Jill Parker shares what she wishes she knew when she first started dancing with Fat Chance Belly Dance, talks about tattoos, beauty secrets, and the sorcery of dance. https://youtu.be/fDFB1UkY024 Live at the Corset Factory, a pre-Industrial Revolution building in Cortland, upstate New York with Jill Parker from the West Coast hanging out on the East Coast for a hot minute. Jill Parker, always cutting edge. For decades, she's been performing all over the world with others in the pantheon of belly dance greats including Rachel Brice, Carolina Nericcio, and Zoe Jakes. Jill Parker is the mama of Tribal Fusion. In the ‘90s, Jill began to intertwine sensuality with feminism in a way that had never been seen before. As it is so eloquently stated on Jill's fantastic and brand new website, Jill Parker Dance.com she's “an exceptional teacher with a gift for demystifying this intricate dance, making it accessible for new dancers and offering insights for refinements and nuance to even the most seasoned professional dancer.” Jill Parker is by far one of the clearest belly dance teachers I have ever studied with. When students ask questions, she leads with the answer and she has such a big heart. Everyone in her class is valued. Her choreographies are brilliant and somehow her hair always looks amazing. You might laugh, but I even think her hairstyle helps me learn. Check out the article on my site titled 10 Lessons Learned from Tribal Fusion Belly Dance Star Jill Parker, and I'll tell you more. Jill was one of the original members of Fat Chance Belly Dance and founded Ultra Gypsy. https://youtu.be/ydMv17AsMJo These troupes changed the way the world thinks about dance and inspired a deluge of Western interpretations of Middle Eastern dance. Jill has given immense gifts to the world of dancers. What do you wish someone told you when you first started dancing with Fat Chance Belly Dance? Jill Parker: Really, I thought that everything needed to be perfect. And I wish somebody had given me the permission or even suggestion to feel free to make mistakes because what I've learned is that they help me grow. Alicia Free: Are you talking about mistakes in the studio or mistakes on stage? Jill Parker: In a low-stakes performance, being able to make mistakes to learn from them so that when I have a higher-stakes performance, I feel like I've moved through that part. Alicia Free: I feel like you once said something about you practice at 110%... Jill Parker: I do say 110%. Not that you can achieve under 110%, but you get the point. I hope that when I'm on stage I can access 75% of that or maybe 90% on a good day. Because you might trip up the stairs, and it never goes perfectly. It's just problem solving. Alicia Free: What do you wish someone told you when you first started creating and teaching Tribal Fusion? Jill Parker: I think a few things come to mind here. One is to relax and to search myself answers and not know them necessarily but kind of walk through them to give the correct answers in a relaxed way. And again, I come back to that, make mistakes, but be honest about them or say, “Huh, I'm not really clear about that. Let me see.” I guess that's the gist of it. DANCEABLE RITUAL Alicia Free: Do you have a danceable ritual that you want to share? Jill Parker: I dance in the kitchen a lot. Often, while I'm walking my dogs and I'm listening to music, so I think the neighbors really love seeing what new choreography is brewing. Alicia Free: For some mysterious reason, sometimes my mic doesn't record what it has the pleasure of listeni...