Is this the true history of belly dancing?

[Aniseteph]

:lol: Until you get to Lycra, elastic and fashion really doesn't work that way.

There were vamps before Theda Bara; earliest OED reference is 1911, which doesn't mean it wasn't around earlier. According to Wikipedia she made a film called "The Vamp" in 1914 but I doubt they would have titled a film that way unless people knew what it meant already. I think the Salome craze had already brought the vamp character to such prominence that early Hollywood was bound to jump on the bandwagon.

The earliest proto-bedlah I've seen (outside Orientalist art) is about 1895.

This is La Goulue, the Moulin-Rouge dancer Toulouse-Lautrec painted, outside the place she set up in 1895. I think it's faked from a studio shot and the street view, but it's her. Clearly it's a vest under a little bolero, but the two-piece vibe is already there (and coins!). If you wanted to make it naughtier you'd do it sans-vest or at least in a nekkid-look bodystocking. And less than 10 years later Mata Hari is doing exactly that, again in Paris, in a jewelled bra.

Yes these are "Western", but these images of what a ME dancing girl "should" look like are there way before Hollywood (and I still haven't seen any early Hollywood 2 piece-clad dancing girls).

....Armenian, Greek, Turkish and Arabic music created a hybrid style, as well as a blending of Lebanese, Turkish and Greek styles with dashes of American creativity gave birth to American Belly Dance.

:clap: If you take "traditional modern Egyptian cabaret bellydance" in the OP to mean American Egyptian cabaret bellydance then it's a bit less WTF. Yes, that is an American construct. But to say Egyptian/Turkish/Lebanese traditions and developments are as well... nope, still WTF?ing on that one.

 

[Erik]

:lol: Until you get to Lycra, elastic and fashion really doesn't work that way.

Aniseteph, I could be wrong. It has already happened in this discussion. Still can't believe I forgot about the Lumiers. Embarrassing. I'm much too young to be having senior moments like that.

When I said elastic I was thinking of rubber bands with string around them and sewn together to make an elastic strap; exactly like what's holding up my underwear as I write this reply. From personal experience I know that when the elastic is worn out they don't stay up anymore.

As for the bra....and this is only a hypothetical issue with me.....it seems that without elactic straps it would not work very well either, especially if subjected to the rigors of belly dancing, yet all the Egyptian dancers I've seen from the 40's and 50's seem to be wearing it.

 

[Tarik Sultan]

:lol: Until you get to Lycra, elastic and fashion really doesn't work that way.

There were vamps before Theda Bara; earliest OED reference is 1911, which doesn't mean it wasn't around earlier. According to Wikipedia she made a film called "The Vamp" in 1914 but I doubt they would have titled a film that way unless people knew what it meant already. I think the Salome craze had already brought the vamp character to such prominence that early Hollywood was bound to jump on the bandwagon.

The earliest proto-bedlah I've seen (outside Orientalist art) is about 1895.

This is La Goulue, the Moulin-Rouge dancer Toulouse-Lautrec painted, outside the place she set up in 1895. I think it's faked from a studio shot and the street view, but it's her. Clearly it's a vest under a little bolero, but the two-piece vibe is already there (and coins!). If you wanted to make it naughtier you'd do it sans-vest or at least in a nekkid-look bodystocking. And less than 10 years later Mata Hari is doing exactly that, again in Paris, in a jewelled bra.

Yes these are "Western", but these images of what a ME dancing girl "should" look like are there way before Hollywood (and I still haven't seen any early Hollywood 2 piece-clad dancing girls).

I agree with this bit. The 2 piece costume was first developed on the stage. Hollywood picked up on a trend that had already been created and popularized it. Although they didn't create it, Hollywood films were seen by a larger audience than stage plays or Burlesque shows.

:clap: If you take "traditional modern Egyptian cabaret bellydance" in the OP to mean American Egyptian cabaret bellydance then it's a bit less WTF. Yes, that is an American construct. But to say Egyptian/Turkish/Lebanese traditions and developments are as well... nope, still WTF?ing on that one.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you explain?

 

[mahsati_janan]

As for the bra....and this is only a hypothetical issue with me.....it seems that without elactic straps it would not work very well either, especially if subjected to the rigors of belly dancing, yet all the Egyptian dancers I've seen from the 40's and 50's seem to be wearing it.

Bras meant for belly dance rarely have any elastic. There are some, but it has typically been avoided for precisely that reason - the elastic doesn't hold up well to the rigors of dancing, sweat, and the weight of the beads and sequins, so if you use elastic, you generally have to plan for and regularly maintain or replace the elastic. Until recently, nearly all Egyptian bra/belt sets had no elastic whatsoever. There are a couple of designers that are using it regularly now, but that is very new.

Many skirts and pants used a drawstring instead of elastic (and still do) for the same reasons, but with the move to more lycra and stretch costumes, elastic has become a lot more important.

 

[Erik]

Bras meant for belly dance rarely have any elastic. There are some, but it has typically been avoided for precisely that reason - the elastic doesn't hold up well to the rigors of dancing, sweat, and the weight of the beads and sequins, so if you use elastic, you generally have to plan for and regularly maintain or replace the elastic. Until recently, nearly all Egyptian bra/belt sets had no elastic whatsoever. There are a couple of designers that are using it regularly now, but that is very new.

Many skirts and pants used a drawstring instead of elastic (and still do) for the same reasons, but with the move to more lycra and stretch costumes, elastic has become a lot more important.

Thanks. This was another question I wondered about from time to time but was embarrassed to ask, and later I wondered if elastic might be known under a different name in Great Britain.

EDIT --- On another thread Yame provided a video for me of a dancer on YouTube, and I noticed the drawstring on her belt. <sigh> It's amazing what you can never see if you're not looking for it.

 

[Erik]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you explain?

I think Aniseteph tagged onto your post so that she could quote you, and the comments about costuming (which you agree with) were meant for me.

On Tribe I noticed that Egyptian-Turkish-Lebanese were regarded by many as the only legitimate ME dances, and the others are merely Western clones. I have avoided this one because I do not know enough to form an opinion yet.

 

[Aniseteph]

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you explain?

You mean this?

If you take "traditional modern Egyptian cabaret bellydance" in the OP to mean American Egyptian cabaret bellydance then it's a bit less WTF. Yes, that is an American construct. But to say Egyptian/Turkish/Lebanese traditions and developments are as well... nope, still WTF?ing on that one.

I was trying to see if terminology differences could explain the quote in the OP.

"...Arabic dancers were attracted to this glamour and wanted to emulate Western ideals. Therefore they adopted the Hollywood version as their own."

Fair enough. I think this applies more from the late 1920's than the turn of the century. But yes, give them that..

"... Thus, traditional modern Egyptian cabaret bellydance is an American construct that was modified by Arabs for their own artistic and economic needs."

If it's a terminology issue and their "traditional modern Egyptian cabaret" is just another branch off the US tradition then yes, you could say that is an American construct. Egyptian and traditional mean different things to me, but maybe they didn't mean them that way? I dunno.

But where it goes WTF? for me is the implication (maybe it's just me?) that this offshoot of the US tradition is what the Egyptians have been doing and borrowing back all the time. As I said, I buy the mid 20th century Hollywood influence on costumes (on fashion all over the place, FWIW), but I do not buy the idea that the ME was getting the dance from Hollywood. If that was the case which Hollywood stars were Samia and Taheya copying when they bellydanced?

 

[jenc]

well the Carioca appears in a film by Fred Astaire.

however, I don't by any means agree that the egyptians borrowed more dance than the odd novelty step from Hoillywood

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

Moppy,

One thing you have to keep in mind when you read any article about belly dance is that almost every author has a specific personal axe to grind.

(case in point -- the book Serpent of the Nile. Great pictures, but the text is one long argument for Suraya Hilal's re-imagining of what she thought Egyptian dance should be.)

Carolena's work with Fat Chance was not particularly well-received in the overall dance community when she first presented it. She has previously written that she had to "defend" her work against what was recognized as "belly dance" at the time. I suspect this article, with its very obvious sneer towards the "cabaret" style, is part of that defense.

What REALLY got the whole "Tribal versus Cabaret" feud started, and cheesed everyone off was when Fat Chance was chosen to represent the Middle East at (Shira help me here -- am I getting the name right?) the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

And that's where we get to the whole "authentic" issue.

American Tribal Style belly dance is not an "authentic" ethnic dance. It is not done by any specific ethnic group. It is not a region-specific dance, and it is not a particular cultural practice of a people.

"Belly dance" IS an authentic ethnic dance. It is done by several different ethnic groups, region-specifically, and it is part of the daily lives of those people, and considered a cultural practice.

There is no such thing as "inauthentic dance." But we CAN make the distinction between authentic and inauthentic ethnic dances. There is authentic Flamenco, and there is ballet that has a Flamenco sort of "flavor." There is authentic Balinese dance, and there is Modern dance that gives a nod towards a Balinese influence or feeling.

Belly dance is an ethnic dance. A lot of American dancers want this to be NOT the case. They want "belly dance" to be defined as simply a movement vocabulary. If it's just a movement vocabulary, you can "do belly dance" to any music, while wearing pointe shoes and juggling chainsaws if you want.

Most trained belly dancers resist against this kind of definition because our movement vocabulary is not unique -- we share the basic movements with Salsa and the Polynesian and Tahitian dances, as well as having a lot of movements in common with sub-Saharan African dance.

The MOVES do not make our dance. What makes belly dance unique is the relationship of the dancer to the music. Western dance allows a different relationship of dancer to music. As does Polynesian dance.


Moppy, think of most histories of belly dance as something like Renaissance Faires -- history re-imagined the way we WANT it to have been. The reality is often very dark and grim, and we seem to hate that. We want to "clean up" bellydance and turn it into a different art form in the US than how it exists in Egypt, for example. You have to read between the lines to find the "angle" the author is coming from, and read with that angle in mind.

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Tarik, I attended a workshop here a few years ago where I think you said that the "bedlah" was created by the British and also that men and women would dance together but then the British male population separated the men from the women and had the women perform for "private" parties, thus promoting the more "harem" look for the "sultan" - could you please correct me on this and expound even more? It was a great history lesson even if it wasn't the nicer lessons of history.

 

[Aniseteph]

well the Carioca appears in a film by Fred Astaire.

however, I don't by any means agree that the egyptians borrowed more dance than the odd novelty step from Hoillywood

But Taheya Carioca didn't drop the Egyptian and try to turn into Ginger Rogers. She added flavours to what she was already famous for, as I understand it.

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Tarik, I attended a workshop here a few years ago where I think you said that the "bedlah" was created by the British and also that men and women would dance together but then the British male population separated the men from the women and had the women perform for "private" parties, thus promoting the more "harem" look for the "sultan" - could you please correct me on this and expound even more? It was a great history lesson even if it wasn't the nicer lessons of history.

Not quite. What we recognize as the bedlah was first seen in the theaters of England to the best of my knowledge. The earliest example that I am aware of was Maud Allen in Oscar Wild's Salome. If there are erlier examples from the States, I'm not aware of them.

In Egypt, men and women never danced together socially, nor did they perform together. What I did say, was that there had always been both male and female dancers within the traditional cultures. In Egypt, the number of female public dancers was always greater than the male dancers, but there were people who actually prefered them to female dancers because they considered it a bad example for women to display themselves in public. In Turkey the situation was reversed. The public dancers were almost always male and women only performed indoors for private female gatherings.

When the British and other Europeans came to Egypt, things changed. Dancers began performing in special establishments, (music halls), where as in the past they only performed in peoples homes and when there was a reason to celebrate. Now they were also dancing for no specific reason and not within the confines of their communities but for outsiders. Because it was a predominantly male clientele made up of British and French tourists and colonial staff, as well as the Western educated local elite, they only wanted to see female dancers. Male dancers still performed for the local population, but as time went by and society became more and more westernized, the old traditions eventually died away.

In the late 20's to 30's Egyptian dancers in the nightclubs adopted the bedlah as their uniform because they audience came with the expectation of realizing the harem fantasy they saw in theaters and Hollywood in the flesh.

I hope this explains things better.

 

[Tarik Sultan]

I think Aniseteph tagged onto your post so that she could quote you, and the comments about costuming (which you agree with) were meant for me.

On Tribe I noticed that Egyptian-Turkish-Lebanese were regarded by many as the only legitimate ME dances, and the others are merely Western clones. I have avoided this one because I do not know enough to form an opinion yet.

Well... I wouldn't call them clones exactly. They are off shoots inspired by the dances done in the native countries of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean, but through a uniquely American lense. That diesn't make it bs, except when someone trys to pass off their creations as being authentic ethnic dances. Unfortunately, in the early days there was a lot of that going on. I think today people see that its no longer necessary to pretend to be what they are not and instead can own what they do as valid artic expressions of their own. I think the reason why so many people did that at the time was because we were regarded as strippers. So to validate our legitimacy as real dancers, we attempted to link ourselves to the dancers of Egypt, thereby beeing protected under the umbrella of ethnic folk dance, rather than Burlesque type bump and grind. Now we run the gamut from faithfull representations of the ethnic Egyptian/Lebanese/Turkish styles, (or at least we endevor to..), to the totally imaginative expressions with no links to any particular ethnic culture. I think Aziyade summed it up perfectly.

 

[moppy]

"Authenticity" of a flowing and ever evolving medium (such as dance or any other art form) is hard to pin down. IMO, if you dance with passion (and a motivation to express that passion to others), as well as grace then you are an authentic dancer. After all, hasn't that always been the main purpose of dancing anyway? To feel passion and express that to others in a graceful and powerful way? If someone feels this way about your dancing, then I think your are authentic to them and have probably delivered a performance that felt very authentic.

When I made this comment I was referring to what makes an authentic performance, not necessarily an authentic dance style. Aziyade your comments have definitely helped understand the POV of authentic ethnic dance. I am concerned about what makes belly dance authentic as I am just starting to learn and want to make sure that what I learn is authentic.

Moppy,
Carolena's work with Fat Chance was not particularly well-received in the overall dance community when she first presented it. She has previously written that she had to "defend" her work against what was recognized as "belly dance" at the time. I suspect this article, with its very obvious sneer towards the "cabaret" style, is part of that defense.

What REALLY got the whole "Tribal versus Cabaret" feud started, and cheesed everyone off was when Fat Chance was chosen to represent the Middle East at (Shira help me here -- am I getting the name right?) the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

And that's where we get to the whole "authentic" issue.

It was the SF Ethnic Dance Festival, I checked the website. They represented Middle Eastern dance 3 times - in '99, '03 and '04. Other belly dancing schools represented ME dance the other years including these guys - Shabnam Belly Dance - Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose. I agree that FCBD does not represent ME dance. But it does represent American dance, as it was created and has flourished here. Maybe they should have given it a new name entirely or said it was a fusion of belly dance and whatever.

Either way I think there's room for everybody, I guess it's just a matter of where you fit.

 

[seona]

Ooooooo, cool! I'm looking too, but not really sure what I'm looking for

I tried to look, sorry couldn't find it. I know it's there somewhere but I think I've limited search on my iPhone. I don't even know what it's listed as, sorry to be no help!

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

When I made this comment I was referring to what makes an authentic performance, not necessarily an authentic dance style. Aziyade your comments have definitely helped understand the POV of authentic ethnic dance. I am concerned about what makes belly dance authentic as I am just starting to learn and want to make sure that what I learn is authentic.

LOL - the quest for authenticity! It's a fun journey, but it can be confusing. Also sometimes it seems like it carries with it a certain value judgment -- like almost as if a work isn't "good" if it's not authentic. And that's not really the case. I think pretty much everybody who actively promotes the authentic forms LOVES good fusion and fantasy -- they just believe it should be labeled as such. There is definitely room for everybody!

American Tribal is an amazing art form. The idea of a group of women improvising a dance as a group -- it's super cool and appeals to the Modern dancer in me (I'm more of a Gypsy Caravan style girl, but Fat Chance did it first.) The problem with a lot of students of fusion forms is that they don't really understand the forms that make up the fusion (as we have seen evidenced in some of the comments in the article.)

I agree that FCBD does not represent ME dance. But it does represent American dance, as it was created and has flourished here. Maybe they should have given it a new name entirely or said it was a fusion of belly dance and whatever.

Yeah, that was suggested at the time (1999) but it didn't stick But part of that is Carolena's lineage/pedigree (in theory back to Jamila, although she has never actually studied with Jamila) and the desire to re-write what bellydance is and what its ultimate "purpose" is. I see that Bal Anat is representing the ME this year. (Where's the "I really don't understand this logic" emoticon?)

I can remember trying to argue with Morocco on the old MEDance list, saying "Tribal is like the ethnic dance of the hippies, isn't it? So doesn't it count as ethnic dance?" LOL. She was very patient with me, and finally helped me to understand. It's cool to think I'm helping another person on the same quest

 

[Greek Bonfire]

Thanks Tarik! It's been a few years since that workshop but I found it to be very interesting. I amcutting and saving this piece of information.

 

[Shakti]

Bellydance is a performance art. Only something labeled as Folk Dance is 'authentic' to a group of people. Folk Dance elements are present in many Bellydance forms, and it is easy for people familiar with bellydance to decifer a particular style, that may be regionally specific, or authentic to a particular country. Present day cabaret dance's that are specific to a particular country, are heavily/or somewhat influenced by ballet , a classical dance form that is (obviously) not Middle Eastern.

If we are looking root of bellydance,as in that one lost tribe of glittery bedlah wearing people that started it all (haha), look at the beginning of the Silk Road/Spice Road..India....and consider this... New DNA evidence among people who claim to be Gypsies from various places in the world, the majority of them, according to the study, carry a common genetic link to racial groups in present day India. I think that bellydance is an ancient dance form that is authentic, in that it is a culmination of about a thousand years of humans traveling to different places, perfoming simply to entertain, and delight people.

 

[mahsati_janan]

New DNA evidence among people who claim to be Gypsies from various places in the world, the majority of them, according to the study, carry a common genetic link to racial groups in present day India. I think that bellydance is an ancient dance form that is authentic, in that it is a culmination of about a thousand years of humans traveling to different places, perfoming simply to entertain, and delight people.

Hi - do you have a citation for this? I'd love to read more. The most recent items I have read all listed common genetic heritage for many different groups of people, but did not specifically tie any of the nomadic groups in the Middle East/North Africa to those in India. If you look back far enough, everyone shares a common genetic heritage, so it is always fascinating to see what has been found. I'd love to see new research on it!

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Thanks Tarik! It's been a few years since that workshop but I found it to be very interesting. I amcutting and saving this piece of information.

Any time sweetie