While performing on stage one night in America, a male in the audience climbed up and came at me with a dollar bill in his hand. I smiled and handled the
situation with good grace, but missed a musical part in which I had planned the most skillful part of my dance. I used to think, “What is it with this dance that
everyone thinks it’s titillation?”. Now I think, “Why do dancers continue to train their audiences to think this dance is nothing but titillation”. Am I the only
dancer that wants the dance to be treated with respect? Often I hear “Well, you know, its history, with fertility dances and temple prostitution.” This is a poorly
informed response. During ancient times people grew up dancing as part of life. Children, both male and female, danced with their elders during all
celebrations, not just celebrations of fertility. More importantly, the fertility was most often for the fertility of the soil and the harvest. They danced to
celebrate a good hunt, harvest, and life and death. All dancing had its base on this “social” expression. Dance was a means of expression for all parts of life.
In homes across the Middle East and north Africa and of people of Middle Eastern heritage who have moved a to far away countries, this dance continues to
be passed on from generation to generation. Are six year old girls who dance in their living room with relatives doing a temple prostitute’s dance? Are guests
at an ethnic wedding who dance and participate in the joyous occasion doing a sex dance? All dance, whether jazz, flamenco, etc., is sensual and makes one
feel alive and robust. Middle Eastern dance is based on folk dance, or ‘social’ dance, no different than any other regional dance that is done socially. In my
native Sicily the unmarried people of the village gather once a month in a hall for a night of polka dancing. The room is charged with robust energy and
healthy attraction. Does this make their folk dance a sex dance?
In Cairo when I take tabla lessons and am doing well with a rhythm, my teacher gets up and dances. Sometimes his daughter will dance. Once when she was
doing an incredible movement I asked where she learned it. She pointed to her father and grinned. He grinned back with pride. Is he teaching her a fertility
dance or a sex dance? Whether it is done in the home, at a social event or professionally performed, the dance is based on the style done amongst the
people. Middle Eastern people love to dance. It is part of their every day life.
The dance becomes something else when the context is changed. Yes, thousands of years ago fertility dancing existed (and most often fertility dances
included male dancers). And later when wars were fought and people were captured and used for slaves, some females were used for sex and as slaves,
trained to dance for their masters' entertainment. But that is not what the history of the dance is. It is wrong to take a minority situation and turn it into the
history of the dance.
Middle Eastern dance is rich in history. Don’t fall prey to limiting yourself to the image of the temple dancer, the harem slave girl, or the modern day dollar in
her bra top titillator. For thousands of years the dance has been done with great joy as a social dance. A sophisticated performance style has taken some of
these social movements from this folkloric dance and developed into a style of its own. This is the style we should help promote.
When ballet was in its developmental stage, it not only didn’t look like the polished dance we know today, but was considered ill reputable. Like ballet, staged
Middle Eastern dance has been going through a period of development, but while Egyptians were working at creating a more professional staged dance
appropriate for families, American dancers toyed with the exotic fantasy of the Middle East and integrated it into burlesque and vaudeville. Early modern
dancers Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn used the exotic, fantasized, oriental image, but did not use any authentic movement. Together with
burlesque and vaudeville, these modern dance experiments were the forerunners of the development of American Cabaret. Egyptian cinema upgraded
dancers to celebrity status and respected composers created music for top dancers. Egyptian choreographers and dancers worked towards standards to help
oriental become accepted as a dance art. What has happened to American bellydance? Why is it seen primarily as titilation?
I returned to college several years ago and while attending, I witnessed a phenomena regarding dance and sensuality at college. Hip Hop was included in the
curriculum. It was very provocative and used pelvic movements that were quite sexual. Why were those provocative dances seen as acceptable by the
faculty, parents, and audience members at the college shows? . . . Because they were professionally staged and choreographed and presented in an
appropriate atmosphere and not presented in a way that could be misinterpreted as sexual or aimed at men. If the dancers were dancing within the audience
members or if they accepted tips on their body or even on the stage, it would not have been acceptable. What turns a dance into a sexual dance is the
atmosphere and presentation. As long as the image of dollar bills sticking into bra tops and belly grams aimed at the ‘Birthday Boy’ prevail, the general public
will not get beyond the stripper image, nor will the dance ever be taken seriously as a dance art. All the work and training is in vain if we don’t start
acknowledging what we are doing. Why not promote the dance (and ourselves) as something of value?
| Temple Dancer, Harem Girl, Dollar in Your Bra Top Titillator What Kind of Dance are You Projecting? by Cheri Berens Copyright 2003 |
