Typecast no more?

By Christopher Muther
Globe Staff / October 22, 2009

After a tumultuous few years, Boston Ballet gives its image a modern makeover

In the eyes of Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet was facing an identity crisis.

The artistic director of the ballet has introduced edgier, even downright sexy programming - such as last season’s “Black and White.’’ But while Nissinen spent the past eight years pushing his company closer to the artistic edge, Bostonians still thought of the ballet as being staid purveyors of the “Nutcracker,’’ and other “museum pieces,’’ he says.

“It’s important to me that we’re not seen as a museum or a church,’’ he says, “but a living theater that relates to today’s people.’’

Enter Denise Korn. The South End-based brand strategist (and Boston Ballet fan) had been chatting with Nissinen for nearly five years about freshening the ballet’s image and changing how the organization is viewed. Her company, Korn Design, has done image-reconfiguring work for tony hotels and restaurants around the country. She was even enlisted by Northeastern University last year to rebrand the school.

“It was trapped in this corporate package for so long,’’ Korn says of the ballet. “One of our big challenges was to shift the perception of what the Boston Ballet is all about.’’

The strategy for rebranding the ballet all came down to Nissinen’s desire to make the ballet more accessible. Artistically, he’s tried to do this by staging modern dance alongside classics. The company has also introduced a new slate of dancers and survived a very disruptive move from the Citi Wang Theatre to the Opera House.

To give these changes a public face, Korn’s team created a new font for the ballet, and a new logo. Its website was completely redesigned, merchandise updated, posters oriented to feature the words “Boston Ballet’’ as the primary image, rather than pictures of dancers.

Of course, a new typeface can only do so much. Changing the ballet’s image also means getting the company out into the city and chipping away at the notion that dancers are stuffy, tutu-wearing divas. To that end, dancers served as models at a splashy fashion show last month, and they’ll model once again at a Donna Karan charity event next month. They’ve even performed the Boston Celtics half-time show. Last week, we sat down with Nissinen and Korn to talk about what it all means.

Boston Globe: Mikko, I know pretty much all arts organizations have been struggling since the economy hit the dumpster last year. Is rebranding a way to help build an audience?

Nissinen: It’s funny, our organization was thrown into a tailspin after “The Nutcracker’’ was dislocated from the Wang Theatre. It was a huge piece of our business model. We had to re-evaluate our business and go through all kinds of cuts and repositioning. It’s ironic because now the rest of the world is doing it. Last fall, when everything else fell through for everyone else, we were already putting in place the steps for recovery.

BG: Why did you feel you needed to rebrand the ballet?

Nissinen: It felt so corporate, and the environment I’ve been pushing for the organization is definitely not corporate. It was obvious that we had moved in a different direction. After we lost our venue for “The Nutcracker,’’ we didn’t have a chance to focus on rebranding. I felt that the move to the Opera House was going to be a whole new beginning for us. We also have a whole new batch of principal dancers. A really strong, new generation taking over the company at the same time. This was the opportunity to really show a whole new face.

I’ve known Denise for a while. I brought her to the attention of our previous executive director five years ago. I wanted her to work for us at that point. In hindsight, I’m glad it didn’t happen then, because this was going to be better. It is repositioning the ballet on the cultural and social map in Boston.

Korn: This is the culmination of two years of Mikko and I trying to figure out how to introduce this to the city. It’s not about a logo. Sure, that’s the icon. This is taking the DNA of the company and not letting it be buried, but celebrating it outwardly.

BG: Denise, how did you take the edict that these bold changes were happening and translate that?

Korn: The typeface that we used for the end result was hand drawn. It’s called Boston Ballet Sans. It’s a derivative of a typeface called Futura. Which is a classical-modern font. The way that we treat it is very clean and much more contemporary, but it’s still respectful of its roots. We really wanted to show that there really is nothing about the ballet that’s corporate and stuck in a box.

Nissinen: It needed to capture the classical and modern. We do the big classical ballets, but we’re also the only major company that is making a major commitment to modern dance.

Korn: I think the ballet really needed to put a stake in the ground and say, “This is happening here, you need to take note.’’ Because no one else would do that for them. One of our big challenges was to shift the perception of what ballet is all about. It’s a relatively small market. There’s a lot of competition for entertainment dollars, and there’s this huge sports presence here.

Nissinen: That’s another reason why I thought this was important. People in New York know what’s going on with the Boston Ballet better than the people in Boston. Our international tour was amazing. We’re getting that external validation, and I want to bring that external validation back home.

BG: Dancers from the Boston Ballet acted as fashion models at a show at the Liberty Hotel last month called Fashionably Late. I get the feeling that the night was the company’s coming out party, its debutante ball for rebranding.

Korn: We wanted to have a coming out party.

Nissinen: It was the launch for the new image, and a new era. We also wanted to embrace an audience which is not just our traditional audience. We wanted to put the ballet in front of a crowd that’s not as familiar and show the relevancy.

BG: Tell me a bit how rebranding works.

Korn: The process is about discovery, and gaining an authentic understanding about what the DNA is of a certain message or a certain idea. When you’re branding fashion, it’s very different from when you’re branding a pharmaceutical company. We had no idea what this would look like when we started. I just knew that it needed to feel super contemporary and edgy, but not be disrespectful to the past. I honestly believe that the ballet was stuck inside the wrong image.

BG: What is the ultimate goal of the rebranding?

Korn: We worked on this for over a year. The process of getting to the end result was very deep within the organization. There’s the three pillars of the organization: On the stage, in the community, and in the school. We really communicated with all the constituencies throughout the organization to make sure that whatever we ended up with would suit and serve. We have this very robust community online now. The company also has its own ticket sales, which is huge, and we have a platform online to tell the story that is organic and changing and very image-based. The goal wasn’t to make it look pretty and package it nice. The goal was to move the dial on perception and to get people to connect and feel that the organization is open to receive them.

BG: There are other arts organizations around the country that are rebranding. Is rebranding important for going after younger patrons?

Nissinen: I think that is often one of the reasons. People want to refresh to remain relevant. You don’t do it alone with rebranding. You do it with your programming and ideas. This is a communication tool that is hopefully aligned exactly with the product. If you have a stuffy product and you unveil a great new logo, it’s not going to change anything. I think it’s a great tool, but it needs to be rooted in the philosophy of the organization.

Korn: Before we were doing this, I went to Mikko’s performances and I kept saying to him, “This is so magic’’ and “This is so world class.’’ I believed in the product. It was killing me. I told him to let it out and set it free.

Nissinen: For me, there was part of the old logo that left me thinking “What are we, a dancing bank’’?

Source: Boston.com

An Introduction to Belly Dance

Published: February 03, 2007
Writer: Nadia De Leon

Authentic Belly Dance is not the deceptive immoral dance of seduction that western Hollywood-influenced stereotypes would have us believe. Belly Dance has been misrepresented by cabaret dancers and incorrectly portrayed to the public by the media. In reality, Belly Dance is a natural, earthly, beneficial, enjoyable and completely ethical dance that honors women and femininity. The proper term for this dance, which can both be a highly disciplined art as well as a form of casual exercise and entertainment, is Oriental Dance. The first American teachers disliked the word "belly dance" because of its wrong sexual connotation and focus on the women's torsos and not on their dancing technique. In her article Roots the well-known and respected teacher Morocco (Carolina Vargas Dinicu), who has more than thirty years studying, performing and teaching Belly Dance, states: "To use the disgusting misnomer 'belly dance' is not only incorrect, it is an insult equivalent to calling Flamenco 'cockroach killing'"[1]. Nowadays, the term Belly Dance has been accepted by many teachers and reclaimed by new dancers because the body part where the movements are focused is, indeed, the belly. And this has nothing to do with a seductive goal; in fact, it has to do with fertility.

Many dance scholars support a theory that places Belly Dance as the oldest dance in the history of humanity, stating that it originated as a fertility ritual thousands of years ago. They use as evidence for their theory 17,000 years-old rock engravings found in southern Italy, Greece and Egypt, as well as famous fertility goddesses/ women sculptures such as the Venus of Willendorf. Furthermore, some dance researchers, such as dancer, writer and editor Daniella Gioseffi in her book Earth Dancing, claim that Belly Dancing was originally a ritual form for the Mother Earth Goddess in primal matriarchal or polytheistic societies where the dance honored femininity and was passed down from mothers to daughters.

Another important theory about the origin of Belly Dance is the one based on its childbirth facilitation and training capabilities. Several dancers including the famed dance ethnologist La Meri, who traveled extensively throughout the Middle East for research and training purposes in the '20s and '30s, claim to have witnessed rituals in which a woman in labor is surrounded by other women who perform Belly Dancing in a sort of hypnotizing ritual for moral support.

Belly Dancing arrived to America as an imported cabaret spectacle referred to as Danse du ventre, which originated in the Middle East during the colonization of Africa by European countries. Referring to this degradation process, the Armenian dancer

Armen Ohanian states in her book The Dancer of Shamahka:

Thus in Cairo one evening I saw, with sick incredulous eyes, one of our most sacred dances degraded into a bestiality horrible and revolting. It is our poem of the mystery and pain of motherhood, which all true Asiatic men watch with reverence and humility, in the far corners of Asia where the destructive breath of the Occident has not yet penetrated. In this olden Asia, which has kept the dance in its primitive purity, it represents maternity, the mysterious conception of life, the suffering and the joy with which a new soul is brought in the world. Could any man born of woman contemplate this most holy subject, expressed in an art so pure and so ritualistic as our eastern dance, with less than profound reverence? Such is our Asiatic veneration of motherhood, that there are countries and tribes whose most sacred oath is sworn upon the stomach, because it is from this sacred cup that humanity has issued. But the spirit of the Occident had touched this holy dance, and it became the horrible 'danse du ventre' I heard the lean Europeans chuckling, I saw lascivious smiles upon even the lips of Asiatics, and I fled.

Even today in some Middle Eastern regions that remain unaffected by the influence of Western ways of thinking, women dance in a circle around a mother in labor to induce her to repeat the movements and to give her the psychological support showed in the live-giving gift in every woman's destiny. In the informal and familial settings of some Muslim societies, women still gather by themselves in a separate location to dance to the rhythms of the drums, have fun and interact. This traditional form of Belly Dance is called Raks-sharki. Nevertheless, in most of the Middle East the rise of Political Islam has led to more puritanical attitudes in general. Dancers who appear in public, dancing in front of men who are not family to them contradict orthodox Islamic values. As a result, the widely held notion that professional dancers are prostitutes is being reinforced through the Arab countries, from Afghanistan to Morocco. In Egypt the rise of Political Islam is creating a backlash against Belly Dance. By law, in the country that names itself as the place where Belly Dance was born, these dancers cannot dance in television, and police monitors live performances to ensure that the dancer's skirt ends below the knee and that the navel is covered, even if only with transparent material.[2]

These attitudes might sound opposite to our values of freedom and free will, but they are actually understandable given Arab religious and cultural values. Therefore, what I find strange is that here in the U.S. dancing Belly Dance could be a cause to suffer the weight of many prejudices. Dance should be respected as a universal language that allows us to better understand the cultures of others. The fact is, it is impossible to even try understanding cultures different to ours, or widen our concepts in general, if we do not start with an open mind that does not judge dances by the amount of clothes wore by the dancers instead of the cultural meaning attached to them. Once again, the dancer Morocco states this indignation in wonderful words in her article Roots:

When I first came into Oriental dance (...), I was drawn by the beauty of its music and movements and gave no thought to the possibility that it might be misinterpreted by ignorant or misinformed viewers. Innocent that I was, I assumed that the grace of a skilled dancer was sufficient to prove the beauty and legitimacy of this ancient art form. How wrong I was! I've lost count of the times that an erroneous and degrading value judgment of my morality and worthiness was made, based on (...) previous performances of those who, in every profession, cater to the lowest common denominator.[3]

The truth is that Belly dance does not only have many physiological benefits (including good posture, muscular strength, coordination, cardiovascular fitness, eases menstrual pains, improves circulation and digestion, and releases tension), it also has several psychological benefits. Most importantly, it improves self-image and confidence, which is a very important benefit, especially for young women. Belly Dance lets us get in contact with our body and accept it as it is. Belly Dance makes any thin or overweight woman enjoy feminine dancing. This acceptance of ourselves in front of the mirror image as much as in front of other people is more easily achieved in an "only girls" atmosphere. That's why many Belly Dance teachers, including myself, don't even aloud men in their studios. Second, Belly Dance also develops teamwork and a deep feeling of sisterhood among the members of a "dancing troupe". Tribal Belly Dance is danced in couples or larger groups where dance is improvised by the "cue-er", who is the woman on the front left corner. This title is shared because of the rotation of positions, resulting in a group dynamic in which the higher level of team work is reached with the synchronicity of the dancers.

Belly Dance can be a way of life, or something a woman does "just for kicks every other Friday night", but it is always beneficial to the women who practice it. Belly Dance has a way of seducing us, women, into the quest for the light of our own feminine identity, as well as constructing a place of belonging for that identity, in history, in society, regardless of the time, place and culture we come from. Belly Dance invokes and evokes the universal energy of womanhood from the astral collective consciousness into our striking present, into our sweat and skin, the tips of our fingers, and the rhythm of our hearts beating life.

[1] Vargas Dinicu, Carolina (Morocco), Roots, Habibi Vol.5 No.12

[2] Nieuwkerk, Karin van, A trade like any other: female singers and dancers in Egypt, Austin : University of Texas Press, 1995.

[3] Vargas Dinicu, Carolina (Morocco), Roots, Habibi Vol.5 No.12

Source: Associated Content

Sensuous Shimmy Faces Jab and Jostle

Dance was an intrinsic part of the culture of the ancient Egyptians, with people of different social classes enjoying music and dancing.


By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Special to Weekend Review
Published: June 13, 2008


To the West, it is the belly dance. To Middle Easterners, it is raqs sharqi or the oriental dance. Whatever the name, the dance continues to be popular worldwide despite changes over the centuries in its form and perception.

There has been much debate as to when and where this form of art originated. Many researchers date it to Pharaonic Egypt, citing inscriptions on temples of dances performed during religious rituals.

Dance was an intrinsic part of the culture of the ancient Egyptians, with people of different social classes enjoying music and dancing.

Labourers worked in rhythmic motion to songs and percussion and street dancers entertained passers-by, historians say.

Some researchers, however, argue that the belly dance originated in Greece and came to Egypt when Alexander the Great (356-323BC) built the coastal city of Alexandria. Others trace it to northwestern India and Uzbekistan.

Apparently looking for a compromise, some other theorists say the belly dance has different origins, referring to its diversity of styles.

Because of this ambiguity, the dance has come to be scorned by some people and admired by others.

From the Middle East to the US and Australia, the belly dance has become a popular performing art as well as a mode of self-expression and entertainment.

Classes teaching the dance continue to be conducted in many parts of the globe.

In Egypt, where the belly dance has thrived over the years, it is popular among foreign visitors and locals alike. Egypt boasts the world’s best-known dancers.

“Despite restrictions triggered by a revival of Islamism in this predominantly Muslim country, the belly dance is still a major item and attraction in most wedding parties,” says Khalil Sadek, a folk-arts researcher. “This art is a form of self-expression and a way of exercising.”

In recent years, gymnasiums have sprung up in major Egyptian cities, offering classes for women interested in learning it.

“We have a high demand particularly in the summer, when girls do not go to schools and mothers have enough time,” says Hossna Jamil, an instructor at a gym in northern Cairo.

“Despite the scorn poured by Islamists and conservatives on the belly dance, it is still popular with the local women, who want to perform it for their husbands or on happy occasions such as weddings,” Jamil says. “It also helps them to be in good shape.”

She says the belly dance is beneficial to both the mind and the body.

“Dancing boosts mental health and helps increase flexibility and strength. It activates blood circulation and makes the body more supple and controllable. It also rids one of feelings of fatigue and depression.”

Many belly dance styles emphasise muscular “isolations”, and enhance the ability to move various muscles or muscle groups independently, experts say. Belly dancing, they add, tones the arms and improves flexibility.

As a form of exercise, it can burn as many calories as jogging, swimming or riding an exercise bike. “Belly dancing is less strenuous than lifting weights and more uplifting than working out on a bike at the gym,” said researcher Sadek.

There are two forms of belly dance. The first is raqs baladi (a local dance), which is generally performed during festive occasions such as weddings and other social gatherings for fun and celebration.

The second form — a more theatrical version — is called raqs sharqi (oriental dance). Like raqs baladi, raqs sharqi is performed by both male and female dancers.

According to the Wikipedia encyclopaedia, the exact origin of this dance form is actively debated among enthusiasts, especially because of the limited academic research on the topic.

Much of the research has been done by artistes attempting to understand their dance’s origins.

However, the often-overlooked fact that most dancing in the Middle East occurs in the social context rather than the more visible and glamorous context of professional nightclub dancers has led to widespread misunderstanding of the dance’s true nature and has given rise to many conflicting theories about its origins.

The best-known theory is that it descended from a religious dance. This idea is usually the one referred to in mainstream articles on the topic, and has enjoyed a large amount of publicity, according to Wikipedia.

In the West, raqs sharqi was popularised during the Romantic Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, inspired by the Orientalist view of harem life in the Ottoman Empire (1288-1922).

Although there were performers of this type of dance at the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia, it was not until the 1893 World Fair that it gained national attention.

At the fair, there were authentic dancers from Middle Eastern and north African countries, including Syria, Turkey and Algeria, but the dancers in the Egyptian Theatre of the Street in Cairo exhibit gained the most attention.

With belly dancing generating admiration bordering on a craze in the US, Thomas Alva Edison made several films focusing on the dancers in the 1890s.

The list included Turkish Dance and Ella Lola. One of the earliest films made on belly dancing was Fatima’s Dance, a short that drew criticism for its “immodest” dancing, and was eventually censored under public pressure.


Some Western women began to learn from and imitate the dances of the Middle East, which at the time was colonised by Western powers.

The famed US dancer Ruth St Denis (1877-1968) also engaged in Middle East-inspired dancing, but her approach was to put “oriental” dancing on the stage in the context of ballet, her goal being to lift all dances to a respectable art form.

Egyptian belly dancing was among the first styles to be witnessed by Westerners. During Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 invasion of Egypt, his troops encountered the ghawazee tribe.

The ghawazee (itinerant dancers) made their living as professional entertainers. At first, the French were repelled by their heavy jewellery and hair, and found their dancing “barbaric”, but were soon lured by the hypnotic nature of their movements, according to Wikipedia.

The classical belly dance is still popular in the West. Still, many dancers have created fusion forms such as the American tribal style, inspired by the folkloric dance styles of India, the Middle East and north Africa and even flamenco.

Dancers in the United States, while respecting the origins of the belly dance, apparently innovate to address their requirements.

In fact, many women in the US and Europe view belly dancing as a tool for empowerment and a boost for bodily, mental and spiritual faculties.

Issues of body image, self-esteem, healing from sexual violation and self-fulfilment are regularly tackled in belly dancing classes there.

The interest in belly dance has given rise to diverse names for the same simple movements and the need to have a “style” as instructors try to accentuate distinction and differences in their ways of teaching.

A recent movement in the US called the American Tribal Style Belly Dance (ATS), represents everything from folklore-inspired dances to the fusion of ancient dance techniques from north India, the Middle East and Africa.

Launched in the early 1990s by Carolena Nericcio, founder of FatChanceBellydance in San Francisco, ATS has a format consisting of a vocabulary of steps designed to be performed improvisationally in a lead-follow manner.

Pure ATS is performed in a group, typically with a chorus of dancers using zills, or finger cymbals, as accompaniment.

The music can be folkloric or modern and the costume is heavily layered, evoking traditions of one or all of its cultural influences.

Multicultural trends that have shaped Western and US belly dancing are still at work.

Constantly evolving, this dance keeps absorbing a blend of influences — modern fashion, film and television imagery, the world of rock and hip hop, underground subcultures, and many others.

Like the United States, Canada also has a thriving belly-dance community with many different styles ranging from raqs sharqi to gypsy.

Many schools teach the dance in Canada, which has produced some of the finest belly dancers in the world, including Yasmina Ramzy.

She is the driving force behind the International Belly Dance Conference of Canada, regarded as the country’s largest belly dance gathering.

Belly dancing is equally popular in other Western countries, including Britain and Australia.

While social dancing on certain occasions such as family functions is accepted and even encouraged, many people in Middle Eastern and North African societies frown upon the performances of professional dancers in revealing costumes and dismiss them as morally objectionable.

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that such performances should be banned altogether.

Last month, Dina, Egypt’s celebrated belly dancer, drew scathing criticism from members of parliament and the media for performing at a school prom.

The country’s official TV broadcaster stopped showing belly dance performances two decades ago.

Since the early 1980s, big-name belly dancers in Egypt have been quitting the profession, deciding to “repent”.

The list includes Sahar Hamadi, Hala Al Safi and Azza Sherif. Others, such as legendary Najwa Fouad, have either retired or shifted their sights to TV drama and cinema.

The heyday of this art form in Egypt was in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Emad Eddin Street, Egypt’s version of Broadway in those times, was famous for its nightclubs where top as well as not-so-well-known dancers performed.

During those years, King Farouk, Egypt’s last monarch, reportedly hired the Russian ballet instructor Ivanova to teach his daughters.

Ivanova later taught Egypt’s iconic belly dancer Samia Jamal how to use the veil to improve her arm carriage.

Most Egyptian dancers would use the veil as an opening prop, which they discarded within the first few minutes of their routines.

In Egypt, dancers also wear full, beaded dresses to do folkloric and baladi (local) performances. Such outfits are also used by the American and European artistes for folk dances.

However, in Egypt these dresses are designed according to the dance and the tradition. Western dancers have more freedom and may choose freely according to taste and imagination, experts say.

Tahya Karyouka, one of Egypt’s most talented dancers in the first half of the 20th century, is remembered for popularising baladi dance in her movies.

Soheir Zaki and Najwa Fouad dominated the belly dance scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Other dancers such as Fifi Abdou and Lucy rose to fame in Egypt and far beyond in the 1980s and 1990s. Now they devote most of their time to acting on TV.

In recent years, Dina has been the most famous name in Egyptian belly dancing, where the art form is now dominated by foreign performers from as far as Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

In an apparent reaction to protests from local dancers, Egypt imposed a ban on foreign belly dancers in 2003. The ban was, however, lifted a year later.

There are 150 licensed foreign belly dancers in Egypt, according to official figures. Insiders, nonetheless, confirm that the figure is far higher because of the low fees requested by the foreign performers compared with their Egyptian counterparts.

A famous Egyptian dancer would demand $10,000 a night compared with $500 by a foreigner.

Egyptian agents started to hire foreign belly dancers in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Originally ballet dancers, the newcomers from Eastern Europe were quick to acquire the skills of raqs sharqi.

They soon proved to be serious rivals to the local performers in nightclubs and in programmes hosted at fashionable hotels in Cairo and thriving resort towns such as Hurghada.


Foreign dancers, such as Asmhan of Argentina, the Ukrainian Sally and the Brazilian Camellia, are now big names among Egypt’s raqs sharqi performers.

In an apparent bid to enhance their allure and renown, these foreign dancers have taken purely oriental names.

Belly dancing consists of movements that are executed throughout the body.

The focus of the dance is the pelvic and hip area. It is, fundamentally a solo improvisational dance with a unique dance vocabulary that is fluidly integrated with the music’s rhythm.

The most admired performers of raqs sharqi are those who can best project their emotions through dance, even if their dance is made up of simple movements.

To some experts, belly dancing is not an inaccurate term. They point out that all parts of the body are involved in the dance and the most important part is the hips.

The dancer’s aim, they argue, is to convey to the audience the emotion and rhythm of the music.

Egyptian-style raqs sharqi is based on baladi, a style honed by legends such as Samia Jamal and Tahya Karyouka in the 1940s until the 1960s, deemed to be golden era of the belly dance in Egypt.

Its popularity was enhanced through local musicals.
In Egypt, three main forms of the traditional dance are associated with the belly dance: baladi (local), sha’abi (folksy) and sharqi (oriental).

The Egyptian forms of belly dance are rivalled by the Syrian, Lebanese and the Turkish patterns.

Turkish belly dancing may have been influenced by the Roma people as much as by the Egyptian as well as the Syrian and Lebanese forms, having developed from the Ottoman dance to the oriental dance known today worldwide.

Turkish law does not impose restrictions on dancers’ movements and costumes, unlike Egypt, where dancers are barred from performing floor work and certain pelvic movements.

With the surge in Islamism and the foreigners’ invasion of the trade in Egypt and some other Arab countries, experts are worried about the future of the belly dance.

“Now everyone who has nothing to do can claim she is a dancer,” Fouad told the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat.

“Russians and Poles are now dominating the scene as female singers take up dance as well.”

Earlier this year, Fouad was on the jury of Hezy Ya Nawam (Wiggle, Chick), a contest produced by the Lebanese TV channel LBC to spot new talent in belly dancing.

The producers said their key aim was to protect this genre from extinction. Ironically, the contest drew competitors from France and Ukraine.

Ramadan Al Sherbini is a journalist based in Cairo.


Source: Gulf News Archive

Danza Voluminosa, a Cuban ballet troupe

Plus-size dancers are crowd pleasers
By MIKE WILLIAMS
Published Tuesday, May 27, 2008

HAVANA — Barbara Paula looks nothing like a classical ballerina, but when she speaks of dancing on the stage, her face glows with confidence.

"I always wanted to be a dancer, but I was heavy and never had the opportunity," said Paula, 30, who weighs 275 pounds. "Becoming a dancer has changed my life 120 percent. It's given me confidence and helped me emotionally."

Paula is a member of Havana's Danza Voluminosa, a group of plus-sized women who have become a well-established and respected troupe on the Cuban arts circuit. Their performances draw large audiences and favorable reviews, challenging stereotypes about beauty and the arts.

Founder and choreographer Juan Miguel Mas, 42, came up with the idea in 1996, drawing on his own experience as a heavy-set dancer entranced by modern dance.

"The first performance was received with a lot of expectation and reservations," he said. "The house was full and some people laughed, but others applauded. At the end, there was a big debate about whether it was appropriate for the stage and whether it was aesthetic or not. But we have continued, and we are breaking down barriers."

The group has become quite popular in Cuba, its members' girth something of an anomaly in a country where food is expensive, rationed and at times scarce. Members of the six-woman troupe weigh between 200 and 300 pounds. Their art is also experimental, somewhat unusual in a country where many artists hold closer to classical and indigenous forms.

Mas scripts dances that follow classical themes, infusing touches from African, modern, jazz and Caribbean dance. He also creates plots around the challenges and discrimination faced by the overweight, who — as in other countries around the world — often endure exclusion, teasing and insults from a young age.

And sometimes the performances are whimsical, including a parody of the classic Swan Lake.

"The idea is to expand dance and culture, creating respect for diversity," he said.

While most modern professional dance troupes are filled with lithe, muscular bodies swirling and twirling around and above the stage, the movements of the heavy dancers are, by necessity, more earth-bound.

"It's slower," Mas said. "There are gestures from pantomime but also some from ballet, depending on the characteristics of the play. The aim is to always make an intense visual presentation."

Mas says he has heard of other troupes of obese dancers in places as far as Moscow and London, but most seem to have put on a limited number of performances and none has continued for long or reached a professional status akin to what Danza Voluminosa has achieved in Cuba.

The group has official sanction, conducting practices and performances in the National Theater, and Mas receives a government salary for his work with the troupe and other activities.

But the dancers typically work regular jobs, squeezing in rehearsals and performances around the demands of their daily lives.

"We practice twice a week most of the year, but before a performance I lose track of how many hours we rehearse," said Paula, a homemaker. "After we perform, I feel such an excitement and happiness."

Expanding from his work with the overweight dancers, Mas also runs workshops and seminars, sometimes for visiting international groups.

Some of his work combines yoga and dance, and some of his seminars use dance as therapy, helping build self-esteem.

But the Danza Voluminosa troupe remains his main focus, an unexpected success that has been accepted with enthusiasm.

"This January we shared the stage with three thin dancers in a production called Alliances," Mas said. "We looked for alliances between these types of bodies, in the end creating one body with the bodies of six dancers. It was a call for respect of our differences, not just between body types."

With more than 30 dancers trained over the past 11 years, Mas keeps his regular company at six performers and enjoys no shortage of interest from women wanting to join the group. He also has no problems scheduling performances.

"Most of our dancers are afraid to appear in public the first time, but their confidence grows when they see the audience's reactions," he said. "And while that first audience laughed at the idea, now it's different. People come now to the theater with expectations to see a serious work. It's serious and professional."

Source: Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Danza Voluminosa, a Cuban ballet troupe, fat dancers win respect
Published: 29 July 2007

Formed a decade ago by Juan Miguel Mas, this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raising the self-esteem of heavyset people.

The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 286 pounds, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence. Her body is a riotous celebration of weight - of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.

"I always liked to dance," said the dancer, Mailin Daza, who weighs the equivalent of about 130 kilograms. "I wanted to dance in the classical ballet, but my mother told me fat girls could not dance. I always dreamed of being a ballerina. With this group I feel I am a ballerina."

While the troupe is not the first to employ larger dancers, its popularity comes as a surprise in a country known for its muscular, lean dancers in every genre from classical ballet to salsa.

Mas, a choreographer and dancer who moves like a pampered cat and weighs 136 kilograms, acknowledges that he often uses the stereotypical humor of his dancers' proportions to bring in audiences. The troupe is well known for its parody of Swan Lake and it engages in hilarious renditions of the Can-Can.

But Mas and his troupe are serious about dance, and once the laughter dies down, they are capable of performing moving pieces that drill into the universal themes of love, death and erotic longing. The audience forgets the joke and begins to feel the dance, he said.

"We use humor to get the public in," he said. "Then we can hit them with something stronger."

Mas, 42, also choreographs pieces on themes like the tragedy of gluttony, love between obese couples, the prejudice that fat people face and the psychic toll of obesity.

One of the troupe's recent successes is called "Sweet Death" and tells the story of a woman, rejected by her family, who tries to commit suicide by eating huge quantities of candy. The work has surreal elements, the dancers using their bodies to create furniture in the performance. Another piece, "The Macabre Dinner," explores gluttony.

Mas says it would be a mistake to think that his work is intended to glorify or sanctify obesity, or even to deliver a moralistic message that one should not discriminate against the overweight. Rather, he says, the troupe's art tries to face the reality of obesity while giving larger people a chance to express themselves through dance, a chance they are denied from youth in most dance classes. "Although we are obese and dance, we are against obesity," Mas said. "We are always trying to lose weight."

But something strange happens when the troupe takes the stage. Classical and modern dance often give the impression of human beings flying, freed of the earth. The female dancers are like nymphs, the men like Greek statues. They soar, spin, leap and reach for the sky.

Because of the size of the dancers in Mas's troupe, however, the work of Danza Voluminosa conveys something more earthy and human. Fat people move differently, he said, and the choreography must change.

"We are more mountainous," he said with a smile.

The dancers' movements are often slower than those of their slender colleagues. These dancers favor limbs swinging in pendulous arcs and wavelike motions that seem to ripple through their bodies. They seem to grip the floor rather than to abandon it, keeping a low center of gravity, often crouching or dancing while kneeling or lying on the ground.

And when their dance becomes frenetic, the sheer weight of the dancers thudding across the stage conveys an excitement akin to a stampede, something out of control and wild, yet made of human flesh and blood. It can be a riveting sight.

Mas says he has borrowed from the work of Martha Graham and José Limón but also incorporates moves from African dance, jazz dance and the folkloric dance of the Caribbean, often with West African roots. "I use whatever I can," he said.

For the dancers, working with Mas has changed their lives. Several said they suffered from constant embarrassment and guilt over their weight before they began dancing. But dancing has taught them to accept, if not love, their bodies. They also say that after a performance they feel self-esteem that is foreign to most them, having suffered from the gibes of their peers since childhood.

Barbara Paula, 29, weighs about 125 kilograms and has been dancing with the troupe for five years.

She says it still feels strange at times to be on stage, as if she is constantly discovering the potential beauty hidden inside her body, which for years was a source of shame for her.

"It's something new," she said. "I don't have this complex anymore that because we are obese, we cannot dance, we cannot walk in the street."

The reaction of audiences here in Cuba has been immensely positive. The government now lets the troupe practice and perform in the National Theater of Cuba.

Mas now receives a state salary to continue his work. The dancers who have been with the troupe for years say that the when the group started in November 1996, they faced ridicule and laughter. But these days people take them seriously.

"We have always had those who laugh at first, but by the end of the show there is a standing ovation," said Xiomara González, a 43-year-old mother of two who gave up her job to dance and weighs about 80 kilograms. "And this is a beautiful thing, a very beautiful thing."

Source: Cuba News Headlines
(Original Source: By James McKinley Jr., International Herald Tribune)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A montage of clips from Danza Voluminosa's performances

Actors' Guild Threatens to Penalize Male Belly Dancers

Published: 11 May 2008
Written by: Mona Madkour, AlArabiya.net


Renowned male dancer Tito Seif performs at a Giza hotel

CAIRO: As tourist season approaches, Egypt's professional belly dancing association has reported a surge in the number of professional belly dancer applications, including for the first time, from men.

The men who applied for permits already work as belly dancers on an unofficial basis, the head of the permit committee of the Egyptian Actors' Syndicate, Sami Nawar, told AlArabiya.net, adding that many have feminine- or gay-sounding names.

Nawar said the syndicate – which he descried as a "respectable" organization – would reject applications from men on the basis that it violates the social norms of the country, and said it would penalize male dancers.

"The syndicate will never encourage them [male dancers] to become part of the social fabric and will not play a role in creating controversy about how religion accepts what those men do and wear," Nawar said.

Male belly dancing, a centuries-old Egyptian tradition, is making a comeback despite suppression by government and religious officials due to its association with homosexuality, news agency Bloomberg reported.

Male dancers were in fact preferred by 19th-century Cairenes who thought women should not to expose themselves, it said, adding that from 1834 to 1849, women dancers –ghawazee -- were banned from the city.

Male belly dancing all but disappeared in the 1950s during the reign of Gamal Abdul Nasser because it smacked of monarchical decadence.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

Source: Al Arabiya News Channel

The Belly of the Beast: Belly Dancing as a new form of Orientalism

by Fatemeh Fakhraie
Published: November 6, 2007

It’s time to set the record straight, everyone. So here it is: belly dancing is not a significant facet of Middle Eastern culture. It’s a dance, not a lifestyle (not according to most Middle Eastern people, anyway).

I’ve had one too many people ask me if I belly dance when they hear about my religion or ethnicity. Belly dancing is something that is present in some form of another in most Middle Eastern cultures, but is not really a part of our identity. And I assure you, nowhere in the Holy Qur’an does it say, “Thou shalt belly dance.” But because of Hollywood’s old Orientalist glamour, images of belly dancing have become almost synonymous with the Middle East.

I can’t help but get irritated when someone assumes that s/he and I automatically have something in common because s/he belly dances. The truth of a real-live Middle Eastern woman belly dancing seems to validate all those silly images that come into one’s head about spangly costumes and the Dance of the Seven Veils. Belly dancing has a host of sexualized and savage images attached to it, and if Middle Eastern/Muslim women confess to belly dancing (for exercise, as a career, for fun, or whatever), those images get attached to us, and we no longer have individual thoughts or lifestyles. We don’t take care of our parents or our children, we don’t have jobs or have opinions about health care reform, we just belly dance. Like it’s all we do, all day. This is why it’s insulting when someone thinks s/he knows what it’s like to be a Middle Eastern/Muslim woman because s/he’s taken a belly dancing class or read a book about it. The image of a Middle Eastern woman belly dancing seems to take away from our identity: it erases who we really are, our different nationalities and ethnicities, our emotions, our day-to-day existence.

Now, let me assure you: my problem isn’t with the dance itself. Belly dancing is a great way to connect with one’s sensuality, to exercise, and to appreciate the body that God gave you. Nor is my problem with non-Middle Eastern women (or men) belly dancing (or with Middle Eastern people dancing).

What bothers me is the adoption of a caricatured Middle Eastern identity through coin-bedazzled bras and Middle Eastern stage names like “Amina” or “Vashti.” If you’re a non-Middle Eastern performer, why give yourself a Middle Eastern stage name? What’s wrong with a name that reflects your own ethnicity or interests? Is it not “ethnic” or “exotic” enough? Besides, how would you feel if someone else used the name your parents gave you (that perhaps also belonged to your grandmother or aunt) as a stage name for an act that most people in your culture consider shameful if done publicly? (Cultural lesson: in most parts of the Middle East, belly dancing is often a cover for illicit activities.)

Similarly, dance troupe names like “Desert Queens” or “Daughters of Scheherazade” serve the same exoticizing purpose when these troupes are full of non-Middle Eastern women set in a non-Middle Eastern setting (like Austin, Texas, for example, which hosted a Belly Dancing Convention last July).

I take offense at the presentation of Middle Eastern “culture” through things like transparent veils, coin necklaces, and henna tattoos because reducing the Middle Eastern experience to some jingly coins and a scimitar takes the humanity right out of us. Elements of Middle Eastern/Muslim stereotypes are irreparably attached to the use of swords, snakes, and veils. These props serve to reinforce the idea of Muslim/Middle Eastern women as dangerous, sexually arousing, sexually submissive, and just plain different from women in the West.

Performers (Middle Eastern or non-Middle Eastern) highlight these images when they (Middle Eastern or non-Middle Eastern) balance swords on their heads and give themselves henna tattoos. The inclusion of these props is often used to authenticate a Middle Eastern experience, making the performance or venue more like the “Mysterious Orient,” in which Middle Eastern women are acquiescing sexual props and Middle Eastern men are brutal and dangerous.

Why is this acceptable? These practices (other than henna for holidays and weddings) aren’t even Middle Eastern: Egyptian performers borrowed the ideas for these spangly suits from Hollywood in the early twentieth century. And no Middle Easterner just walks around all day with a sword perched atop her head. Belly dancing doesn’t even traditionally show off the stomach: a scarf is tied around one’s hips (over regular, concealing clothing) to emphasize the movements. So how did we get to sparkly bras and coin jewelry?!

Because sex sells! Early colonial performers knew what their (often Western or male) audiences wanted to see: sexuality. A pretty girl dancing sensually for the male gaze. Using veils in performances reiterates this: sashaying a veil under one’s heavily-painted eyes is done to entice and enchant, and is associated with the traditional face veils that upper-class (and thus inaccessible) Turkish, Egyptian, and Iranian women used to wear before (or during) colonization.

The problem is that belly dancing is permeated with all of these negative Orientalist dancing harem girl images. Can one belly dance without the coins, the henna, and/or swords? I think so. A long time ago, it was all about the scarf tied around the hips. It’s not flashy, but it’s sincere.

Source: Muslimah Media Watch