Woman of Vision
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Growing up in Saskatchewan, Jocelyn Chouinard dreamed of becoming a dancer.
“I remember dressing in leotards and little tops…and prancing around the house doing Swan Lake until I wore a huge groove in my mother’s record,” says the 50-year-old Calgary resident with a child’s remorseful smile.
Today, Chouinard is an internationally acclaimed dancer, but her specialty is quite a cultural leap from Swan Lake.
For more than 30 years, Chouinard has performed and taught the ancient art of belly dancing, or as she prefers to call it, Middle Eastern dance.
She was first inspired by the mystical moves of the dance while attending the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Since then, she has traveled around the world, including stops in Egypt, Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia, to perfect her technique.
In 2000, Chouinard was honoured with an international award as Choreographer of the Year.
Chouinard, who performs under the name Hadia, says there is more to the dance than what most of us are familiar with.
“It’s so much more than just one dancer in a little outfit running around between tables.”
After two years of planning, Chouinard organized the Festival of the Nile, held last August long weekend in Calgary. She brought together several top Middle Eastern dancers for full to capacity workshops and sold-out performances.
It was the first festival of its kind in Canada and Chouinard says the response from participants was overwhelming.
“What they took away from it was a much deeper understanding of Middle Eastern music, the history, the dance, the culture, the costuming. It was a very well-rounded perspective.”
In her rich, deep, singer’s voice, Chouinard explains how Middle Eastern dance has given her a new personal perspective.
With its fluid movements and flowing costumes of chiffon and jewels, she says the dance has allowed her to embrace her femininity. Chouinard believes that’s difficult for many women today, because of what she calls confusion between male and female roles.
“I think the down side of (emancipation) is we tend to look a little more derogatorily at some of the softer aspects of being women.”
In 1992, she went back to school to become a registered massage therapist. When she’s not touring or teaching dance, she works with patients and teaches post-graduate classes in massage therapy.
Finding success in two careers has proven that Chouinard has followed her own advice.
“If you really love what you are doing and you work really hard and you believe in it from deep inside, there’s nothing that can stop you.”