Belly Dancers in Egypt Worry About Possible Islamist Takeover

Prohibiting Women’s Dancing Ends a Once-Sacred Art

By: Kamel Saleh posted on Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Translator: Naria Tanoukhi

Fears of an Islamist takeover in Egypt are not only limited to the secularists, leftists and moderates. They have now extended to a large segment of intellectuals and artists, notably dancers.

Katya, a belly dancer, performs at an oriental dance festival in Cairo June 27, 2006. (photo by REUTERS/Tara Todras-Whitehill )

There are clear indications that some are terrified at the prospect of a rise of Islamist fundamentalists to power. One Egyptian dancer called Sophia expresses her concerns, saying it would not only affect her, but the tradition of belly-dancing as a whole.

Another dancer named Sama al-Masri discusses the issue more equivocally. She defends the Muslim Brotherhood, claiming that the Brotherhood will support her art career. She says she “knows a group of Salafists and Brothers personally, and they treat her with utmost kindness, tenderness and humanitarian compassion without displaying any worldly desires,” as she put it.

The contradictory positions of Sofia and Sama are reflective of the concerns of large segments of Egyptians. Some have grown worried as the Islamists and Salafists have made their positions increasingly clear through a number of actions, including the prosecution of actor Adel Imam for some of his movies. Some of them have also demanded that dance and kissing scenes be cut out of all Egyptian films.

This has resulted in some ambiguity surrounding the future of arts in Egypt should the Muslim Brotherhood take the presidency. One observer raises the question: “How can a revolution be on the right track if women are prevented from dancing?”

Some link dancing to the concept of ​Eve’s ​seduction of Adam in paradise. Others liken it to the old game of snake charming, where a magician plays the flute and a snake emerges out of his basket, swaying. Others refer to the original snake, which sowed the seed of disobedience against the divine directive forbidding the picking of fruit from the tree of life.

Dance — which, according to mythology and cultural heritage, has played a dynamic role in  human societies — took on divine characteristics through its exercise in rituals at temples and holy places to please the gods. However, in our present era, dance has become an art in and of itself, with diverse schools and special garments. Let us not forget the dancer that seduced Enkidu in the myth of Gilgamesh, and the high price paid by John the Baptist after Salome asked Herod, King of the Jews, to behead him after having danced for him. Here in particular, it cannot be said that “a dancer has never won over a Prophet.”

Thus, along this path, dance gradually moved from being a sacred ritual to a human ritual. It is to a large extent similar to what happened to the art of poetry, which broke away from the literature of priests and the sacred texts to take a separate, human path.

Is it possible to separate the tenets of utilitarian philosophy — which dictates that humans are constantly seeking pleasure and the avoidance of  pain — from that  pleasure brought about by dance? The female body must sway to a rhythm, which leads to pleasure — including the pleasures of sight, hearing, smell and, sometimes, touch.

The Islamists have no right to ban the arts produced by humanity. They also have no right to empty religion from worldly aesthetics. Like other arts, there are both sublime and lowly forms of dance. It is the same with religions, which, throughout history, have entailed interpretations, readings and behaviors that were sublime and served higher purposes, while at other times serving as justification for lowliness, bawdiness and murders for despicable purposes.

Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that dance is an original human act. It is a legacy of the civilizations that have accompanied man in all times and places, especially in Egypt, whose forefathers, the Pharaohs, were as keen to draw dancers on the walls of temples as the gods and kings.

Source: Al-Monitor
Original article in Arabic: As-Safir (Lebanon)

Belly dancing: a dying art?

First published: Jul 23rd, 2009

Traditionalists in Egypt have targeted cabarets that feature belly dancers, and many Egyptians fear that the art is dying.


Acarabee Alley, just off 26 of July Street in bustling downtown Cairo, opens onto a small courtyard surrounded by bars. Up the stairs at the end of the courtyard a belly dancer shakes her hips and smiles at the mostly empty tables in Club Miami. She turns and sways in her bright yellow costume in front of a five-piece band belting out Arabic songs.

At 11 pm on Thursday night the place is quiet, with the exception of a few middle-aged men sipping beer at a table near the bar. While belly dancing has become popular abroad, and for foreign visitors to Egypt, many here have feared its demise as a result of the increasing observance of conservative Islam.

Over the last several decades, traditionalist ideals have been gaining ground in the country once known for its cosmopolitan ways. In the 1990s, when violent Islamist groups were most active in Egypt, the haram (forbidden) combination of alcohol and shaking, skimpily dressed women made belly-dancing cabarets a target.

Nabil Abdel Fattah, head of the sociological research unit at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and editor-in-chief of the center’s “State of Religion Report,” says businesses like bars and belly-dancing clubs have suffered because of the Islamization of both the public and private spheres in Egypt. “Belly dancing is outside of Islamic values,” says Fattah, adding that increasing conservatism in Egypt has led to reforms in the role and dress of women and fewer customers for establishments that serve alcohol.

However, in the last few years the country has undergone a soft revolution, where a surge in conservatism for many has coincided with an increasing movement toward Western lifestyles and liberal practices for others.

“There is a new soft revolution in Egyptian society. You can see this trend of new magazines and shops and people returning to belly dancing. There is also a Westernization of the way of life, of the new upper-middle class and businessmen,” says Fattah, who maintains this has happened in tandem with increasing observance of conservative Islam.

Looking back

Belly dancing is the English name given to the art of raqssharqi (oriental dance) or raqsbaladi (country dance). The practice spread throughout the Middle East but took a greater hold in Egypt than the rest of the Arab world, finding its place in wedding celebrations, private and public performances and, most recently, in tourist establishments.

Around midnight, customers begin to take seats near the stage at Club Miami. The clientele remains the same, mostly middle-aged Egyptian men. The band continues to play as the second dancer, Suhayla, takes the stage under a small disco ball. Tamer, Club Miami’s manager, who asked that his real name not be used, says in the winter the club attracts foreigners and in the summer it fills with Gulf Arabs. But most of their clientele is Egyptian.

“We get the rich and the less fortunate,” says Tamer. “Thursday is the busiest day of the week. We start the night at 11pm, but it doesn’t get full before 12 or 1am.” He’s been working in the industry for 10 years and says he’s seen a decline in the number of visitors in the last decade. Despite the influx from Gulf tourists, places like Club Miami are not seeing an increase in customers.

“There are new bars for the middle class everywhere, in Mohandeseen, in the city center and also in hotels,” says Fattah. “This is a new variable and I think it’s related to the economic policy of the state. There is a tolerance now … because [these are] private companies and this is very important economically.”

The next evening, a few kilometers south on 26 of July Street, Ahmed Dessouki leans against a polished wood bar sipping whisky over ice at the Cairo Jazz Club. The 28-year-old architect says he goes out four nights per week, but doesn’t venture to belly-dancing joints or baladi-style bars. “I mostly go to Zamalek bars,” says Dessouki referring to Cairo’s expensive, more Western neighborhood. “I’m not interested in this kind of art.”

The Cairo Jazz Club could easily be in any major American city, with a DJ spinning records in the corner, high-back booth seating and multi-colored track lighting. By midnight there is little room to move as young Egyptian men hold the waists of their girlfriends and mix with foreigners on the tiny dance floor.

“It’s the mentality of the people. We don’t have a big gap between the mentality of Europe and the [United] States,” says Dessouki.

“Almost everybody has a girlfriend. We like to come to this kind of club to spend a nice night with our girlfriends - nothing more.” Dessouki says some nights he and his friends rack up bills of several thousand Egyptian pounds (or several hundred US dollars).

In the 1990s, Western-style bars became popular among some Egyptians and today, in Cairo, Alexandria and in tourist towns like Sharm El-Sheikh, there is no shortage of European - or American-style establishments. The influx of Western-style nightclubs is drawing customers away from the baladi nightspots.

A soft revolution here won’t necessarily restore belly-dancing cabarets to their former glory if young, affluent Egyptians prefer to drop a 200 Egyptian pound minimum charge ($35) to dance to house beats, R ‘n’ B and top-40 music, rather than watch jeweled women shake their hips in an age-old tradition.

“We’ve been affected by last year’s economic slump. Some of our best customers come once a week now instead of every day,” Tamer says. While he notes most of his customers are Egyptian, Suhayla, who has been performing as a belly dancer for years, argues this isn’t the case in other establishments. “It depends. You get Egyptians, foreigners and Arabs,” Suhayla says. “You can find more foreigners in El-Haram.”

Tourists have long filled the seats of higher-end belly-dancing establishments. In tourist cities like Sharm El-Sheikh, dancers perform to almost entirely foreign crowds.

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism said in June that hotel occupancy rates had dropped to between 66 and 70 percent and some analysts have predicted that the global financial crisis, combined with the recent bombing in Cairo’s Khan El-Khalili market, could result in occupancy rates falling further, even to 50 percent.

The opening of Egyptian society may not be enough to salvage an art form that has had a place in Egyptian society for centuries.

“Most of the people I know who are interested in belly dancing are foreigners and they just go once,” says Dessouki over thumping electronic beats. “Most of my friends are interested in this kind of music - house and trance.”

First seen in Trends magazine.

Source: KippReport

The belly-dancer at the wedding

In Egypt the unusual love--hate relationship with belly-dancing persists amid a conservative culture of veiled women and virgin weddings.

by Yahia Samir Lababidi

At a time when more and more Egyptian women are taking the veil, Cairo remains the world epicentre for those who wish to master a dance that is only a slight variation on the theme of Salome's shedding of her veils. And when, seaside, the bulk of Egyptian women are opting to wade in gallabiyyas (full length traditional dresses), it is not unusual for a belly-dancer to perform at a public venue in little more than a glorified bikini, like a beached mermaid in her glittering, gauzy garb.

The ubiquity and sheer joy of the dance, however, does not detract from the perception of immorality associated with the belly-dancing profession. Egyptians are deeply conflicted about the respectability of the art form. Islamic preachers have gone so far as to proclaim that belly-dancers cannot take part in religious rites, such as feeding the poor during Ramadan or performing the Hajj/Pilgrimage.

An incident illustrating the paradoxically privileged position belly-dancers occupy in society occurred last year. A video depicting one of Egypt's top belly-dancers in flagrante delicto leaked onto the street and internet, following a police raid on the villa of a well-known (and married) Egyptian businessman. A lesser mortal would have perished beneath the heat of such a scandal, especially a woman in a conservative society. Yet, following a teary public apology and a short leave of absence, the Uberdancer bounced back on stage. Moreover, to add legislation to lore--further demonstrating society's strangely protective stance regarding the dancer's status--a new law forbids foreign dancers from practising this local art altogether (a lucrative trade in the city's many nightspots).

A love/hate relationship for the belly-dancer places her in a perceived moral netherworld somewhere between actors and whores. Both actors and dancers, whose testimony was once inadmissible in court, are accorded the same morbid fascination--every twist and turn of their private lives deemed newsworthy--as well as the same contempt. Hishik bishik, slang for all things associated with belly-dancing (and short-hand for tsk-tsk), is actually onomatopoeia: the sound of the shaking belly-dancer, beads and all. It is also used figuratively, as a derogatory term for the shaking of values or the loosening of the moral fabric associated with a dancer's questionable position in the public imagination. What does this say about the people who heartily embrace the dance as a form of self-expression?

The origins of Raqs Sharqi or Oriental Dancing (Egyptians do not call it belly-dancing) are ambiguous. Whether or not it was born in Ancient Egypt, it is widely held that the dance has its roots in fertility ceremonies, meant to strengthen abdominal muscles and ease childbirth. It is as though tapped into the bottomless fund of Earth's energy, its pulsations course through the dancer. The dance itself is a kind of break-dance only more fluid, exhibiting a variety of muscle isolation techniques: rolling the belly, swivelling the hips or making the upper and lower body appear as though they lead independent lives. In many ways, belly-dancing is the anti-ballet. Whereas the ballerina wears her pretty steel-tipped slippers, the belly-dancer is sensuously barefoot. While the ballerina strives for the ethereal and seeks to resist gravity, the belly-dancer is earthy with her feet firmly planted on the ground.

That is the technique, but then there is the inspiration, the wordless ecstasy communicated, the body eloquence. President Anwar Sadat once described a celebrated Egyptian dancer of the '70s, Souhair Zaki, as 'the Oum Kalthoum of dance'. 'As she sings with her voice, you sing with your body,' he said to her. Speaking of the same dancer, Geraldine Brooks put it slightly differently in her book, Nine Parts of Desire: What she did with her body was what a woman's body did--the natural movements of sex and childbirth. The dance drew the eye to the very centre of the female body's womanliness.

The fact that weddings are hardly complete without a belly-dancer is revealing, given the function of marriage as sanctifying the union between a man and a woman who is expected to be a virgin. Costing the family of the bride or groom up to $3000 for a 45-minute performance and widely considered the highlight of the matrimonial event, the belly-dancer's entrance is anticipated with baited breath. And what an entrance it is. Some time past the witching hour, often draped in a sort of a sparkling cape, she shimmies into the room with a manic enthusiasm, heralded and accompanied by the wild beating of drums. Having established her presence and revelling in the power of an intensity inhabited, the dancer sheds her mock modesty veil to reveal herself--a half-naked, shimmering apparition. All anima and daemonic, she then proceeds to stomp on the hallowed ground of the wedding ceremony.

This primeval emotional maelstrom is presented to the enthralled audience and the blushing bride in particular. Women study her intently but with a more guarded enthusiasm than their drooling male counterparts. Having transfixed the audience in a sort of reverse mesmerism--where the snake charms those who have summoned it--the dancer turns her attention to the bride. Weaving and dipping in her vicinity, she initiates the bride into the rites of uninhibited womanhood. 'See the effect I have on the room (and your groom),' she insinuates, brandishing her sexuality. 'That power is yours, too. Your birthright. Celebrate it.' And she's off, back with the crowd; challenging them to take guilt-free pleasure in their bodies, snaking between them, dancing with a deliciously self-absorbed exhibitionism.

Wearing a wedding cake of a gown, the bride must fret: how can I possibly compete with this woman invulnerable to taboo? Having spent a lifetime shrewdly protecting her virtue and a small fortune on the appearance of her dress, she is being upstaged at her own wedding by a woman who seems to care for neither. How can she possibly stand up to this dancer--radiating sex and naked confidence--with her flamboyantly flagrant disregard for the fundamental commandments of Family and Society?

In such a charged atmosphere, belly-dancing serves as a kind of 'licensed murder'. This is Bertrand Russell's definition of war, only the war declared here is on conventional morality and its mind-forged manacles. The force of the belly-dance is a force of nature, perceived as unharnessed and disruptive, hence the fear. The fear is an ancient one: of desire; of female flesh. The belly-dancer's twisting sisters are many and ruinous in mythology and the human imagination: Eve and the Serpent; Medusa (Woman and Serpent fused); Salome (powerful desire); Kali (fierce transcendence); the Sirens (femme fatale); the striptease (look don't touch); and the lap dancer (crude sensuality). All hint at a vision of woman engaged in a frenzied dance of Life and Death, of passion careering out of control, threatening to overwhelm and consume.

It is not without significance that a 1920s law forbade the belly-dancer from showing her navel. Later, in the 1950s, belly-dancing was prohibited in Egypt altogether. The ban was repealed following a public outcry, on the condition that the belly button be covered. Why the belly button? Given it is not a sexual organ, one suspects the significance is symbolic. The belly button is, after all, where the umbilical cord was severed. Is it the scene of the original crime from which people wish to avert their gaze?

'Every vagina has secret teeth, for the male exits as less than when he entered,' says Camille Paglia. Teeth that are razor sharp in a patriarchal society. Vagina dentata, in turn, denotes a fear of devouring origins, as does the offensive belly button. This, it appears, is what lurks at the heart of the ancient anxiety over female sensuality. Hence, trafficking as the belly-dancer does in the heady cocktail of dance and womanhood, creation and destruction, the object of desire becomes a repository of fear and loathing. To accept their spontaneous joy in dance without the attendant sense of sin, perhaps Egyptians might learn a thing or two from Nietzsche's declaration: 'I could only believe in a god who dances'.

Yahia Samir Lababidi, aphorist and poet, currently works as editor for UNESCO Cairo Office.

Source: The Free Library

For a Brazilian Choreographer, Dance as an Obstacle Course

By LARRY ROHTER
Published: October 21, 2009

In a country where nearly everyone is a dancer, or at least aspires to be one, Deborah Colker still manages to stand out, both for her versatility and her unwillingness to be pigeonholed. Over a career spanning nearly 30 years, this Brazilian choreographer has worked in settings as aesthetically distinct as the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, a temple of high art, and the samba schools that parade on the streets a few blocks away during the city’s annual Carnival competition.

“I don’t acknowledge barriers,” Ms. Colker, lithe and blond and brimming with enthusiasm, said in an interview this week as her company was preparing for four performances beginning on Thursday at City Center, its first New York City appearance in nearly a decade. “My attitude is kind of punk, in that I don’t respect rules or dogmas. I like mixtures, the challenges they present, and finding new solutions to old questions.”

Perhaps the most salient characteristic of Ms. Colker’s work since she founded the company that bears her name 15 years ago has been her desire to toy with perceptions of dimension, direction and distance. An early piece, “Rota,” featured dancers performing in a large spinning wheel, like hamsters at play, and another, “Velox,” required them to scale walls as if they were rock climbers competing at the X Games.

“Why must the stage always be horizontal and the dancer vertical?” she asked, and not rhetorically. “Why not use movement to subvert space and question gravity? And so I set about investigating ways to do that, in both the horizontal and vertical planes.”

Her most recent work, the disorienting “Cruel,” features three revolving mirrors with portholes, which enable the dancers to travel through those reflective spaces. And one part of “4x4,” the four-part, hourlong program her 17-member troupe will perform in Manhattan, employs 90 porcelain vases, spaced a little more than a yard apart in a chessboard pattern, as a sort of obstacle course around which her dancers must maneuver.

“Deborah is always working from concepts, and is very interested in things like physics and geometry,” said Donald Hutera, a London-based critic who is co-author of “The Dance Handbook” and has written extensively about Ms. Colker. “Her approach is big and colorful and quite playful, and there’s a physical riskiness to what she does, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty or shallow. She’s trying to place all this scientific stuff in a very kinetic context that is also very entertaining.”

When Ms. Colker’s company was starting, the Brazilian dance establishment reacted to that approach with dismay and even a certain disdain. Tatiana Leskova, a lead dancer in the Original Ballet Russe who trained generations of ballerinas after arriving in Brazil in 1944, initially dismissed Ms. Colker’s pieces as “at best gymnastics,” though she later changed her mind and became a supporter.

But it was precisely the insouciance and playfulness of Ms. Colker’s work that led Cirque du Soleil to invite her to write, direct and choreograph a new show, “OVO,” commemorating that Canadian group’s 25th anniversary. “OVO,” which means egg in Portuguese, is a humorous but environmentally conscious evocation of life and love in the insect world that had its premiere in Montreal in May and will move to the United States next month; it is scheduled to arrive in New York in May 2010.

“This show is about energy, spirit, color and sound,” said Chantal Tremblay, Cirque du Soleil’s creative director. “Deborah’s signature is energy and movement, and that is what she brought to ‘OVO.’ The way she uses her dancers is very direct and physical, and of course we were also interested in her use of the apparatus of wheels, walls and vases.”

Ms. Colker is the first woman to choreograph a Cirque du Soleil show, but she has had plenty of experience directing large dance ensembles in settings outside her comfort zone. For three years in the mid-1990s, Rio’s oldest Afro-Brazilian samba school, Mangueira, hired her to choreograph part of its Carnival presentation, an experience she repeated a decade later with another leading samba group, Viradouro.

“I love and respect the samba and adore Carnival, but it’s not my world,” she said. “Carnival has rules, and I had to respect them, and so it was difficult at times. But it was a very exciting and worthwhile experience. It’s been said that Carnival is a gigantic street opera, and that’s the way I approached it.”

Born in 1961, Ms. Colker was raised in Rio in a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Her father, a violinist and music teacher, gave her a grounding in classical European culture. As a child, she studied piano for a decade and played volleyball with sufficient skill and intensity that she was twice named to an all-state team alongside players who would eventually win medals in the Olympics. A serious commitment to dance, however, came only when she was 16, an age when many girls are giving up ballet.

“Dance is very much a collegial activity, and I liked that after the extreme solitude of playing the piano,” she explained. “I had a lot of adrenaline too, a physical energy that I brought from sports, an activity which, like dance, requires discipline, competitiveness and persistence. But I also felt a necessity for creative expression” that volleyball could not satisfy.

“Art is not a question of winning and losing,” she added. “It’s about exploration and experimentation and transformation and discovery, and I take great pleasure in that.”

After studying psychology, Ms. Colker danced with a Brazilian company. Gradually, she also began choreographing videos aimed for MTV and worked for nearly a decade as a “movement director” for some of Brazil’s best-known actors and theater and film directors, helping them with staging and learning to use body language to deepen the impact of texts.

Ms. Colker resumed her piano studies in 1999, and makes extensive use of her musical training in her dance pieces. The “Vasos” section of “4x4” opens with her playing a Mozart sonata, while other segments draw on Eno-influenced ambient sounds, the jazz standard “Some Day My Prince Will Come” and fragments composed by the electronic-music pioneer Raymond Scott.

“Deborah has a sharp and decisive sensibility, and is very attentive to music, about which she is passionate, almost possessive,” the Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso, long an admirer of her work, said in a telephone interview from Rio. “Her work is poetic, but never in a diaphanous or ethereal way. She’s a dancer who thinks like a musician, in that the sense of time and rhythm in her choreography is quite accentuated.”

Though its United States appearances have been rare, Ms. Colker’s company often performs in Europe, where audiences have responded enthusiastically to that breezy Brazilian style. She won an Olivier Award, London’s equivalent of the Tony, for “Velox” and another piece in 2001, and was also commissioned by the Berlin Ballet to create a piece for that company.

“Deborah is a Vesuvius of a personality whose work is strong and engaging and connects with people, not just an elite,” Mr. Hutera said. “She can be popular and profound, sophisticated and subtle, carefree but serious. She is always embracing contradictions and embodies a lot of those contradictions herself.”

Source: New York Times

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

New Labor Moves: Belly Dancing Hits Delivery Room

Connection to Childbirth May Have Ancient Origins; A Shimmy and a Roll
BY RACHEL ZIMMERMAN

Helping Jennifer Wright through labor in the delivery room of a Columbia, Mo., birthing center in February were her doctor, her husband -- and her belly-dance instructor.

With the teacher, DeeDee Farris-Folkerts, by her side reminding her of the moves, Ms. Wright stood holding her husband while doing the hip circles and pelvic rotations characteristic of the ancient Arabian dance. She had readied a compact disc with classic Egyptian music, but didn't have a chance to play it before her daughter, Aubrey, emerged.

"I danced my way through labor," says the mother of three, who had been given painkillers and labor-inducing medication during her oldest child's birth and wanted a natural alternative. Her husband, Joe Walls, says he learned that belly dancing ‘is more than just entertainment. It has a much higher purpose.’

These days, alternative techniques to ease labor run the gamut from hypnotherapy to "water births" in a large bathtub. But some women disillusioned with routine use of drugs and medical interventions during labor are turning to an unusual solution -- belly dancing. They're restoring the titillating dance of seduction -- frequent entertainment fare in night clubs and Middle Eastern restaurants -- to what they say were its origins in childbirth, while enhancing maternity wards with swirling motions and mesmerising music.

Expectant mothers can choose from an increasing array of prenatal belly-dancing classes and educational materials. The first instructional prenatal belly dance DVD in the U.S. was released 16 months ago, with a pregnant dancer named Naia leading the class.

"Most of the women who come to me have given birth before and they want something different," says Ms. Farris-Folkerts, who typically has three to eight pregnant students in her belly-dance courses.

The belly dance arrived in the U.S. in the 1890s, according to bellydance lore, when impresario Sol Bloom brought an "Algerian" village to the Chicago World's fair and introduced the dancer Little Egypt, who cavorted to improvised snake-charmer music. Incorporating elements of striptease and so-called "hootchie-cootchie" dancing, the belly dance gained its come-hither reputation.

British anthropologist Sheila Kitzinger, author of numerous books on pregnancy, says belly dancing originated as a ritual of childbirth as well as seduction. Among Bedouin Arabs, she says, girls are taught a pelvic dance during puberty to celebrate their budding sexuality and prepare for the physical marathon of childbirth.

Some belly dance moves mirror those of labor. The idea is that the pelvic gyrations help disperse the pain of contractions, orient the fetus and propel the baby into the world. In early labor, when contractions are relatively mild, the expectant mother may find comfort in dancing slowly and hypnotically, using hip circles, crescents and figure eights. As labor gets more intense, the movements may progress to a rapid rocking of the pelvis from side to side – a technique known a the shimmy – to help position the baby correctly and relax the pelvic floor. In the final phase of pushing, a full body undulation known as the camel roll can help the baby move into the birth canal.”

A New York dancer who calls herself Morocco popularised the link between dancing and childbirth in the late 1960s with a firsthand account of a birth and dance ritual near Casablanca. Two decades later, a troupe called the Goddess Dancing was formed in greater Boston to celebrate the roots of belly dancing and teach classes to pregnant women and others.

NB: This article may be incomplete as it is now archived.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Sikidim, sikidim

By Tanya Goudsouzian
Published in Al-Ahram Weekly
6 - 12 July 2000, Issue No. 489

It was as though one had been propelled centuries back in time, to the tent of a wealthy tribal patriarch who was giving one of his many daughters in marriage to a worthy young camel herder. Ebullient young girls in shimmering, beaded bustiers jiggled and whirled about in their diaphanous skirts before a spellbound audience. On the evening of 27 June, however, there were no camels in sight. The audience comprised mostly veiled matriarchal characters and subdued middle-aged men, as well as a sprinkling of foreigners eager to sample "authentic Arab culture."

The Ramses Hilton was the chosen locale for the costume show that was part of the week-long festival of Oriental dance organised by well-known dance instructor Madame Raga'i. The elaborate -- and eminently seductive -- ensembles on display were the handiwork of Amira El-Qattan, a tall, graceful woman with bright orange hair, who stole the show in her skin-tight black gown the moment she strutted into the hall. The evening stretched on for some seven hours, but what kept the audience locked in place were rumours that the organising committee held some tantalising surprises in store.

The spectacle began at 8.00pm with the celebrated Reda Folkloric Dance Troupe members performing a zaffa, the traditional wedding procession consisting of song and dance. Then the lights were dimmed and large screens placed at both extremities of the room presented a brief historical of Oriental dance. Revered figures such as Tahia Carioca, Samia Gamal and Soheir Zaki reappeared in the prime of their youth on celluloid to show what the art was all about: communication and improvisation. Today, many people take the dance at face value, and equate it with the ever-popular American strip show. To put it bluntly, it must be understood that it is not about selling oneself, but about grace, agility and an ear for the subtlest titillation of music. Of course, time passes, music changes and so does the dance. This was a point emphasised by Soheir Zaki, famous in the 1970s and 1980s, who was in attendance and spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly.

From top: Samia Gamal; Tahia Carioca and Farid El-Atrash; Dina; Foufa in London in 1970; Lucy and Soheir Zaki: a demanding jury; comparing styles; Natasha Atlas, the songbird who took Europe by storm (photos: Sherif Sonbol and Al-Ahram's archives)

"A dancer has an ability to make both quick and slow movements. Back then, the music allowed for the dancer to show all her abilities," said Zaki. "Today the music is too fast."

As the screening came to an end, the DJ began spinning some popular Middle Eastern beats and in bounced the jaunty models garbed in gaily-coloured frocks. El-Qattan's collections were modelled by young women who had travelled from the four corners of the globe, including Australia, Japan and Italy, to partake in the series of workshops to be given by the country's most masterful dancers during the week-long festival. It might sound like a scene straight from an illustrated copy of the Arabian Nights, but it looked more like Mardi Gras with some of the ladies boasting cascades of gold locks, tattoos and a few excess kilos.

Just about the time they made their appearance, I made my disappearance -- under a swarm of photographers who, like moles, scurried out from their dark corners towards the light, nearly blocking my view. What I could discern, however, was that the collection was divided into themes, some inspired by legendary women such as Sheherazade and the Queen of Sheba. The Sheherazade costumes had a mystical quality, with halo-like shades that left a hazy trail behind them and coupes fantaisistes ; the Queen of Sheba line could best be described as regal, ornate with jewels, ruched shoulder bands and rich colours. El-Qattan also brought in some modern looks, such as tie-dye and floral Carmen-like prints.

The girls left the stage and a hush spread throughout the hall. The first surprise was to be revealed. The backstage door cracked open and a slight figure in a diaphanous black outfit with gold trimmings stepped out. She was none other than the toast of Paris, Natacha Atlas. There was no mistaking those features: a tanned complexion, slanted eyes elongated with black kohl and a mesmerising gaze. When she began to sing, she uttered French lyrics but her enchanting voice followed an unmistakably Oriental melody. Atlas recently relocated to Egypt to find her roots. Born in Belgium to an English mother and a (technically) Egyptian father, the songbird has taken Europe by storm with a style than can only be compared to that of the late great ballad singer Dalida. In my opinion, the audience did not do her justice in their applause. Perhaps the proportions of her reputation have not yet reached the country, or perhaps an audience more likely to worship Umm Kulthoum can never really appreciate the likes of Atlas.

After her performance, the jiggling young ladies returned once more, wearing another series of El-Qattan concoctions. At this stage, the audience was visibly exhausted from watching amateurs imitate Oriental dance. Lucy's performance came just in time. Lucy had made her initial entrance as a guest alongside Soheir Zaki, amid flashing bulbs. But somewhere along the line, she discretely retreated backstage where she traded her slinky backless black gown for a chi-chi Oriental deux-pièces.

Lucy's style can be dubbed the Perrier of belly-dance. She is an acquired taste. She makes no effort to captivate the audience with eye contact or coquettish gestures. She simply gyrates to the beat -- but such a precise gyration. Through the grape-vine, I learned that Fifi Abdu, the reigning queen of the country's movers and shakers, had been asked to perform. When she informed the organisers that her price would "depend on the number of heads in the audience," she was shimmied off the list of performers.

Lucy's performance was a few notches higher in the class department than what Fifi could have provided. Barramching! Lucy's hips jolt to the right. Barramching, ching, ching! Lucy's hips jut-jut-jut to the left. Her expressionless face cracks a smile as the audience begins to appreciate her physical rendition of the music played by a live band. She dances as though she is singing, sometimes extending her arms upwards, miming a soprano. She reappeared for her second sequence dressed in a sizzling red concerto gown -- albeit, one exhibiting more cleavage than any conservatoire would allow -- and short auburn wig. For her final sequence, she emerged in a translucent black and silver dishdasha with a cane in hand. Here, she paid homage to Soheir Zaki who was sitting in the audience. "Up," she gestured and a gushing Zaki obeyed, giddy at the prospect of dancing before an audience again. It was a sentimental scene when the two ladies danced in embrace.

When Lucy's number was up, the guests were told they could finally approach the buffet. By now it was past midnight, and everyone was famished. I had to fight my way through the throng with a fork for a morsel of chicken kofta. When I returned to sample the desserts, not only had the serving dishes been wiped clean, but "they have eaten the spoons too," quipped one unfortunate guest. Back to our respective tables. The pièce de resistance was about to make her way on-stage.

Dina is the quintessential belly dancer. This fact cannot be disputed. With a mane of jet black ringlets down her back and a cleavage virtually bursting out of her bustier, she appears as though she has been peeled off one of those Orientalist paintings they peddle in Khan Al-Khalili "art" shops. All she has to do is stand there, and the male audience is satisfied, as the smiles plastered on faces attested, even when she had left the room to change between sequences.

But she is anything but immobile. She is full of expression, flirty, mischievous and suggestive. She shakes about with a broad infectious smile, dragging her legs and her arms in wide motions like a gypsy dancer. She has a few gestures that constitute her trademark, like when she makes eye contact with some hapless gent in the audience, then points to her navel. When his eyes follow, she erupts in laughter and goes on with her business.

Her costumes are another matter. For her first sequence, she sauntered on stage in a candy pink outfit, reminiscent of the one worn by Barbara Eden in the 1960s hit series "I Dream of Genie." In her second sequence, she wore a blue iridescent butterfly-shaped bustier and a floral print cache-maillot wrapped around her hips. The third sequence, she came out dressed in a fire-engine red slip-like costume, shredded at the hem. What is remarkable about this woman is the fact that mere months have passed since she gave birth to her son Ali and she is in better shape than some unmarried women. She may come across as the bimbo of belly-dance, but this would be, quite literally, a show. Dina holds a master's degree in philosophy and is well-travelled, having lived in Rome for many years. A closer look at her performances and one clearly detects a calculated image.

When I left the hotel, it was past 2.00am. Dina was still dancing -- in a fourth ensemble, black with gold trimmings. Every single guest was still in place. The magic of Oriental dance has not been lost, despite growing fears that Westernisation (or globalisation) will erode local culture.

"Arab dance must be spread," said Soheir Zaki, when asked what she thought of foreigners taking on the dance. "The whole world should appreciate it." But can they ever really capture its essence?

Source: Al-Ahram

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

"I want all the women in all the world to belly dance."

Belly dancing choreographer Hassan Khalil speaks to Yoga Travel.

Hassan Khalil is a professor in the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Cairo. He teaches oriental dancing all over the world, but, ironically not allowed to teach belly dancing in Egypt - it has been banned in public institutions.

"Like any art, belly dancing started with religion. It came from the times of the pharaohs: you can see them dancing in the tombs and temples. The form of their movements expressed their connection to the gods. To open themselves to the gods they used movement from the womb - the most sensitive and holy place in their bodies. Their hand positions too were a form of prayer: putting their hands above their heads and out to one side, for example, meant talking to god. In Pharonic times the shapes they made were a language with which they communicated with the gods.

Belly dancing is all based upon the womb. Where do you think we get the word woman? I am a man, she is womb-man. Belly dancing is the movement of the holy place of the woman - the womb is where it all starts. The secret of belly dance is not in the dance - it's in the woman.

Civilisation today structures how women live - go on the metro, sit at the computer, run up stairs - all things that are contrary to the rhythms of her body. They are looking for the relationship between the power and energy within them and themselves. They're searching for the fine art of their bodies in space.

When I teach the women in Europe I say to them: 'shake your breasts.' Of course they refuse. But I insist: 'Shake them. Shake.' And then they do it and sometimes they scream. They start to feel themselves as a female person. Life is monotonous. But with another rhythm, it can free you from the daily rhythm of everyday life.

Every woman has the physiology. In Egypt we call belly dancing 'the mother' because it gives women the ability to prove the freedom of their body. We did a class in Frankfut with deaf girls. They felt the music through the ground, and they danced. The city mayor was there - he cried. It was the first time they heard their body. And blind women too, they'd never seen the movement in their lives, but they could do the dance - it was a miracle, they could feel their bodies. One and a half million girls in Brazil doing it. This is not fashion - this is women feeling themselves."

Source: YogaTravel

"Of course it's exhibitionist, but all girls like to feel sexy."

Dancer Keti Shariff talks to Yoga Travel.


Keti Shariff trains belly dancers in Cairo and travels all over the world to dance, although not in Egypt. She is booked by clients for shows or weddings, then flies out to perform. We sit in the opulent surroundings of Cairo's Marriot hotel.

What does belly dancing mean?
"It's about many things - physical, sexual, sensual, fitness. It's about female empowerment, and about feeling sexy. And of course it's about glitter and dressing up. But originally the shapes and postures used in belly dancing were representations of nature, to worship god. In fact, one of the early stars - Tahira Kareoka - her father was a sheik in a mosque."

Is it exhibitionist?
"Of course, but all girls like to feel sexy. You know, in some ways it has never left the harem. It's always been about women dancing amoungst themselves. There's a group of you and you dance together, you show off what you know. It's not at all for the men - it's for us."

Why don't you dance in Egypt any more?
"I realized that I didn't want to dance any more in Egypt when I was dancing at the Nile Hilton. The manager took me aside and told me I had to get an AIDS test. He explained that they like their customers to stay for a long time, to spend a lot of money in the hotels, and to make that happen the dancers, you know, we have to get close to them. He said it because he knew that I was new to dancing, and to let me know that it's not always a clean business. But that was it. Now I don't dance in Egypt any more."

What do people think of you as a dancer?
"When I tell Egpytians that I'm a dancer they look at me a bit strangely and their eyes go wide. They can't really understand. But when I get talking to them about the old stars of the past and they're like 'oh yes, they were the greats', then they know that I'm doing it for the love of the dance, not in a sleazy sense."

What is the state of belly dancing in Egypt today?
"Most Egyptian girls get into it because they want to become actresses. Or to get onto TV. They see people like Shakira and Britney belly dancing and they want to be like them. But the dancers here are not the role models they used to be. In the 40s and the 50s there were really big stars, people still talk about them today, that was the golden age of belly dancing.

"People are interested in different stuff thess days. They don't book dancers for private parties so much any more. Younger couples getting married don't automatically look for a dancer at their weddings. These days they look for something different - maybe a jazz band. Belly dancing just isn't on their radar.

In some ways it's going back to its roots - it's always been a hidden thing. Maybe in ten years time it will re-emerge again into the glamour of the old days, when the young girls start seeing the big stars and saying - I want to do that."

Source: YogaTravel

Liza Laziza: "What's wrong with being a dancer who just loves to dance?"

By: Will Cottrell

Liza is an early fortyish woman, born in Iran and raised in London. These days she lives and works as a dancer in Cairo and commands a salary of 'thousands' per party, except in her favourite venue back in London, where 'I couldn't ask anything like that'. We talk in her flat in Cairo's fashionable Zamalek district. The flat is richly decorated with oriental furniture. On the walls are pictures of her dancing in the desert - blue costume against the white sand, shiffon scarves trailing in the breeze.

"Once my bra strap broke mid way through a perfomance," she begins. "I managed to get off stage - but my dressing woman had it back together and I was back on stage within thirty seconds." She's even had a whisky glass thrown at her: "that was my fault, my Arabic wasn't so good then and I think instead of calling someone my brother I called him a homosexual - not good in Arab society," she smirks.

"Belly dancing is not only to do with the belly: it's in the hips, the arms, the waist - it's the whole body. I'm translating the rythmn and melody into my body. It's a powerful expression of women without words. It's saying it's OK to be sexy and powerful - but not vulgar. It's being dignified."

What can western women gain from belly dancing?
"A lot of women want to do it because they love the music. There's others who want to tone their body. Some need it cos they're shy and low self-esteem. Taking lessons and performing in groups gives them self-esteem - an acceptance, an acknowledgement. It's both very personal and very public. The women that are drawn to it are definitely interested in the woman side of it. I had one woman - she was an engineer - she said, I'm not in my body at all. I want to find myself as a women, she said. It's a very feminine dance."

What's so special about Egypt?
"It's the only middle eastern country that is - possibly - democratic. It has alcohol - and as far as the dance is concerned it's as old as the pyramids. Cairo is the heart of the dance. Thirty years ago there was nightclubs everywhere. Every four or five star hotel had a nightclub -the money was huge."

"Then the rot set in. If you look at movies of the last ten or twenty years they all depicts the dancer as a theif, a liar, a prostitute, man eater. Recently Dina has declined to act in any film that depicts dancers in a negative light. Several months ago Fifi Abdou was interviewed, the interviewer was making out that dancers are bad - she said 'what is wrong with being a dancer who just loves to dance?' I always think what's your issue, why can't you handle it. It's your dirty mind."

Source: YogaTravel

Dina: Daring, Debauched or simply Delightful?

"You have to be strong. You have to continue your career, you have to be strong everyday."
Exclusive Yoga Travel interview with top belly dancer Dina
By Will Cottrell

As the country's best belly dancer, Dina is one of the most famous women in Egypt. Yet the Egyptian press have regularly enjoyed the eruptions of her personal life. In 2002, a video appeared of the dancer in bed with her third husband. She fled the country, vowing never to dance again. She returned, however, to sue him, eventually also sending the editor of a national newspaper to jail. Six months later she returned to dancing - commanding fees higher than ever.

"Last year happened like a bang. Oh my god. I just stopped everything. It was written in all the magazines. Somebody called and told me. My first reaction was to get out of here so I went abroad. I kind of hid.

A week later I felt less shocked. I closed everything. I stayed at home for two months. Then I started to go outside a bit. After six months I started to act. But I missed dancing. My friends helped me. They said that this has happened and that if you meet any bad guy he can do this. You have to be strong. You have to continue your career, you have to be strong everyday.

And I still have to be strong - but now I feel like I didn't do anything wrong. Everybody eats, drinks, has sex. I have to tell myself this all the time. He was my husband and one day he'll come out of jail, but I don't want to see him. I didn't just have it all in public - I lost my husband too."

You studied philosophy of theatre at university. What did you enjoy about that?
"I liked the Sufistayeen (a philosophy based on the sufi mystical sect). When you say yes, they say no. When you say go out, they say stay in. I really love them. I also like Freud. How women can take care of her child. He put sex in the world. I like the way he talked about how to handle children. I respect him very much."

How does philosophy of theatre help a dancer?
"Philosophy gives you an experience of people. When I'm on stage I know what the audience is like. Then I can adjust my performance to suit the audience - this is very important for a belly dancer. I don't just do what I want - I do what they want."

How has the press coverage of the video affected your life?"I don't hear what people say about me. I'm a dancer - I do it because I love it. When I began I was full of power to do what I like: I didn't hear anyone. I love dancing. I'm not looking to my reputation, I love dancing. I don't care what people say. "

What advice would you give to a dancer just starting out?"Belly dancing makes women feel like they're feminine. That it's good to be a woman: that women are very beautiful. It's in the dress and the movement. For professionals though, they must train, train, train. I train three days a week, another three days in the gym and another one for different dancing - like jazz, like cha, cha. They must take the ballet bar, for hands, for the head, the have to do yoga. They have to keep smiling in the mirror."

How do you see the future of belly dancing in Egypt?
"Things have been going downhill for the last four years. Bars are changing to different styles and there aren't many Egpytian belly dancers coming up. That's what has allowed foreigners to come in. This year I've seen in video clips that they're belly dancing, but they're called singers. It's more acceptable like that.

Actually, I'm not seeing anything new. We need ten or twenty good dancers but there's not even five. It's very bad. If it stays like this then the future is outside - in Europe. In Finland I did a workshop - I was standing on stage and in front of me 800 women were practicing in a hall. And from that thousand some good dancers will come."

Source: YogaTravel

Tummy Trouble

Hit by sex scandals and rumours of prostitution, the belly dancing scene in Cairo - home of the belly dance - is underthreat like never before.

Two years ago one of the most popular dancers, Dina, was involved in a scandal from which the industry is still reeling. Commanding fees of up to $10,000 a night, Dina was famous for her provocative dances and skimpy clothing. But when her businessman husband fell out with the Egyptian president's son, police raided the couple's apartment and found compromising videos which were then released onto the internet.


At the same time, many Egyptians see belly dancers simply as the playthings of rich gulf Arabs: these rich young sheiks are now a belly-dancer's ultimate catch. Dancers are flown to the gulf for a fee of thousands - and for a dancer (many of whom come from poor backgrounds) these Arab royals are a rags-to-riches fairytale.

Indeed, belly dancing is increasingly suffering from the decline of its reputation. Dwindling returns have led many Cairo clubs to close their doors and while it was possible to earn quite good money through the 80s and 90s, some places now prefer cheaper (in every sense) dancers to the better, more expensive ones.

Today, promoters claim there are around 100 regular dancers in Cairo. In 1957 more than 5000 belly dancers were registered with Cairo authorities.

But the taste of the audience has also changed. Young Cairenes prefer a club over a belly dancing show, while an influx of foreign dancers (manly Russian) means owners no longer pay the rates they used to. Similarly having a belly dancer at your wedding is seen as old-fashioned - DJs or jazz band are often more popular.

Source: YogaTravel

Adult Entertainment Industry Feels Pinch Of Tough Economy

By NICOLA M. WHITE | The Tampa Tribune
Published: July 8, 2008


TAMPA - Jessica Mann and Rebecca Massicotte swiveled around a pole in high-heeled platforms and bikini tops.

Two men in velvet chairs looked on.

The women are used to sparse crowds on weekday afternoons at the Deja Vu strip club on Adamo Drive. But not like this.

As the economy slumps and gas prices rise, Americans are tightening belts. That means even here in Tampa, the self-professed "Lap Dance Capital of the World," the area's adult entertainment venues are taking a hit.

Profits are down 25 percent to 30 percent this year, said Deja Vu general manager Eric Terrell, who goes by the name Ice.

Guys in suits out to entertain their clients no longer have such plush expense accounts. The customers who once thought nothing of plunking down a few hundred bucks - even a grand or two - on credit cards for private dances in the champagne room now balk at their monthly statements.

Mostly, the clients just don't walk through the door.

"What we are seeing is there's a trickle-down effect because of the subprime mortgage crisis," said Angelina Spencer, national executive director of the Association of Club Executives, a group that represents adult entertainment clubs. "This is resulting in less people going to all sorts of entertainment venues, not just adult entertainment venues."

Spencer, who used to run a club in Cleveland and now lives in Naples, fields calls every day from strip club owners feeling the pinch of a bad economy.

"Entertainment is one of those luxury items; it's one of the first things people give up," she said.

While an ailing economy may bring fewer customers to local strip clubs, it often, however, will bring out more women willing to give pole dancing a try.

"If it's hard to find even a regular job out there, I'll get more dancers," said Joe Redner, owner of Tampa's iconic Mons Venus club on Dale Mabry Highway.

His club's business is down 25 percent in this struggling economy, he said.

Most adult entertainers work as independent contractors, meaning they pay club owners a fee to perform and then pocket the money they earn from tips and private dances.

Because it doesn't cost club owners extra cash to take on new dancers, club managers lose nothing by adding more women to their dance roster. This, of course, means more competition for tips and private dances among the women.

"They're having to work longer hours and actually work a little harder," Redner said.

Mann, 28, worked at Deja Vu 10 years ago, bringing in big cash for the then-18-year-old dancer.

"It was wonderful back then," she said.

She made $400-500 most nights. But she didn't want to dance forever so she left the business to go to school and become a certified nurse's assistant and medical technician.

The problem: She earned $9.75 per hour and found herself living paycheck to paycheck. Three months ago, she came back to Déjà vu and started dancing again.

Massicotte, 24, who started dancing at 18, earned $2,200 a week during the good years.

Those payouts are over.

"The regulars we used to have three to four times a week, we don't have that anymore. They're looking for dance specials," she said.

Neither woman, however, wants to leave the business any time soon. Although some nights they don't come home with much money, in what is perhaps a bigger indictment of the local economy, dancing pays more than a traditional gig.

"It's still more than a 40-hour-a-week job," Mann said.

There might be a bright spot on the horizon, though: football. Particularly that one big game in February.

"We're all holding our breath for the Super Bowl," said Monica Fox, a manager and consultant at Deja Vu.

Source: Tampa Bay Online

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