozma, what does that mean? I know they are looking for a simple answer, like “Ozma is an Arabic name meaning pretty butterfly” or some such reply. Customers from the general public inevitably ask: “Ozma, that’s an interesting name, where is it from?” What they are really asking for is my Middle Eastern homeland or bloodline. I would get a different variation of the question if I danced under my given name, but it would be looking for the same Middle Eastern source of my “exotic nature". And sometimes, I turn the equation around and use my name as the source of my exotic nature, “Yes, I’m an American. I learned belly dance in Japan. What else can you do but the unexpected when you’re named after a fictional ruler of a fictional land?”

I decided that I liked the (dance)name Ozma. It brings me joy to go to the convience store and think "I am Ozma, I rule over the land of Oz and yet am still not a bitch." while I buy a Snickers.

So today I sent my teacher an Email informing her that I am Ozma. It was odd, but I feel good about it.
( And so it is )

Dance name take two:

 

Okay, one of the other things I must consider when choosing a dance name is that it will be pronounced with a Japanese accent by my classmates and mispronounced, with no rhyme or reason, by my teacher.

 

So let’s look at what we have:

 

Fahada (the leopardess): I have a fear that I will be called something that sounds like father…and I won’t even have asked, Who’s your daddy, bitch? I am also slightly uncomfortable with taking on an Arabic name simply to seem more exotic and different. You see that copy of Orientalism? It’s making me feel a little embarrassed. It would make more sense for me to plunder my own bloodlines ask my father for my great-great grandmother’s name if I want to go slightly ethnic (Mexican) and then we could also talk about why the hell she sold all of that so-called worthless downtown L.A. property back in the day.

 

Bugs: Kimuchi is right, Sacer is just ripe for mangling. When you get right down to it, the Scarab is a dung beetle. It is sacred because it rolls around spheres of crap in a manner similar to how the male sun god rolls out the sun. They are mighty useful animals…but…dung is dung. I’m earthy, but not THAT fucking earthy. And there are other sacred beetles that appear in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but they don’t make for great names either.” Elaterid…but if that’s hard to pronounce just call me the Clicking Beetle.(insert crazed zill playing)” And as much as being a one-woman plague of Locusts goes…I don’t like to advertise it.

 

So last night I was wondering about other sources for names. Duh, Bug, you read! As a child you often went to Halloween in obscure costumes you made based on minor characters in the Oz series of books. You were Polychrome, the rainbow’s daughter. The Patchwork girl appeared in your early poems…you want to be…

( The latest in names )