Money

Americanistan typically does not get paid enough for events to make a living, nor do the dancers whom they accompany. However, a dance troupe will frequently carry a tip basket as they dance into the audience area. Americanistan will also set out a tip basket at non-dance events such as Iraila. While they do get paid for these events and they sometimes receive compensation in other ways; Iraila offers them meals at the end of an evening, all members have "day jobs" that provide the bulk of their income. Wayne Gilbertson comments that the tips are much better outside Eugene. Naylor notes that local Eugene audiences are not culture-hungry due to the plethora of musics available to them. So, a local audience in Eugene might not be as appreciative as a local audience in a town without so much variety from which to choose.

Denise Gilbertson, as director, will arrange for dancers to perform with Americanistan. If an out-of-town dance troupe is performing with them, Denise will often help them organize a dance workshop the next day at a local studio to recoup some of the troupe’s traveling expenses. The workshops focus on certain aspects of dance, such as expressive gestures, floorwork and 9/8 rhythms. I am certain that Denise and Wayne Gilbertson participate in or at least attend some of these workshops, and would guess that Janet and John might also. Relating back to the musician-dancer connection, here is an example of another type of involvement with dancers, where the musicians are simply participating or observing in the dance process without playing their instruments. Love of the dance becomes more the focus for the musicians. I would presume that a richer understanding of the dance ensues, resulting in more connected performance collaborations.

What does it mean to Americanistan?

In the 1970 liner notes to Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” Ralph J. Gleason discussing the “real artists”, writes:

they make music like they make those poems and those pictures and the rest because if they do not they cannot sleep nor rest nor, really, live at all. this is how they live, the true ones, by making the art which is creation.

Having spent some time with the members of Americanistan, I have gleaned that they also probably could not sleep or rest if they did not make music. This is the creative imperative. Denise Gilbertson declares in an e-mail correspondence:

We NEED to play and perform.

and

On a personal level, it’s the creative outlet that I need to have in my life or I get all weird.

Mentioning also that she is hard-wired to be creative, I believe that for Denise, belonging to Americanistan provides a sense of balance and stability. It would seem that this is true of all band members, this creative imperative.

Janet Naylor discusses the sense of empowerment with which she feels imbued:

When it’s working, it’s powerful and empowering, and in an emotional sense. It’s not just like an intellectualization. It’s a feeling of not only are we doing something rewarding for the dancers and listeners but it’s for ourselves; it’s very empowering in that moment.

Janet is clear about the sense of emotional satisfaction that playing with Americanistan brings to her. From her words above, I imagine the goodwill energy emanating from the band, circulating amongst the dancers and audience, and finally expanding and returning to Naylor ever stronger.

For Wayne Gilbertson, I would venture to say that membership in the band is inextricably entwined with his affection for Denise (and Denise’s with Wayne, for that matter). He comments via e-mail:

I fell in love with Denise and she was involved in it.

This is meaning by association with the love for another human being. It was also with Americanistan, via Denise, that Wayne began drumming, which he says “changed his life.” In college, Wayne had sung in musical theater, but he did not truly realize he was a musician until much later in life, when Denise’s friend handed him a drum as a way of involving him more in Denise’s dancing. Drumming changed his life. It spiritually nourished him, and in general, making music (on all his instruments) helped Wayne to “feel more.”

I grew up not doing a lot of feelings.

For Wayne, then, making music in Americanistan is a catalyst for emotional awareness and expression, and in some sense may remind him of his past, where this awareness was less present. Referring specifically to the music, Wayne commented during our interview

Ethnic music is kind of like the history and feeling and emotion of peoples from all over the world.

From this passionate comment, I surmise that Wayne, while making music, is feeling a connection from the cultures from which it derives. Thus, a sense of an emotional cultural bond seems to be another manner in which group membership has affected Wayne.

John Marzicola acknowledges:

What I really love is just traveling with music, and not thinking of where I’m going to go, but merely playing and following my own development as it unfolds, and telling a story or feeling feelings and reacting to what’s around me; a kind of construct that’s way different from all of my other modes of thinking. It’s a different reality. There’s not any other way that I can think of offhand on how to get there.

Here is another example of performing music in Americanistan as a medium for emotional awareness (“feeling feelings”), but also as a reality-transformation vehicle: transcendence. John also asserts:

When I’m not there, and when I do duck out, I feel at a loss from not playing. But music is just a tremendous thing for me. Without it, my life would be colorless.

This is part of the aforementioned creative imperative that Denise touched upon. Finally, John maintains that making music is a means of feeling connected to other people in general. In non-musical group conversational settings, John admits to being “on the sidelines” for the most part. He is a “one person dialogue sort of guy”. Therefore, music-making in Americanistan, as a means for John to feel connected to other people, would seem to serve as a type of social outlet, or perhaps in some sense to ground him in society.

Conclusion

Americanistan falls somewhere between Slobin’s band and affinity group ensemble categories (Slobin 1993:98). While the band does not reap the monetary benefits of a paying audience, still, their regularity of public performances and renown in Eugene and the surrounding areas instill in me a sense of them as a professionally behaving band. As an affinity group, one might see Americanistan as a group of “like-minded music-makers magnetically drawn to a certain genre that creates strong expressive bonding” (Ibid). However, the sense of naiveté that Slobin’s term “charmed circle” conveys does not quite fit; a circle implies a closed-off unit, and Americanistan is a highly connected band.

What makes Americanistan unique is that, unlike other belly dance bands, they accommodate dancers of varying styles and at different levels of accomplishment. Americanistan is happily and somewhat inextricably entwined with this belly dance community, and it seems that both parties could not be more thrilled.

Bibliography

Nettle, Bruno, ed. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 6, The Middle East. New York: Garland Publishers, 1998-2002.

Slobin, Mark. Sucultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

Discography

Bitches Brew (Miles Davis). Liner Notes by Ralph J. GleasonSony Music Entertainment, 1970, 1990.

Correspondence

Gilbertson, Wayne and Denise. Interview with author, Eugene, OR, 29 January 2005.

Gilbertson, Denise. E-mail to author, 12 March 2005.

Gilbertson, Wayne. E-mail to author. 12 March 2005.

Marzicola, John. Interviews with author, Eugene, OR, 5 February 2005 and 6 March 2005.

Naylor, Janet. Interviews with the author, Eugene, OR, 7 February 2005 and 4 March 2005.

Villa, Elena. E-mail to author, 21 March 2005.

Donovan, Quinn. E-mail to author, 21 March 2005.