article "Masculine Belly Dance" by Stefan

[Sa'ada]

I just read the article "Masculine Belly Dance" by Stefan Masculine Belly Dance

It seemed rather nice and made a lot of sense to me. What do the male dancers think of it? Are the physical descriptions correct? Do you agree about the subtle difference in posture and style?

 

[Aniseteph]

I'm not a male dancer but I've seen a quite few dance, and this all seems totally out of touch with what they actually do.

To me it comes over as hugely sexist - men have to be all stompy and butch and women have to be delicate little gazelles (who need a Man in the troupe to protect them. . Yeah right, tell it to Fifi when she's got a big stick...

And if men don't want to be all stompy and butch they must be "trying to get in touch with their feminine side", nudge nudge wink wink if you get my drift.

 

[Sita]

I'm not a male dancer but I've seen a quite few dance, and this all seems totally out of touch with what they actually do.

To me it comes over as hugely sexist - men have to be all stompy and butch and women have to be delicate little gazelles (who need a Man in the troupe to protect them. . Yeah right, tell it to Fifi when she's got a big stick...

And if men don't want to be all stompy and butch they must be "trying to get in touch with their feminine side", nudge nudge wink wink if you get my drift.

I'm with you this whole segment:
"Attitude
The historical role of male dancers in the troupe was to protect the females. A man should project power & directness. Most of the time he is sharing his high spirits with his audience, but occasionally he lets them know he will not be challenged, perhaps with a slow fierce gaze over the crowd, doing some big, slow move in sync (eg, a barrel roll, or the front arc of a hip circle)." rotest::doh:

I find about 100 things wrong with that bit, where to start... I don't have clue what to make of the historical role in a troupe... what troupe, what history?:think: (I thought we were talking about a solo based art in bd) and the fierce gaze seems against the whole feeling of bd.

Although the sexist generalisations were worth reading just to be provided with an image of Fifi in warrior like mode.. kung fu artists would have nothing on her. I just wish I was a cartoonist and could develop that image the way it deserves to be

Sita

 

[Caroline_afifi]

well...I suppose it we can cut some slack as it seems it was written back in 1995.

If I think about how my own thoughts have evolved and developed within the last five years I can see how this might possibly be irrelevant in the present context?

I dont know... maybe it's still out there because people still think this way?

I certainly hope peoples beliefs change with experience and time.

 

[Aniseteph]

It is an olde article, but it came up on another thread here just the other day and Zorba was saying how it keeps on being trotted out. I guess because it's about male dancers it gets more attention than if it were part of the mass of interweb nonsense about belly dance in general.

 

[Caroline_afifi]

mmm...which makes me wonder if rubbish written like this about women dancing would keep being trotted out?

I hope it is not a case of a man writes something about male dancing and everyone reads it and uses it for years.

Maybe the best thing to do it just ignore it.

 

[Sa'ada]

I had no idea it was from 1995; good to know.
I expect it keeps getting passed around because there is very little about the 'style' of masculine oriental, and people realy badly want to define it (for better or worse).

 

[Moon]

I'm not a male dancer but I think it's a load of rubbish, sorry. My bf doesn't know much about bellydance and even he could see this guy is totally missing the point. "Fierce looks to the audience"? ROFL!

Hmm we need Zorba or another man in here to explain why it's so rubbish.

 

[khanjar]

Like Zorba said, Tarik Sultan has met him and the author of this tripe is not a dancer. The author apparently gleaned his information from a female dancer called shyzhd and drew his own conclusions from what he himself saw and made reference to what he would not wish to look like on stage as if he were a dancer.

 

[Bellydance Oz]

Well, when I was reading up about the history of BD (including some very knowledgeable posts on this forum), it would appear that the original male belly dance troupes were dressed and danced in a very feminine style and in fact, were basically rent boys.

This article sounds like an attempt to cover up that history and make male belly dancing more "masculine". Personally, I don't see why we can't just say that modern Western belly dance is a different art form and therefore doesn't need to justify itself by trying to change history.

 

[Caroline_afifi]

Like Zorba said, Tarik Sultan has met him and the author of this tripe is not a dancer. The author apparently gleaned his information from a female dancer called shyzhd and drew his own conclusions from what he himself saw and made reference to what he would not wish to look like on stage as if he were a dancer.

Well that kind of puts it into perspective... it's just a shame it is still getting an outing 15 years on.

 

[Afrit]

Bunkum!

What a load of rubbish. Right from the start "To avoid hurting themselves, men should keep in mind some physical gender differences: Women's hips are better built than men's for side to side movement, while men's hips are better for forward & back movement. If a man tries to do a side to side hip move while holding a pelvic tuck, it can cause him serious back injury" Come on! The main physical difference in the pelvis (not the hips) is the hole in the middle is larger and it is over all a little wider - on average. There are lots of slim hipped female dancers who have no problem with side to side movement!!

"The historical role of male dancers in the troupe was to protect the females." - yes, if you are talking about Reda tableaux.

There is little to recommend it from start to finish and totally ignores real dancers of both sexes that look look without over-emphasising outdated stereotypes.

 

[ababalond]

this thread has had me chuckling away to myself, i concur! i read this article too, and i think its quetionable from an artistic liscence point of view ( as well as others) although i tried to apply it when i was naive enough to believe it, not having seen much of male dancers. i think your expressing yourself at the end of the day, in whatever style. that style will have it signature traites and naunces but through the expression of the dancer.

from what i've read in turkey there was the koceks, and then the khawals of egypt who impersonated the ghawazi women dancers, that i'm aware off. this i learnt after reading this article of course. but it is a slightly different story with tet and awadi, from baladi.

and i suppose the modern male dancers will establish an other president, as the forefathers of male belly dance that popularised it in the last century, but this is conjecture on my part.

 

[Sa'ada]

Thanks, khanjar for that tidbit of info!

 

[Julian]

I just read the article "Masculine Belly Dance" by Stefan Masculine Belly Dance

Shenanigans! This article is an old one that's been floating around the Internet for years at a time (a last updated date of 1995? Wow!).And like many of the stories floating around on the Internet, it's 120% corn-fed bull. Let's take a look at some of the more interesting claims in the article:

If a man tries to do a side to side hip move while holding a pelvic tuck, it can cause him serious back injury ...

Been there. Done that. My back is just fine. Let's call this one "BUSTED".

A man should project power & directness.

Wrong answer. I will not even go into the sexism present in this statement. "BUSTED".

Where women may have fingers splayed, men have fingers together.

That just looks awkward. Sorry, yet another "BUSTED".

That's three "BUSTED" strikes and I haven't even gone through half of the article.

And for my final thought...

Articles like this really irritate me. They are filled with sexist non-truths that self propagate and damage the belly dance community. Belly dancers, male or female, should dance in the style that they feel comfortable with. By assigning certain styles a tag of "masculine" or "feminine", we limit the full expressiveness of the art. And limiting the expressiveness present in art is just plain bad.

 

[khanjar]

When I first started looking into male belly dance, before I found a class, (which I have attended up until recently, every week since around about this time last year), I scoured the net in search of anything I could find on male belly dance. I found some stuff, which I read, and that, is about it, I do not believe I have taken any of the 'advice' on board, and just now looking at my browser bookmarks, it appears I have deleted the file, which proves how useful it was to me, good riddance.

To be perfectly honest, before embarking on the need to belly dance, one goes into it with all sorts of notions, perhaps the thought is some knowlege is better than no knowlege, but the reality is, just go and do it, forget the web knowlege, all you need to learn will be in front of you as you progress with your dancing.

Every dancer male or female finds what works for them and by finding what personally works, one develops a natural style based wholy upon themselves, not someone else from wherever at whatever time period.

I will listen to the voice of experience, but I am selective on whom I listen to, and if I take on board the advice given, it is down to me how I interpret that advice, if it helps, it helps, if not, then the advice is for someone other.

If I were to advise someone wishing to take up belly dance, the advice I would give, if they sought what do they need to know, if anything, well my answer would be ; nothing, just go and do it, but if they wished to learn something, take a look at the history as it is known but keep an open mind.

 

[Zorba]

...there is very little about the 'style' of masculine oriental, and people really badly want to define it (for better or worse).

That's only part of the problem with this article (there is no such thing as "masculine" oriental, just "oriental"). The suggestion that men shouldn't tuck their pelvises for side to side movements because of back injury is just flat wrong. Every body is different - in my case my back hurts if I *don't* tuck for side to side. I'm quite sure that somewhere, someone's back hurts when tucked - and she's probably female! No basis in reality.

I especially take issue with the idea that "women dance on the diagonal, men dance on the square" (paraphrased). Where did *that* come from? Men need to dance on the diagonal for the same reason the gals do - so certain movements can be seen better!

I've even found this chestnut translated into Russian...

 

[Zorba]

Articles like this really irritate me. They are filled with sexist non-truths that self propagate and damage the belly dance community. Belly dancers, male or female, should dance in the style that they feel comfortable with. By assigning certain styles a tag of "masculine" or "feminine", we limit the full expressiveness of the art. And limiting the expressiveness present in art is just plain bad.

Said far more eloquently than I could... :clap:

 

[Ariella]

I think I remember posting that article to the forum about 4 years ago when I was newer to belly dance and getting a good laugh from everyone about how absurd it is.

 

[Iolite]

i think this was the first thing that came up when i was looking for men in belly dancing a while back, good to know that its not a reliable source, trying to change the postures while learning from a video is a pain.