Farasha Hanem
New member
oO!
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A question regarding the music and the moves
- Thread starter DancingArabian
- Start date
DancingArabian
New member
On the gypsy stuff.. she isn't presenting it as historically accurate information, so at least there's that. She's using that to describe what she clearly labels as HER style of dance. She's explaining her take, her stance, and her usage.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's definitely not as awful as some things posted out there and presented as accurate.
Now if you want a real WTF from that site: "Mass sexual orgies and multiple mass orgasms being part of maybe large celebrations - maybe these things happened or maybe not at all. All we can say is that sex is a strong instinct in everyone and the ability for everyone to have an orgasm is there. So no one can say that these 2 things were somehow never used or never present in people in ancient times. But in what form these things manifest themselves in ancient times, well we shall never know. It also seems reasonable to speculate that belly dance must have figured in there somehow but again how we shall never know. "
Quoted from: Zehara -- Belly dance information
Farasha Hanem
New member
The older I get, the more I find myself at a loss for words! @___@;;
BLECH. Similar comments abound in NZ as well, though I have encountered a good few dancers - including those who prefer a highly fusion-oriented approach to the dance - who think very hard about issues of appropriation and representation, as they should, and as is common among *certain social groups* in NZ. But the rest of them think we are too PC etc etc. Sigh.
DancingArabian
New member
Gotta admit though, have you ever heard that interpretation of the origins of belly dance? I can't say that I have! LOL
I don't think fantasies about orgies are any more or any less concerning than fantasies about Gypsies. Until people stop saying "oh when I say Gypsy I don't mean Actual Gypsies, I mean a romanticised fantasy" not much is going to change. If I go out there and say I am English, and present myself as some kind of archaic stereotype inaccurate fantasy of what I would like the English to be like, people who are not English are not going to know that it's my "fantasy" and not accurate unless I tell them explicitly every time I open my mouth. It's just wrong.
Moreover, as I am picking up from a very good book I am reading at the moment (Imagining Arab Womanhood by Amira Jarmakani) bellydance via orientalist art and politics tends to get represented as simultaneously authentic and ahistorical, placing the "authentic" Middle East into a notion of timeless backwardness that we might find picturesque but that we certainly do not consider a thriving and valid part of the contemporary world. I think the same can be said of Gypsy representations (including My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding - pick it apart and see how they are presented as strange, timeless creatures).
DancingArabian
New member
I think belly dancers will always have some kind of weird reaction unless they rename themselves in a completely different way. If one calls herself a "fantasy belly dancer" that's totally going to elicit a generally negative thought process. Gypsy will be perceived negatively by some. Etc. I think pretty much any time someone says "belly dancer", regardless of what comes before or after it, they're offending someone.
It's not even about naming though, it's also about image. People see a woman with a bared belly and something around her hips undulating, especially to wibbly "exotic" music, and they think "bellydancer". Doesn't matter if what she is doing is hip hop or contemporary dance or Nia! She can put a suitable name on what she does all she likes but she can't yet supercede a century and a half of imagery.
It's not as simple as offence either. Sure some people are offended but some people are offended by the sight of a person in a turban or a fat person or a black person or a person with a beard. That is their problem, if said turbaned/fat/black/bearded people are not doing anything wrong.
There are lots and lots and lots of reasons why various kinds of people might not want to watch a bellydancer. That's their choice. For me, it's most important that I keep picking apart what I do and finding ways for me to present the dance I love that are both authentic to me and deferential to the cultures of origin, the music, etc. It helps that I like those things. I will never understand people who say they want to be bellydancers but they hate Arabic music, think Arabic culture is backward, don't want to understand the language - they just want to put on a pretty two-piece and wriggle.
shiradotnet
Well-known member
Well, for those who are members of the Belly Dance Videos Group on Yahoo, she posted this when introducing herself - you'll see the comment about having danced naked in the Great Pyramid: Yahoo! Groups
There was a review of her Egypt tour written by one of the participants that appeared in one of the belly dance magazines - either Jareeda or Zaghareet, I think. It describes the private naked-dancing-inside-the-Great-Pyramid in some detail. I don't remember which issue this was, but I'm thinking the timing was maybe 2009 or earlier.
DancingArabian
New member
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
I think that stems from the general lack of understanding about how the dance and the music are connected in the home countries.
Kashmir
New member
So let's hold our breath for Nigger Belly Dance, Cretin Belly Dance, Crip Belly Dance, MF@$%& Belly Dance - all of course meaning something special to the performer?
Amanda (was Aziyade)
Well-known member
Amanda (was Aziyade)
Well-known member
I don't get the people who don't like the music -- to me it's part and parcel of the dance.
Not wanting to understand the language? Part of that is just laziness, BUT I can actually appreciate opera without speaking Italian, so ...
Putting on a pretty costume? Well, we can all appreciate the desire to look pretty, so ...
Now regarding the culture: I have seen a lot of love/hate with what can be widely described as "Arab Culture" -- but in reality there is no ONE culture. Arabs are like Americans. Some are conservative, some aren't. Some individuals deserve respect and some don't. Some cultural practices deserve respect and some don't. (I refuse to respect female circumcision for one -- even though that's usually recognized as something more "African" than Arab.)
If we take our cues from conservative Saudia Arabia, then wouldn't be acknowledge dancing in public is a sin? If we respect the culture enough to abide by the wishes of the dominant members of that culture, then shouldn't we only dance in private, in the company of other women?
When Jamila Salimpour's new Persian husband said "If you dance on stage again, I'll break your legs" (*) should she have respected his culture enough to actually honor his wishes, instead of sneaking off and dancing in private?
*(Anecdote according to JS.)
I respect conservative Christians in America who want to save my soul from eternal damnation, but I'm not burning my copy of Harry Potter.
"Respect" for a culture is so tricky. There is so much about American culture that I love and respect, and yet so much I'd love to throw out the window while screaming "this is backward and so 1940!!!!!" It would seem that Americans looking at mass Arab culture would be equally torn on what was "backward" and red-neck ignorance. ?
Aniseteph
New member
That'd be a hafla and a half. I've always wondered what it would take to get a bunch of supportive dance sisters to sit there in stunned horror.
Yes, culture is very much plural and I should have alluded to that. What I find is that there is a notion of "we" as "westerners" - and who are "we" anyway, all the western cultures are quite varied and have various groups and mentalities within them - having a fundamental right to pick things up from places that "we" might have colonised on some level and do with them as we want "because it's our culture".
Wahhabists don't want anyone to dance just as the Westboro Baptists don't want anybody to be happy. More useful though is the recognition of the fact that, say, dancing your sensual veil to the Call to Prayer is not really a good idea, *because* of the interconnection between Arab dance and wider cultural practice, as opposed to saying "but we in the West (and usually it's actually We In America when people say this stuff) have a proud cultural heritage of making new things, we have Freedom of Speech, we can do what we want..."
Amanda (was Aziyade)
Well-known member
Okay, I think it was this thread where I mentioned I was taking some newbie ATS classes and I wasn't seeing anything any different from old Jamila Salimpour technique, but maybe that's cause I'm a noob and all that.
So revised opinion: It was because I'm a noob.
The more classes I take, the more I see how ATS differs. It differs a lot in INTENT, which is hard to explain, but now I do see the difference. Just thought I'd comment. I know I've told other posters in the past just to experience the dance more to understand it, and the same applies with ATS. (LOL- imagine that!)
So revised opinion: It was because I'm a noob.
The more classes I take, the more I see how ATS differs. It differs a lot in INTENT, which is hard to explain, but now I do see the difference. Just thought I'd comment. I know I've told other posters in the past just to experience the dance more to understand it, and the same applies with ATS. (LOL- imagine that!)
Shanazel
Moderator
Because most of the people who write about bellydance from a western perspective on the internet and in non-academic articles in the English language are Americans, Shanazel. I wasn't trying to oppress you.