Instead of trying to write something really profound, which I probably couldn’t do right now after driving across the country with two cats, I’m posting someone else’s work. This article by Kitty Kohl busts many of the myths about what we know as “bellydance”.  In order to build respect and knowledge about our art, we must consider many points of view.  I just happen to really like this one.

“Like People in Prehistory”:  An article by fusion dancer Kitty Kohl.

Enjoy!

I hear this all the time.  Honestly, every time I hear it, my heart breaks a little.  It’s a bit like hearing, “I’m a ballerina, but I don’t like classical music.”  Or, “I’m a jazz dancer, but I don’t like Duke Ellington.”  You can be sure that a ballerina who hates classical music has learned to love it, or at least like it.  She’s going to be dancing to it nearly EVERY DAY.

Maybe this all-too-common sentiment makes me sad because I do love Middle Eastern music.  I admit that I don’t love all of it, but who loves everything in a particular genre or style of music?

But I wonder, why would you self-identify as a belly dancer if you don’t like dancing to Middle Eastern music?  It’s one thing to experiment with non-Middle Eastern music.  It’s another to eschew it completely from your performance repertoire or to say that you dislike all of it.  If you’re not dancing to Middle Eastern music, I really don’t think you can call yourself a belly dancer.  There.  I said it.

Belly dance is inherently Middle Eastern.  Whether it’s Turkish oryantal, Egyptian folkloric, Lebanese-style cabaret, Moroccan Shikhat: It’s all Middle Eastern.*  One might argue that belly dance as a genre is at a developmental crossroads, with Westernized belly dance being one branch of its evolution and Middle Eastern belly dance being the other branch.  I don’t think that we’re quite to that point, nor do I think that this argument (or any argument) is an excuse that allows for ignorance or dismissal of the historical and regional roots of this dance.

As Westerners (I’m an American, and many of my readers are also non-Middle Eastern), we are intuitively drawn to music from our own culture.  This makes complete sense.  (You all know that I’ve danced to crazy breakcore, arty electronica, and progressive rock–all of which are not at all Middle Eastern. But I’ve also danced to medieval Arabic muwashahat, Egyptian taqsasim, and drum solos)  We want to dance to music that moves us, and rightfully so.  We want to be able to give an honest performance to music that speaks to our hearts and souls.

I also think (and I do hear this quite a bit) that many of us are afraid that we won’t be able to do Middle Eastern music justice.  That somehow, because we’re not experts on how they dance “over there”, we’ll disrespect the music and the culture.  That we’ll misinterpret the song and do something offensive and uncouth. I know that I feel this way sometimes…  BUT: If you research the song’s meaning and history, and you go into your new choreography with awareness and understanding, you won’t be disrespecting the song or its mother culture.

I’ll recount a little anecdote from a Level III workshop I attended with Suhaila Salimpour a while back.  Before the workshop, we were required to create a work-in-progress choreography, using the feet and body placement only.  No belly dance moves, no hip work, no arms.  Just feet.  One incredibly talented student had completed the assignment using a French tango of sorts: slow, languid, and sexy.  Suhaila said, “OK, your choreography is lovely, but this isn’t Middle Eastern music.  The assignment was to choreograph to Middle Eastern music.”  She then asked this student, and the rest of the class, what sort of Middle Eastern music would have the same sentiment as this non-Middle Eastern piece that the student had selected.  Many of us answered that a nice chiftetelli would work, but then Suhaila said to the student, “Actually, while a chiftetelli would work, this needs to be a debke.  A really HOT debke.  Go find a debke song and come back tomorrow with the SAME choreography, but to the debke.”  The student was skeptical, but completed the assignment, performed the same choreography to the new song the next day, and DAMN if that wasn’t the HOTTEST fricking debke I had ever seen!  It was “Village Girls Gone Wild”, and it was astoundingly brilliant.

I learned a lot as I observed this dancer complete this assignment:

• You can use Middle Eastern music and put your own sentiment into it.
• The movements you put to Middle Eastern music don’t necessarily have to be what they do “over there”.
• You can learn to love the music if your choreography and emotional perspective are precise and clear.
• You won’t be disrespecting the music if you choreograph outside the traditional “box.” (In fact, you’ll probably be even more creative in the process!)

If we are to continue to call ourselves “belly dancers” we must absolutely know how to perform to Middle Eastern music, and… we must learn to love at least some of the music from that region of the world.  Chances are that we won’t love all of it, and that’s fine!  I admit that I just don’t love Arabic pop, and shaabi music just gets on my nerves.  I’m not a big fan of most of the “made for Egyptian bellydance” compositions (frankly, to me, they often lack emotion and start to sound all the same!).  But I love Umm Kalthoum.  I love a good drum solo.  I love a beautiful ‘ud taqsim.

If you all were my students, I would give you an assignment:

Find a song you like.  ANY song, regardless of regional origin.  Choreograph 16 counts of 8 (or equivalent) to that song. THEN find a Middle Eastern song that has a similar sentiment or feeling.  Take your choreography and set it into the Middle Eastern song without changing any of the steps.  Does it work?  What would you change?  What would you keep?  What did you learn in the process?

I am pretty sure that there will be a style of Middle Eastern music that will speak to you, too, but maybe you just haven’t found it yet.   Take the time to explore the many styles of the region’s music, and don’t limit yourself only to recordings that are labeled “Belly Dance”.  Middle Eastern music is more than just belly dance music.  It is rich, varied, and it can be hauntingly beautiful.  Saying, “I don’t like Middle Eastern music” is like saying, “I don’t like Western music.”  There is SO MUCH variety in one region’s musical landscape.  And if you find a song that does speak to you, and you dance to it from your heart, you won’t be disrespecting it or the culture.  I promise.  As non-Middle Easterners, we have to take some of our own culture with us into our choreographies and performances.  How could we not?  But we must also respect and research and honor the region’s history and arts.  And, I am absolutely not saying that you have to dance to Middle Eastern music all the time; but being able to enjoy doing so is something I hope that every belly dancer can and will do in the course of her creative journey.

*I like to include North Africa–Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria–in with the Middle East region because of the similarity of customs, language, and culture.

One thought I keep having is why belly dance will never be as respected in the eye of the general public as ballet.  I’ve heard many belly dancers throughout the years say that they want to make belly dance as respected as ballet. While I do believe this is a noble cause, we can’t change how these dances have developed throughout the centuries.  The histories of both ballet and bellydance directly affect how each is viewed by the general public.

I’ll give you a little glimpse into my brain, and I’m sure I’ll expand on these ideas later, especially as I read more and more of the book.  As I read about the origins of ballet in the 16th century, this comparison flitters around my head:

Ballet (as we know it now) began as a European court dance, codified and performed mostly by men, specifically French kings.

Bellydance began who knows when, began in its more modern forms as a Middle Eastern folkdance, wasn’t codified until the 20th century (and there is still no universal standard codification of steps), and is mostly performed by women.

I assume you start to see the problems inherent in comparing the two?

I thought that a workshop like this one would be fully attended. But it wasn’t. Only 10 people registered. Some of the lack of attendance can be attributed to the time of year; the workshop happened in the middle of September. School had just started and many people have busy schedules. But… I still wonder: why were there not more people at this workshop? Why would one pass up an opportunity to study the roots of American belly dance with the mother of it all, Jamila Salimpour, the woman who created the idea of “tribal style” belly dance, who coined the terms “Turkish drop”, “Maya”, and “Basic Egyptian”? It also makes me wonder: how many people know how important Jamila’s format is to belly dance, particularly to any dancer who identifies her or himself as “tribal” style?

As we learned each step, I related it to its child step in American Tribal Style (ATS). (Masha Archer, a student of Jamila’s, taught Carolena Nericcio, who created what we now know as the improvisational American Tribal Style belly dance.) The “Basic Egyptian” in ATS is actually Jamila Salimpour’s “Pivot-Shift-Step”. The “Pivot Bump” in ATS is directly related to Jamila’s “Counter-clockwise Pivot”. The Arabic family of steps in the Jamila Salimpour format have a direct relation to ATS’s Arabic variations. Jamila’s “Arabic 1″ and “Arabic 2″ eventually developed into ATS’ basic Arabic step. Jamila’s “Arabic 3″ became ATS’ “Arabic Hip Twist”. “Arabic 4″ became ATS’ “Turkish Shimmy”. The connections are so obvious once you immerse yourself in Jamila’s format.

Studying the Jamila Salimpour format at Suhaila’s studio with Jamila Salimpour herself is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you have the means, no matter what style of belly dance you perform or study, you absolutely must go. Charge it on your credit card if you must. Jamila Salimpour is 84, and as much as we would love for her to stay, eventually she will pass on to the next world. She is a force of nature, a pioneer, a powerful and magical woman who has experience and knowledge about belly dance that most of us only dream of having.

To whet your appetite, I give you two articles by Jamila Salimpour on her experiences as a belly dancer, the creation of her format, and the origins of the original “tribal” style belly dance company, Bal Anat.

Speech presented by Jamila Salimpour at the International Conference on Middle Eastern Dance, May 16-18, 1997.

From Many Tribes: The Origins of Bal Anat by Jamila Salimpour

Do yourself a huge favor. Read these articles. Learn about Jamila Salimpour and how she changed the face of contemporary belly dance. Know your roots. And know that tribal doesn’t start with American Tribal Style and FatChanceBellyDance; it starts in its most cohesive form with Jamila Salimpour and Bal Anat.

Here I’d like to bring to your attention the köçek dancing boys of the Ottoman Empire.  The köçek were entertainers, dressed primarily in female drag, and danced in the courts of the Ottoman sultans.  The culture of the köçek flourished from the 1600s to the 1800s, and started in the palaces and in the sultans’ harems.  Independent dance troupes helped spread the tradition of the köçek beyond the palaces and into greater Anatolia and the Balkans.  The dancing boys were, however, also available not only for entertainment purposes but also for sexual acts, available to the highest bidder.

Read more about the köçek here on Wikipedia.

OK, tribal and fusion dancers. I know we generally don’t dance to classic Middle Eastern music, but we should know these recordings and know them well. We should also be able to dance to them, should the opportunity arise. If you haven’t yet invested in a few good oriental music recordings, now is better than later. It’s a part of your education as a bellydancer. In my opinion, if you’ve been dancing for over a year there are no excuses for not knowing most of these songs. There’s also a reason these songs are essential: They’re damn good.

The songs with links to translations if available.  Hardly a complete list:

• Alf Layla Wa Layla (A Thousand and One Nights)
• Aziza
• Habibi Ya Ayni (My Sweetheart, My Eye)
• Enta Omri (You Are My Life) Sometimes transliterated as “Inta Omri”.
• Lama Bada Yata Sana (When She Begins to Sway)
• Laylat Hob (Love Night)
• Lissa Fakir (Do You Remember?)
• Mashaal
• Mastika – Turkish Karsilama
• Rompi Rompi - Turkish Karsilama
• Salam Alay (She Greeted Me)
• Sawwa (Vagabond)
• Set al Hosen
• Tamer Henna (Henna Flower)
• Zay al Hawa (Like the Wind)
• Zayna (Zaina, or Zeina)

Where do I find this music?

• Bellydance Superstars Volume 1
• Suhaila’s Surpreme Selections
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 1.
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 3.
• Jalilah’s Raks Sharki Volume 5. I love this recording.
• Masters of Bellydance Music Volume 1 and Volume 2

Please, dear fusion dancers, give these songs and these recordings a chance.  Not knowing these songs and not respecting them is like disowning yourself from your family.  And, who knows… you might find yourself loving some of these songs.

Cabaret, oriental, and folkloric bellydance instructors make it clear to their students the importance of knowing the meaning and history of the music used in performance and class, mostly because the music that those dancers typically use is from the Middle East and these dancers often perform for people from the Middle East.  How embarrassing for a dancer to perform a happy, light-hearted dance to a song that’s really about heartache and lost love to an audience full of people who know the true meaning of the song… not to mention that those audience members might be terribly offended that the dancer clearly had no idea of what that song means!  Luckily, in cabaret circles, there are many experienced dancers who will gladly tell a less-experienced dancer the meaning of a song and the history behind it.

With tribal fusion dancers, however, the situation is a little bit different… Because tribal fusion is such a new genre, and also because it encompasses such a wide range of dance styles and music choices, we may not think we have many mentors or instructors to give us guidance on the meaning of a song.  Unfortunately, I think a lot of newer dancers in the tribal fusion genre get wrapped up in the fun and artistic freedom of the style without thinking about the responsibility that they have as performers and as performers of an ethnic dance form with a rich history.

I find this phenomenon happening most often as tribal fusion dancers use more and more Balkan and Romany (Gypsy) music and blend it with old-timey, Vaudeville, circus, and sideshow themes.  And of course, blending these images and ideas with bellydance is fun and entertaining, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a responsibility to know the origins of our music.  The Romany people have been persecuted and discriminated against throughout history, and much of their traditional songs reflect this collective experience.  While a lot of Balkan Romany music sounds fun and entertaining, the lyrics of these songs can be much more sad than we Westerners might perceive.  I saw a dancer performing a light-hearted, Vaudeville-inspired choreography to “Djelem Djelem” (lyrics and translation here), which is considered to be the Romany anthem.  Jarko Jovanovic composed the words and set them to a traditional melody in response to Nazi persecution of the Gypsies during the Holocaust.  It’s not exactly a happy song.  (For further information and history of the Roma, visit this website.)

So, even though tribal fusion is such a new style, and it’s certainly going through its own growing pains, that doesn’t mean that those of us who perform this genre are excused from the responsibility of research, or from respecting our source material and music.  Of course, not every traditional song has some deep, historical meaning… but it might.  Please, if you choose to dance to a traditional song, particularly one with sung lyrics, take a few moments to poke around on the internet to find out the origins of that song.