Patti Harsch, 68, can’t help but smile as she
recalls a pivotal
moment half her lifetime ago. She was raising a
family in Morro Bay
when she saw a newspaper ad about belly dance
classes. “Sounded
naughty,” she recalls, “so I signed up. My husband
almost had a heart
attack. My kids told me not to tell anyone what I
was doing.”
Unfazed, Harsch immediately “fell head over heels in
love with the
whole thing” of mid-Eastern dance, music and
costume. “I didn’t miss
a class from the first day on,” she says, and never
looked back.
Today, Harsch not only teaches classes of the
ancient art form, but
also directs Troupe Benat Serat, a group of her more
polished
performance dancers. Sitting in the living room of
her Morro Bay
home, as usual stitching yet another string of beads
to costume
gear, Harsch fairly beams while discussing her
passion for mid-East
dance.
“It’s a whole body exercise,” she explains. “So
freeing. Not like
ballet or tap. Hands circle, hips circle, the rib
cage circles.
Hypnotizing. Relaxing to women. A natural thing for
them to do. I’ve
watched women — so rigid, so out of touch with their
body — blossom
and grow right in front of me. They aren’t the same
person. It’s so
much pleasure to see them open up, give back to
themselves. They’re
usually so busy with kids and a job they don’t have
time to express
themselves, and look pretty while doing it.
Fantastic experience.”
Moving many times while growing up, Harsch adapted
well in and out
of schools. “I’m a people person,” she says. “Never
met a stranger.”
She savored making doll clothes from sewing scraps,
and dressing her
younger sister, a precursor to making dance costumes
today.
High school theatrics unlocked her showbiz bent. She recalls a
variety show “where I did an Al Jolson impersonation
in black face,”
she says. The experience proved an awakening . “It
made me feel the
music,” she explains. “Made me want to make everyone
watching feel
it, too. Like now, when I dance, I feel like I’m
giving little pieces
of me to people so they can also experience it.”
After graduating, Harsch weighed several scholarship
opportunities,
but Cupid intervened during a blind date with Herb,
a shipyard
worker. Their meeting evolved into a 50-year
marriage, three children
and four grandchildren. When the moved to Morro Bay
some 45 years
ago, Herb latched onto a career with PG&E. The
Central Coast
community suits Harsch fine. “They’d have to pry me
out of here with
a pickax,” she says.
Not long Harsch began belly dance lessons, her
teacher decided to
move on and handed Harsch the reins. She took to it
like a fish to
water. “It’s been a calling,” Harsch says. “I’m so
blessed doing
something I love to do.”
Complete with beads, bangles and wiggles, Harsch
began popping in at
birthday parties. “I started a Belly-gram service,”
she explains. “A
lady said she had nothing to give her husband for
his birthday, and
asked if I’d dance for him, at a car dealership. He
told me later is
was better than getting a new tie.”
Harsch was soon dancing at celebration parties
nearly every day of
the week, at places ranging from stockyards to
restaurants. “Any
place you can think of,” she says, “I’ve belly
danced there.” At a
school district meeting, the room was tiny and the
cake was huge.
When Harsch twirled, her veils caught on the cake
“and showered
frosting and crumbs everywhere and on everybody,”
she says. “When I
think back to those belly-gram times, I laugh my
brains out they were
so funny.”
Ten years ago, after crashing parties for seven
years, Harsch folded
her belly-gram sideline. “Got too scary,” she says.
“The whole
complexion of the world seems to have changed. I
didn’t feel safe
doing it anymore,” even when her husband waited
nearby, ready to pop
in if Harsch wasn’t out in 20 minutes.
Her scariest time didn’t happen while dancing, but
came after a
routine visit to her doctor. “I’d had my classes and
troupe for 25
years when I went in for pap smear,” Harsch recalls.
“The doctor
said, ‘I have bad news for you. Cervical cancer.’
Scared the heck out
of me. That was Tuesday. Surgery on Thursday. Five
days later I was
home. In six weeks I was back in costume dancing and
drumming with my
girls. I’d decided it was going to be all right.”
The troupe costumes incorporate a basic universal
design that’s
enhanced with accessories customized by each dancer,
using everything
from a glittering array of jewel-like pieces, to
veils of exotic
colors and textures. Harsch has a hand in most of
the intricate bead
work.
“There’s no age limit to mid-East dancing,” Harsch
says. “At least,
I hope not.” Any woman, any age, she adds, “You can
belly dance and
feel good about your body, seeing it serve you. A
powerful dance.”
Watch Harsch’s Troupe Benat Serat perform the first
and third
Sundays of each month at the Embarcadero.
