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... Why all this emphasis on 'Masculine' vs. 'Feminine' style. I just don't buy it."
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Oh I KNEW when I wrote "masculine & feminine styles" it would come back and bite me! I was trying to cut down on the verbiage and it was a daft thing to cut corners on given the title of this thread. Duh!
I meant it with inverted commas, shorthand for the extreme stereotypes if you like. Using horrible stereotypes to avoid naming names and categorising anyone from a few YouTube clips, there are those who look like they would whisk a girl away to their bedouin tent on their camel (in your dreams if you got lucky and were 20 yrs younger
, spot the cheesy Orientalist fantasy), and those who, er, wouldn't. I like both, but for an audience of Joe/Jane Publics the former style is going to be more acceptable. For example I think Khaled Mahmood is amazing - and the times I've seen him dance he's been doing a style which -oh dear, trying to avoid the "feminine" word - which a lot of people are more comfortable seeing a woman do. I was talking to people afterwards and you could see that some of them, especially non-bellydance scene blokes but some of my classmates too, find it awkward to deal with. Yes, their problem up to a point, but if a professional male dancer was booked for an event where they were the audience, something towards the Aladdin/Sheikh end of the scale might go across better than something delicate with floaty veils and sequins. It's no different to a female dancer tailoring her look/act to the audience - what goes over well for a late night club or a hen night might not play as well in a retirement home (depends on the residents though!
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Maybe s/he dresses that way simply to be beautiful? Why would it necessarily be a "point about his/her sexuality"?...
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If a guy wants to bestrew himself with beaded fringe, sequins and wear a dress to look beautiful, good for him (can't promise not to laugh if it misfires though - I love an Ugly Belly Dance Costume as much as the next girl). It's just that when a man really does look like a woman its distracting for me and I wonder why he's presenting himself like that. Does he feel he has to look like a woman to be beautiful? I don't know... but it's making a point about something. How we present ourselves, when we have a choice, always makes a point about something.
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Or perhaps its the exact opposite - I *do* bring my sexuality to the stage and its obvious.
What do you think?
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I think maybe it's that you bring your personality. IMO dancers who can manage to do that (or fake it convincingly? difficult!), male or female, are appealing. Maybe that's why you're plagued by feral women! :eek:
(Oo-er, just had to edit this post for outrageous double-entendres :o )