Andrea Deagon
New member
I know the stated topic is not the purpose of belly dance, but it IS effectively what people in the general public think the purpose of belly dance is. And it is good to have something to tell them. I go with something like,
"Belly dance is the performance aspect of a kind of social dancing done by men and women of all ages throughout the Middle East. It's done to enhance celebrations, and it's way of expressing pleasure and happiness and sensuality and sometimes deeper emotions through dancing. It's hard not to enjoy the dancing of someone who's enjoying doing it, so I'm not surprised that men find it sexy, but I've found that women usually enjoy it more than men do! The hokey Cleopatra-Hollywood-vamp thing is really a misleading stereotype, so I hope people can put it aside and just enjoy the dancing."
Of course all of this is undermined when "belly dancers" come out and actually DO the hokey Cleopatra-Hollywood-vamp thing.
When I mentioned to a friend at the local skating rink yesterday that my real devotion was to belly dance, she asked if I also did pole dancing. Poor woman, she got an earfull, mainly because I thought we had fought that battle pretty successfully over the past 30-40 years, but when the local pole dancing establishment also offers "belly dance" lessons, you can imagine what those "belly dancers" will learn, and what ideas the general population will form. It's discouraging.
"Belly dance is the performance aspect of a kind of social dancing done by men and women of all ages throughout the Middle East. It's done to enhance celebrations, and it's way of expressing pleasure and happiness and sensuality and sometimes deeper emotions through dancing. It's hard not to enjoy the dancing of someone who's enjoying doing it, so I'm not surprised that men find it sexy, but I've found that women usually enjoy it more than men do! The hokey Cleopatra-Hollywood-vamp thing is really a misleading stereotype, so I hope people can put it aside and just enjoy the dancing."
Of course all of this is undermined when "belly dancers" come out and actually DO the hokey Cleopatra-Hollywood-vamp thing.
When I mentioned to a friend at the local skating rink yesterday that my real devotion was to belly dance, she asked if I also did pole dancing. Poor woman, she got an earfull, mainly because I thought we had fought that battle pretty successfully over the past 30-40 years, but when the local pole dancing establishment also offers "belly dance" lessons, you can imagine what those "belly dancers" will learn, and what ideas the general population will form. It's discouraging.