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Aziyade · 05-10-2007, 01:24 PM

Good points, Sultan.

The biggest misconception I encounter in the cornfields is people thinking bellydance is just wiggling, and it's easy; but, there is a certain hint of "naughty-ness" with the dance -- possibly because of the word "belly" -- and so people are usually very shyly curious about what it is I REALLY do.

BUT -- while I (and hopefully my students) know that bellydance isn't obscene, there are LOTS of teachers and dancers out there who REVEL in the "bad rep" that bellydance might have, and really exploit that. They use bellydance as a vehicle for bringing all their sexual dysfunction and emotional baggage to the stage, or they think it's "sexy" to crawl around like a cat in heat. One horrific performance like that stays in the minds of the public a heck of a lot longer than one good performance.

Although I never personally have had a student say, "I'm Christian, is it okay for me to bellydance?" I HAVE had a couple of potential students ask me if they had to be WICCAN (or otherwise pagan) to dance. ??????? huh? But there's a lot of local crossover between our local goddess-worshippers and the bellydancers, and I guess somewhere the two things got connected.

A'isha and the MEDance list have been having a wonderful ongoing discussion about what is "Sexy" and is bellydance sexy, etc. Part of the problem with misconceptions about bellydance is misconceptions about what "SEXY" means, as is obvious by some of the comments on that thread. Sexy, to me, is just expressing your natural feminine or masculine energy and joy and passion -- it's not about getting a person all "hot and bothered."

I find these videos "sexy" because of the power and energy of the dancers.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Getting a person all "hot and bothered" is the rep that bellydance has for a lot of people, and I can see how that goal doesn't really mesh with the goal of a lot of religions. But we dancers on this board KNOW that bellydance isn't about getting the seats wet (as Morocco so eloquently put it), so it doesn't make any sense for us why there should be religious restrictions on this form of dancing.

But none of US is probably crawling around on stage like a cat in heat, either.

05-10-2007, 01:24 PM	#222 (permalink)
Aziyade V.I.P. Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Cornfields of Evansville Indiana. Posts: 1,049	Good points, Sultan. The biggest misconception I encounter in the cornfields is people thinking bellydance is just wiggling, and it's easy; but, there is a certain hint of "naughty-ness" with the dance -- possibly because of the word "belly" -- and so people are usually very shyly curious about what it is I REALLY do. BUT -- while I (and hopefully my students) know that bellydance isn't obscene, there are LOTS of teachers and dancers out there who REVEL in the "bad rep" that bellydance might have, and really exploit that. They use bellydance as a vehicle for bringing all their sexual dysfunction and emotional baggage to the stage, or they think it's "sexy" to crawl around like a cat in heat. One horrific performance like that stays in the minds of the public a heck of a lot longer than one good performance. Although I never personally have had a student say, "I'm Christian, is it okay for me to bellydance?" I HAVE had a couple of potential students ask me if they had to be WICCAN (or otherwise pagan) to dance. ??????? huh? But there's a lot of local crossover between our local goddess-worshippers and the bellydancers, and I guess somewhere the two things got connected. A'isha and the MEDance list have been having a wonderful ongoing discussion about what is "Sexy" and is bellydance sexy, etc. Part of the problem with misconceptions about bellydance is misconceptions about what "SEXY" means, as is obvious by some of the comments on that thread. Sexy, to me, is just expressing your natural feminine or masculine energy and joy and passion -- it's not about getting a person all "hot and bothered." I find these videos "sexy" because of the power and energy of the dancers. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Getting a person all "hot and bothered" is the rep that bellydance has for a lot of people, and I can see how that goal doesn't really mesh with the goal of a lot of religions. But we dancers on this board KNOW that bellydance isn't about getting the seats wet (as Morocco so eloquently put it), so it doesn't make any sense for us why there should be religious restrictions on this form of dancing. But none of US is probably crawling around on stage like a cat in heat, either.