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.