Originally Posted by Andrea Deagon

I used to love veil dancing when I first started dancing as a teenager in the 1970's. I didn't know anything about its authenticity or lack of it (no one seemed to) but I loved the emotionality of it. It seemed to me that the veil was an aid in expressing my feelings and getting them out into the world beyond my body.

Like everyone then, I came on stage with the veil wrapped and unwrapped it in the second, slow part of the dance. For some dancers this was rather mechanical, for others it was seductive, for others it was a technical feat -- magic! The veil is free! I think for some dancers the unveiling had a symbolic sense of getting to the heart of the matter, getting more real, removing the film that stood between you and the audience in the opening piece, whose high energy meant you presented a rather one-dimensional persona to the audience at first. With the veilwork, you could add complexity to your dancing persona, and even bring your true self into it. I think that's what veilwork did for me.

Later, as I started learning more Egyptian, I realized that the way I had used the veil to release feeling and emotion, and communicate feeling and multi-dimensional persona to the audience, could be accomplished through the body itself, without the intervening fabric. I sort of lost interest in the veil.

Then in the late 80's-early 90's I began studying seriously with Ibrahim (Bobby) Farrah, and learned yet another use of the veil. Bobby tended toward silk chiffon veils, and the filminess and responsiveness of this fabric basically spoiled me for anything else. With this kind of veil, the standard moves (the ones you learn in belly dance 101, that all too often look contrived) may or may not work. If they work, they look different. The lightness of the fabric means that you have to relate to it in a different way.

Bobby's veil choreographies were more Egyptian style in that they were incorporated into an opening piece, but they were complex and lovely and there were no "standard" moves. It was the veil as the extension of the soul, which is, in a way, what I had started out seeking in my veil work -- it was just that Bobby's veil choreography was so much more insightful than what I had learned way back when. I am really sad that Bobby's premature death left the dance world without the power of his artistic vision in the mix of modern belly dance. I don't see much veilwork like his any more.