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take shape through coherent and consistent actions in order to create things such as centre, style, genre, territory, tradition, and identity. An assemblage is a density where elements can repeat, vary, and tie back onto themselves. Some assemblages may lean towards being stagnant and frozen, while others become fluid and porous. Rhizomes are also made up of lines of flight, which deterritorialise. They rupture, break, flee, discontinue, detach, interconnect, change, transition, reverse, and create new connections by leaping across fissures. Lines of flight reside outside assemblages. They enter and/or exit into an assemblage at any point. An assemblage may sustain within itself lines of flight. Lines of flight may create, destroy, and/or change an assemblage “as it expands its connections” (Deleuze and Guattari 8). On lines-of-flight, I enter into different assemblages (centres). I have for a long time moved between traditional and experimental Middle Eastern spaces, dragging in traces of the other back and forth. In the mainstream world, I make a living at belly dance. In the Middle Eastern dance community I am hired as a belly dancer; to be the folk dancer, the something different, in a belly dance show; and to be the experimental dancer, once again the
something different, in a traditional Middle Eastern dance show. In the last context, I learned to make work that bridges the traditional and experimental centres. I call them my “safe” experimental dances, meaning they are pretty, uplifting, and only slightly push movement, music, and costuming. In full-on experimental productions, I perform works on the edge of traditional and mainstream dance. I enjoy working and creating in all of these contexts. I perform traditional dance without feeling like I am compromising myself as an intercultural dancer or a dancer on-the-fringe and vice versa. They are not exclusive, but dancing with each other.
Fluid Spaces While fluid multiplicity is a location of strength, American and Australian intercultural dance artists need to remember that we work in a privileged space. We build upon the work that others have done over the years to open spaces in-between and make new centres. The fact that we can talk about artistic freedoms is one that many artists cannot share. As relationships among groups are constantly being negotiated, our growing acceptance could just as easily and quickly be bordered, silenced, and denied. We also need to consider who may