I want to be a belly dancer

I want to learn how to belly dance. I want to learn how to cock my hip and wriggle my belly, arch my back and throw my arms up. I want to be ensconced in a pink silk dress with bells on my fingers, and around my waist. I do not find this demeaning at all. It's a celebration of what it means to be women, to be female, to be sexual. I stood there this afternoon, during Brooklyn's Atlantic Antic, a large street festival--- watching the dancers, and imagined myself up there on stage, writhing and whirling to the music, not earthbound in my Birkenstock sandals, my blue jeans and my cowboy hat.