A Dancer is Not

Yesterday I discussed my first haiga, so today I thought I could talk about most recent one. As of this date this has not been published on my Flickr. It’s the first haiga for my fourth collection. One down, ninety-nine more to go.

With this one, I switched things around and came up with an image first and then wrote a poem for that image. It is a reverse of my previous process of writing the poem first and then getting an image. But after doing a couple of hundred one way, I thought it might be interesting to switch it up a bit. Also, through experimentation I’ve learned that version 5 of MJ, which is now the default, isn’t as creative as the prior versions were. The results are far more photogenic, but there is something lost from earlier versions: the moodiness of the AI.

At any rate, the impetus for this came from my experience drumming for some belly dancers in Madison County, Iowa, over the weekend. Yes, you read that correctly. I play a number of musical instruments, including the darbuka. Not well, mind you, but well enough to play with a group of belly dancers in Madison County, Iowa. If you have never seen belly dancing before, then you owe it to yourself to watch one of the best. Please watch to the end and I promise you it is worth it.

Many of the belly dancers who were there were in the more mature part of their lives. That didn’t matter, however, as they enjoyed their dancing as much as we enjoyed drumming for them. As I was playing in the middle of the circle of dancers, I saw older ones dancing with younger ones, keeping the love of the dance alive. It was a form of communication between generations, one far older than writing or probably even the spoken word. That got me thinking about when does a dance truly end?

So when I fired up MJ yesterday I played around with some prompt wording, and came up with this:

elderly belly dancer black and white stunning photography capture contrast lighting

I liked the idea of a hard contrast black and white, something that would emphasize the shadows. One would expect that a belly dancer would be colorful, but having the image in shades of black, grey, and white let the detail of the clothing and jewelry stand out. MJ gave me four images and, of the four, I preferred the one in the lower right hand corner:

Sometimes it takes a long while to get an end result image. But other times, it comes in the first roll of the proverbial AI dice. I’ve noticed my poems are similar. Sometimes they just pop out completed; others, however, I have to write and rewrite to end up with something I am proud of.

Once I had the image, I needed to write the poem. I do most of my writing in discord, which is what I use to communicate with MJ. But as my family knows, sometimes I’ll write on my phone or on the back of an envelope. Any place I can so I don’t forget the poem.

Reflecting back on my thoughts whilst drumming, how the dance continues on despite the passing of the dancer, my first try resulted in this:

the dancer may feel
that she has been forgotten
but the dance remains

The use of “the dancer” and the photo tended to make the subject of the photo the subject of the poem. But that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I wanted to convey that the dance was bigger than the dancer, that she was an integral part of the dance itself, for as long as it was being danced. The poem wasn’t as much on how the dancer felt about it. So, a bit of a rewrite:

the dancer may be
long forgotten, but the dance
will continue on

Which was closer to what I was thinking, but not quite right. A few more tweaks resulted in the final version:

a dancer is not
ever forgotten as long
as the dance goes on

I liked the little kireji (break or pause in the poem’s rhythm and/or juxtaposition of images) in the second line, “ever forgotten as long” which helped to separate the dancer from the dance, if ever so slightly. The dancer then, becomes a part of the dance for as long as it is performed.