Respect Please!

[Jess]

How do we as a community elevate the art of belly dance? I'm SO tired of some of us being compared to strippers, and/or not as talented as those from other dance forms. How do we prove to the world we are above the stigma?

 

[Darshiva]

Getting people to give it a crack usually makes them realise how incredibly talented we are because we make it LOOK easy!

The stigma's another question. It took me 5 years to get my last town to accept that bellydance is okay, I guess, and not really always some slutty dance, but here it's taken me less than a year to get people to realise that it's a lot of hard work and worthy of respect.

It depends on the attitudes of the people where you are, what they've been exposed to and how you approach the topic. There's no one right way to win over hearts and minds and so long as you realise that there will always be someone who looks down their nose at this dance just because they need something to look down at then you'll be fine. Win over those who want to be won over and just let the rest of them have their opinions.

 

[Jess]

Thanks, Darshiva! You're totally right. How did you convince that town that belly dance is an acceptable art form? My hometown has a decently large belly dance community, but the stigma is still there...mostly with some men that are not informed. As for women that aren't involved, I noticed that they only see belly dance as a way to get in shape (which it is!), but not as an art form. Is it a marketing problem? I'm sure some people have tried to change things, but I certainly need some guidance

 

[Amulya]

Are there any belly dance events? Maybe that's the way to go. It's a great way to showcase different styles and in a nice setting. In a theatre would be best, but there are other venues that could be good too of course. Do you have festivals in your town? Maybe a good place if they have a stage. You could get dancers from other respectable dance styles as well, so people see it's art like the other dances.

 

[Jess]

Thanks for your reply! I hosted a couple of belly dance events at my university...for our last one we brought in some talented and famous dancers. It was an amazing experience for me, and hopefully other belly dancers. However, we had quite a few dance majors from my university in the audience that left halfway through the show...I wonder why.

 

[Afrit]

To get respect you need to start by presenting high class performance to the public. So, no inexperienced students in public, no cheap costumes, no porn star faces, moves or costumes. Next, stick to belly dance in belly dance events. If it includes fusion it needs to be a small part of the bill and well labelled. If you are looking for respectability avoid offering spots to burly dancers (might be unfair but if you are having problems with respectability don't give people the chance to confuse what is what).

 

[Darshiva]

Thanks, Darshiva! You're totally right. How did you convince that town that belly dance is an acceptable art form? My hometown has a decently large belly dance community, but the stigma is still there...mostly with some men that are not informed. As for women that aren't involved, I noticed that they only see belly dance as a way to get in shape (which it is!), but not as an art form. Is it a marketing problem? I'm sure some people have tried to change things, but I certainly need some guidance

Sheer bloodymindedness and leading by example.

There was a teacher in town who didn't have the same attitude that I did and that undermined a lot of the hard work I was doing, so I made the decision that I would show that I was not that type of person and leave it at that.

 

[Aniseteph]

ITA with what's been said. IMO some people enjoy the idea that it's a naughty foreign sex dance, either for the titillation or for the chance to get offended or more likely a mixture of both, and they aren't going to give it up lightly. Whatever.

To get respect you need to start by presenting high class performance to the public. So, no inexperienced students in public, no cheap costumes, no porn star faces, moves or costumes.

:clap: This.

As for women that aren't involved, I noticed that they only see belly dance as a way to get in shape (which it is!), but not as an art form. Is it a marketing problem?

That's an interesting point. It's only a problem when classes are all about the fitness and nothing about the cultural background/ art, but IMHO then it isn't belly dance at all and should not be marketed as such. :naghty:. In many areas people are more likely to see BD as an exercise fitness thing because that's how a lot of us encounter it. We go to classes, or our mum or auntie went once, or they do a class at the local church hall. I never saw a performer IRL till I got into the belly dance scene.

Once you get them through the door, you can't force them to be interested in it as an art form, but at least they can be exposed to cultural background and info about dancers to watch, music to listen to etc. Some will catch the bug. And maybe you can convince someone to not be part of the problem by stopping before they go out there and present substandard WTF?ery to the public in the name of belly dance.

 

[Zumarrad]

If you are looking for respectability avoid offering spots to burly dancers (might be unfair but if you are having problems with respectability don't give people the chance to confuse what is what).

I agree and disagree on this one. I don't like seeing burlesque of the tired old "we walk around in our undies going ooh la la" style at bellydance events because it makes me sad. Bellydance is OUR dance form and we should be celebrating it not trying to turn it into something else. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with a burlesque ON bellydance at a bellydance community event. A lot of people forget that burlesque is, 90 percent of the time, meant to be funny or provocative and not just in the "ooh I have my tits out" sense. I've seen a dance I'd classify as a burlesque in that sense, which brought the house down, because it was pointing at our bellydance community issues and poking fun at all of them. It was most definitely an in-joke. I think we might as well have in-jokes because our community is what it is. GP events are a little different.

On the other hand, what is really wrong with a bellydancer participating in an all-burlesque event or a variety show with burlesque elements? That's really where the performance opportunities are, and that's why so many artists are developing a burly take on whatever it is they do. Why not do a burlesque that is actually *about* bellydance instead of co-opting the movements and just bellydancing in some undies, which seems to be what a lot of them do? How I long for someone to do a belly-burly that involves the removal of hair, lashes and giant safety pins. And multiple pairs of giant undies. And chicken fillets.

I admit I saw that there was a BD act at a local burly event once, some years back, and cringed because I felt that the dancers in question were probably not doing a very good job of representing what they purported to represent. But I might have been wrong, I admit.

 

[Amulya]

ITA with what's been said. IMO some people enjoy the idea that it's a naughty foreign sex dance, either for the titillation or for the chance to get offended or more likely a mixture of both, and they aren't going to give it up lightly. Whatever.

Yes I encountered someone like that (I posted a tread about that a couple of years ago) He refused to be educated and kept saying 'but I am sure there are belly dancers who take their top off like burlesque' and I kept telling they wouldn't be a belly dancer if they did. Some people are just impossible to educate

 

[Jane]

Present yourself professionally and be well spoken and truthful. All you can do is the best you can and let the rest go. Seriously. You only have control over yourself and what you do. Going on crusade will just burn you out and frustrate you. Serenity prayer thing.

 

[DancingArabian]

I think what makes bellydance dirty to some people is that they believe the whole bits about slave girls dancing for the sultan, orgies celebrating demon gods and all that. Very few people I've come across know that bellydance is a dance style in the ME that everyone participates in.