"New Style."

Amulya

Moderator
So far most of those tv dance contests did sad things to the belly dancers :( in all those clips it has become something gimmicky. And it's often still called belly dance. Not sure in her cases I hope they didn't.
 

seona

New member
I quite like her! :lol: I think the talent show clip is exactly that, to make yourself seen/well known perhaps? Clearly she has skills and seems to have worked hard to be a professional dancer. I see clips of her lately dancing on the Nile, so good luck to her. I'm not so keen on her earlier more frantic style, but she will grow as a dancer and I enjoy her performances.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
The caption says "Belly Dancing New Style." It's possible they call it something esle in Ukranian. If they do- great. I'd like to know. Anyone speak Ukranian? Salome? You lived there a while. Learn any of the language?
 

Shanazel

Moderator
I watched it again (at least in part). Given that she is dressed in a brief but recognizable bd style, is using drums with a recognizably middle eastern flavor, and uses basic belly dance vocabulary, I'd say she was playing off the belly dance theme strongly enough to justify some irritated comments from dancers who are tired of bd being confused with burlesque. I don't think they would be quite so irritated if she wasn't a very good belly dancer who chose to take bd with her to the dark side, as it were. ;)

Your reticence is admirable, Cassandra, especially since you sorta got put on the spot, but girls do things like this during wet tee shirt contests at Sturgis Bike Week.
 

Farasha Hanem

New member
I know!! That's what throws me off about Alla Kushnir. I've seen her before, and 50% of the time I'm spellbound, the other 50% I'm running away from my computer, screaming.

She does some nice things here.


But the first half of this next one just feels like a circus act. She's not following the music.

I watched the second clip that was posted, but just now viewed these two. Liked the one I watched before, and the first one on this post, but was completely turned off by the face veil in the second one. I did watch a minute of it. Whoever said she's not following the music is right.

Sorry, keep dozing off, still feeling sick. Going to bed. *hugs forum*
 

Sophia Maria

New member
I understand that in generic competitions like this, a contestant may not have as much creative control as he or she might have in a contest that is specific to their genre. They may be told what music to use, or what is required to do in the next round. However, that being said...

...if I had the decision whether or not to enter a contest that would not present my art (bellydance) in the way I feel in my good conscience should be presented (especially to the non-BD GP), then I wouldn't enter such a competition, regardless of the exposure it would give my art, or to me personally. Especially if it's a show known for gawking, eyeball-stalked judges. It's not worth all the hard work I and others put out in the effort to show that bellydance is not some hoochie-coochie tease-dance meant to make grown men act like idiots. If I appear to be on some high moral ground, so be it. I'm tired of the way bellydance is still misrepresented just to gain exposure. If we're going to do it, let's do it right.

I agree. I mean, one could accuse me of being judgmental, but I expect a level of professionalism when one has reached that caliber of bellydancing. This includes not only technique, musicality, and knowledge, but also marketing and self-presentation. Part of that professionalism is how you present any type of performance, whether it is bd, non bd, or fusion. I've seen a fair amount of unconventional fusions and liked them because they were still respectful even while pushing the envelope. That being said, I'm still very conflicted because she is one of my favorite performers--I was relatively surprised to see this type of performance.
 

Farasha Hanem

New member
I agree. I mean, one could accuse me of being judgmental, but I expect a level of professionalism when one has reached that caliber of bellydancing. This includes not only technique, musicality, and knowledge, but also marketing and self-presentation. Part of that professionalism is how you present any type of performance, whether it is bd, non bd, or fusion.

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

I feel that each of us are ambassadors for our art form, and how we represent that art will affect people's attitudes towards it. I'll go even further to say that the way we conduct our lives will also affect people's attitudes about what we do, but that's a topic for another thread, so I won't get into that here. Suffice to say that we do need to be careful that we don't feed into the mythology and wishtory that is still prevelant in the GP's minds about bellydance.
 

Darshiva

Moderator
I see moves in that video that could come from the bellydance movement vocabulary but have strong analogues in hip hope & rap. She's not in a bedlah or anything remotely approaching one.

To the average joe, she's just some rap chick dancing. To our trained eyes she's doing bellydance moves. To me, she's a bellydance-trained dancer trying to do rap moves for a music video. Not my cup of tea, not something I'd encourage my nieces to watch, but not the sort of disservice to bellydance that I'd get worked up about either.
 

gisela

Super Moderator
Not my cup of tea, not something I'd encourage my nieces to watch, but not the sort of disservice to bellydance that I'd get worked up about either.

I do agree with you on this, and the rest of your post as well. To be fair, this is not any different from any other music video in this music genre.
 

Shanazel

Moderator
The music video is different from the girl in the bowl of water video. The former features a bunch of pretty girls showing off their assets in such a way as to arouse prurient interest: lap dance without the laps. The latter was- well, let's be kind and call it a misrepresentation of belly dance.

Kaia and Sadie went this same route and caught the same kind of flack. Perhaps what all these women want is a career, any kind of career, on screen and stage. Belly dance was simply the point from which they leapt.

One person's "selling out" is another person's "big chance." *shrug*
 

MissVega

New member
I think because based on my experience this one performance on this one tv show isn't going to change people's opinion on belly dance. I think yes it is a misrepresentation but I don't think it is any more or less damaging than a bad dancer who is lacking in ability etc that gets up with perfect music and perfect costume and does everything by the book but sucks at it because the public doesn't take that seriously either. They just shrug and say "I don't see what the big deal is". I don't say that to be a jackass or because that is entirely my opinion, I'm just saying that because it is a reaction that I've noticed quite frequently.

I've also learned that women are heavily sexualized, regardless of their career choice and sometimes regardless of how they present them self. I've put down performances where after I've been introduced to an Olympic Gold Medalis rower that was in the audience by another audience member as a 'fellow athlete" which I took as a great compliment. I also had an audience member from that performance ask me after how old I was because I looked like I was his daughters age and he was having dirty thoughts and felt bad. *facepalm*. Exact same performance, exact same audience, two completely different views and interpretations. It's just been my experience that if someone is going to sexualize you, they're going to sexualize you.

No one is talking about the 3 prior performances where she did belly dance well and represent it properly. At this point she is locked in my contract with the show and until you know how much of that idea was hers and how much of it was theirs we shouldn't judge. She hasn't done another performance like that one since... which to me suggests that it probably wasn't all her idea and was a push to stand out and maybe win. It's really easy to be an arm chair critic when we're just looking through the window, but you don't know what the situation details are.

I'd rather give the benefit of the doubt.
 

MissVega

New member
I think acts like this are more damaging to belly dance when you get a 12 week graduate with such a huge GP viewership, because you'll search the dancer after and see that she just flat out can't belly dance well at all... in any clip.
Sophie Mei - Britain's Got Talent Semi-Final 2008 - YouTube

Where as at least when they search Alla after they'll find clips with the real deal and good dancing.
Just my two cents anyway:)
 

Sophia Maria

New member
I think acts like this are more damaging to belly dance when you get a 12 week graduate with such a huge GP viewership, because you'll search the dancer after and see that she just flat out can't belly dance well at all... in any clip.
Sophie Mei - Britain's Got Talent Semi-Final 2008 - YouTube

Where as at least when they search Alla after they'll find clips with the real deal and good dancing.
Just my two cents anyway:)

I'm not even going to watch the Sophie Mei video--that was something I saw at least a year ago and got angry about. I would also say that dancing à la Sophie Mei sometimes gets me more frustrated than inappropriate music video and media representations.

MissVega said:
Exact same performance, exact same audience, two completely different views and interpretations. It's just been my experience that if someone is going to sexualize you, they're going to sexualize you.

Word.

The Dr. Love video did frustrate me, but in a more general "why do women advertise themselves like this? Arrrgh!" way. I could tell her moves were influenced by bellydance, but I think that's just because I've had training and can see which muscle groups she uses and how her isolations are centered, etc etc. But she kept it to pretty generic "sexy" dancing. I have to admit, the Sadie and Kaya "snake charma" video made me a great deal angrier because the video was explicitly about bellydancers "charming snakes" (so to speak) and featured an attempt to copy a Middle Eastern melody.

It's more the general way that women are willing to sell their bodies like this that angers me (in any music genre or art form). I don't find it sexy. But to each his own....
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Sometimes the most valuable asset a woman has to sell is her body- looking sexy in a video or sultry in an Alexander McQueen dress on the runway or literally in Wiinemucca brothel.

A friend of mine has been a beauty all her life and uses her appearance to her financial advantage. She was one of the most successful Mary Kaye saleswomen around, for example, based partially on the hope of her customers that some of her loveliness would rub off on them if they used the products she used. She is also a genuinely nice person who wants women to feel good about themselves. She regards her face and her figure the same way she regards her amazing brain for business- fortunate attributes that she doesn't let go to her head.

If two dancers are up for the same job and the better looking of the two wins out over the better dancer: well, will the former take the job or insist the better dancer get it? She probably says a prayer of thanks for inheriting her mother's pretty face and her father's money that paid for the gym workouts that contributed to her flawless figure.

Perhaps voluntarily becoming a sexual object gives women some power over themselves and others. Long ago and far away in another universe, I danced in a situation where I realized that men in the audience were willing to give me whatever I wanted for an hour of my time. It was frightening- and it was exhilerating, some of the first personal power I ever experienced. In that way, I can understand why these women follow through on careers that allow them to experience this power over and over.

But to quote my beautiful friend, "I never give them what they want. That's how I keep my power."

Hmmm. How did I get on this soap box? Excuse me while I climb down. :lol:
 

Munniko

New member
Perhaps voluntarily becoming a sexual object gives women some power over themselves and others. Long ago and far away in another universe, I danced in a situation where I realized that men in the audience were willing to give me whatever I wanted for an hour of my time. It was frightening- and it was exhilerating, some of the first personal power I ever experienced. In that way, I can understand why these women follow through on careers that allow them to experience this power over and over.

But to quote my beautiful friend, "I never give them what they want. That's how I keep my power."

Hmmm. How did I get on this soap box? Excuse me while I climb down. :lol:

I kinda agree with Shanazel with this and I can see why many talented and non-talented dancers "sell-out" to become successful. I know I was more prone to go to a certain bank because they gave me a better exchange rate because I was "pretty".

The original dancer is talented and using her beauty while she has it to get ahead. Sometimes you have to use whatever advantage you can to get ahead, that is why plastic surgery is on the raise in Japan and Korea, if you can't out smart them, you can out pretty them. On the other hand watching that Sophie Mei clip made me think maybe I can get on tv....except for lower body shimmies I'll just do upper :dance:
 
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