PHOTO CREDIT: Above photo by John Rickman Photography, San Jose, California.

After I exhausted these magazines, I might purchase one glazed and one chocolate donut for a nickel each at the bakery and go to the front section of the store, overflowing with comic books, a little retreat center for kids while their mothers shopped. I would focus on the female heroines in these comics because of their mystifying ability to have fabulous full-bodied hair, ever-changing in length-enormous pony tails floating high atop underlying hair which didn't appear to be thinned by such partitioning. In my trusting child's brain, I thought these drawings indicated how hair ought to be. About fifteen years later, I would begin to reenact these comic book cuties-as a belly dancer.

My first metamorphosis as a dancer was to acquire a curly perm. It would make me look much more spirited, assured the Pasadena stylist, who was Armenian and played tambourine. In my chin-length frizzy halo, I made my stage debut. The curls lasted a couple of months, but the stylist had neglected to mention that the perm would fry my hair. Destroy it. So in one of my more unlikely hair maneuvers, I had it cut short, the kind of style that looks nice if you blow-dry it every day.

I didn't think this sleek short 'do would do me as a dancer, but luckily I had connected with a delightful new mentor, recently moved to Pasadena from Chicago. She was a master with wigs and makeup and false eyelashes and was able to make me look impressively unrecognizable. Professional, I would say. Only thing, it didn't work so well when I had to effect this transformation myself. An eyelash, to my horror, sweated off mid-performance, abruptly ending any future efforts to make my eyes look as soulful as hers.

I tried the wig with blended bangs and without. Without bangs, I was gripped by anxiety that the wig was somehow slipping backwards on my head. With bangs, I feared the difference in texture between the bouncy wig hair and my flat wet bangs would surely expose my deception.

The photo to the right of Thea wearing a wig for a performance in Balboa Park was taken in October 1993.

Click on the photo to the right to see the image in more detail.

I tried growing my hair long again when I moved to San Diego in the late seventies, adding tiny gold streaks and dangly ornaments, some with sequins and feathers. When it looked drenched and ragged after a show, my face beet red, I consoled myself thinking that Ann-Margaret had once lamented similar shortcomings. Although I hadn't seen evidence of such a condition in any of her action shots.

In the late eighties, I experienced a personal belly dance Renaissance, which occasion was marked by a new-era, chemically improved curly perm. At one point, I even had it painted red. Not permanently, mind you. I was much too cautious for that, so I chose a temporary color that would wash out after ten times. But red nonetheless. Some friends were shocked by this daring statement. I felt emboldened and emblazoned and imagined that this hair color would somehow aid me to achieve more articulate hip movements. Having two redheads as siblings convinced me that this was not a genetically outrageous color choice. Ultimately, though, the chemically improved new perm fried my hair again. Destroyed it.

The photo to the right was taken in September 1992.

A marvelous new concept now presented itself. Never-heard-of-before hair extensions, sewn to a little braid of your own hair at the nape of your neck. Real hair from the orient, dyed to match your own color, and you could order one, two, or three layers. The soft-spoken proprietor of the wig store in downtown San Diego would even attach them for only about $100 (three times as much elsewhere, she assured me). Moreover, this lush mane would superbly detract from any added poundage that had mysteriously crept aboard since my frizzy perm days.

Sadly, I ruined this regal glory after about the second washing. I forgot that you couldn't shampoo it normally, swishing the suds around with abandon. My new triumph required that the suds be gingerly patted into it, something I couldn't quite manage, for the hair became impossibly matted at the critical braids. I tried this adventure twice, finding it fun while it lasted, which was on average about a month if you didn't look too closely.

This photo of Thea with hair extensions was taken around 1991.

Belatedly, I followed a suggestion given to me by a costume designer in the seventies: The genie ponytail would look great, given my long neck, crunched though it usually was. I finally purchased one and indeed found it to have magnificent posing potential. Except I had become a little livelier in my spins and danced in mortal fear that this fetching tail with its braided platform would spin off to reveal a hastily assembled, flattened bun.

Would that my follies might have taken some different direction, say toward flexibility training or weight lifting. Maybe I could now be reporting as a dance diva, a star in some exotic land. How do we predict the paths of our obsessions, much less muster the power to usher them elsewhere?

PHOTO CREDIT: The photo to the right was taken in 1994 by Judith Gil.

Increasing maturity invited me to accept the reality of my own hair, straight as can be. Well not, entirely. I would still frantically try to curl it before a show. I brought my curling iron to the Maui dance retreat, fewer years ago that I dare mention.

"Wear it straight," urged a young co-retreatant from Seattle, her faced framed by bouncy, natural brunette curls. She sounded scornful. Maybe she was just trying to impress on me the futility of it all.

This photo of Thea was taken at a ceremonial "pre-birth" shower. It portrays a beautiful sunset in Del Mar, 1995, with her real hair.

Thea became enchanted with belly dance in the mid-seventies while living in Pasadena, California. She continued to study and perform after moving to San Diego in 1978, concurrently pursuing a career as a technical writer.

Although she still maintains a lively interest in belly dance and has written articles, poems, and commentaries for several dance publications, nowadays Thea's performance goals are more focused towards music. Trained in classical violin since her childhood in Holland, she holds a degree in music from Stanford University. After graduation, she expanded her musical interests to include recorder study and performance.