Sometimes I get really obsessive about all this. There have been stretches of months at a time where I am convinced that once Badia Masabni's memoirs are translated into English, a breakthrough will be made in terms of knowing the relationship between beledi and sharki. The irony is that in the Middle East, I don't think ANYONE sits around worrying about this or ever has, including Masabni.
Other times I think it's enough to know what style you want to do and concentrate on that, and not worry about what other people mean by all the other names, flavors, etc. There's also the fact that people make up names because they want to make people think this is different from that. Or just because they think it's a cooler name for what they do, or they have decided their name makes more sense, or gets around some political issue (for instance, the word "cabaret" is very loaded with baggage as well so many people who do what some call "American Cabaret" or "AmCab" now prefer "American Oriental.")
Think about all the names for kinds of Western pop music. Blues, rock & roll, country, hip hop, rap, folk rock, rockabilly, easy listening, heavy metal, punk, southern rock, doowop, boogie-woogie, indie pop, psychobilly, groove, new wave, funk, disco, soul, reggae, acid rock, grunge--you could probably add a dozen more--does everyone have to agree exactly what category every pop song falls into? No. Not even the musicians themselves would agree.
This all seems so much more important with Middle Eastern dance because it comes from another culture so we don't have an automatic response (like we would to Western music) so we feel the need to grab it intellectually.
All that said, I think it is better for people doing fusion to understand all the strands they are fusing. This is the responsibility of the teacher--a new dance student has no way of figuring it out.
One of the big issues is that there are a lot of teachers who say they do 'belly dance" without themselves understanding (or maybe caring) which influences they are perpetuating or mixing.
Cathy
Other times I think it's enough to know what style you want to do and concentrate on that, and not worry about what other people mean by all the other names, flavors, etc. There's also the fact that people make up names because they want to make people think this is different from that. Or just because they think it's a cooler name for what they do, or they have decided their name makes more sense, or gets around some political issue (for instance, the word "cabaret" is very loaded with baggage as well so many people who do what some call "American Cabaret" or "AmCab" now prefer "American Oriental.")
Think about all the names for kinds of Western pop music. Blues, rock & roll, country, hip hop, rap, folk rock, rockabilly, easy listening, heavy metal, punk, southern rock, doowop, boogie-woogie, indie pop, psychobilly, groove, new wave, funk, disco, soul, reggae, acid rock, grunge--you could probably add a dozen more--does everyone have to agree exactly what category every pop song falls into? No. Not even the musicians themselves would agree.
This all seems so much more important with Middle Eastern dance because it comes from another culture so we don't have an automatic response (like we would to Western music) so we feel the need to grab it intellectually.
All that said, I think it is better for people doing fusion to understand all the strands they are fusing. This is the responsibility of the teacher--a new dance student has no way of figuring it out.
One of the big issues is that there are a lot of teachers who say they do 'belly dance" without themselves understanding (or maybe caring) which influences they are perpetuating or mixing.
Cathy
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