Will the real spidergirl please stand up?

I got to be someone else for an afternoon.

Actually, I kind of got to be 4 completely different people: a b-girl, a member of a tribe, a snakey gothic-fusion princess, and little ol' me. That's the beauty of performing. But what I'm talking about goes a bit further--I actually changed my name for a day.

It all started when I first contacted the lovely Karen, chief putter-together of this weekend's excellent Solstice Hafla, about performing at said event; her reply to my query requested, among other things, my name "stage and/or real"... which got me thinking. I had daydreamed taking a new name many times in the past--I think everyone has, at some point--but I had never really considered or had use for a stage name before. A lot of bellydancers have them, though, and so I pondered.

Because bellydance has its roots in the East, many dancers choose exotic-sounding Arabic names, often words whose meanings have personal significance. I don't feel any special connection to that language, though, and I thought I would feel a little bit silly choosing a name that looks and sounds pretty but doesn't resonate. Besides, first I needed to decide what I wanted my name to mean.

I like spiders; I've always been fascinated by them, I've been given many spider-shaped pieces of jewelry over the years, I've even thought of making a spider the subject of my first tattoo. As a textile-hound and a knitter, I appreciate the spider's mythological presence; and, like Charlotte, I also enjoy weaving a web of words.

Now throw in the fact that my first public bellydance performance was set to "Spider-man" by Moxy Fruvous, and that, as a result of that, my youtube handle is spidergirldancer, and I think we have a winner. But I could hardly just call myself "Spider" and leave it at that, now could I?

Arachna: now there is a name I'd come to regret; waaaaaaaaay too goth for someone who wears as much colour as I do.

Something derived from the French maybe?

Araigna: sounds pretty, looks... not so much. People would probably read it somewhere in the neighbourhood of "oregano".

Let's check out the other romance languages. Italian:

Ragno: just... no.

Spanish:

Araña: hmmm, getting warmer. The "ñ" can be a bit of a pain, though, so maybe "Arania"? We'll keep that one in reserve for now.

Japanese, just for kicks.

Kumo: not bad, kind of cute, kind of anime. I almost went with that, but I wanted to make one last stop before committing.

My heritage on my mother's side is Welsh, and I have made intermittent efforts to learn the language over the last few years, with the help of BBC Wales. Now, Welsh can be very, very beautiful... but also sometimes very, very odd-looking and -sounding, so I wasn't really expecting to find a winner here, but I had to look. To my oh-so-pleasant surprise, the Welsh word for "spider" is quite lovely: Corryn.

The only problem with it is that it's easy to mistake for "Corinne", when in fact the stress falls on the first syllable: KOR-in, with that slight trilling "R" that's found in Welsh. No matter. When I perform, I am now Corryn, the weaver, who will delight and amaze you with her nimble acrobatics (ha!) and narrative spun out of dance.