To confuse matters further, the term "Ghawazee" or "Ghaziyah" was often used to describe ANY public performer/dancer/singer, with no thought to specific ethnicity or tribal affiliation.
It's only in realtively recent history that we've started equating the term "Ghawazee" solely with the Roma/Sinti/Nawari people.
I'm really curious about something -- have all the interested parties in this debate actually SEEN, for example Ibrahim Farrah's "Rare Glimpses" with the Lebanese Gypsies, or the Edison footage? Or the Sombati woman who danced with a chair in her mouth -- I can't locate the clip. Princess something? Or for that matter, any of Aisha Ali's films? Or Morocco's films in north Africa?
(Tarik and A'isha, I'm SURE you have -- heck, Tarik probably has access to more video footage than I could ever dream of!)
/jealousy mode
It's just that seeing this dance in context, in situ, really was an eye-opener and "aha" situation for me.
On another note:
I'm a card-carrying member of the "I love American Cabaret" club.
I think what we've done with this dance is often very amazing and exciting. And when it's explored and expanded by knowledgeable people -- like Alexandra King, for one -- it takes on a unique viewpoint, outside of the whole Orientalist fantasy.
The term "belly dance" isn't my favorite phrase, but I think it applies to the American form of the dance nicely. And when I go to a "bellydance" show, I'm not surprised to see swords, extensive veilswork, poi spinning, Arabian-Spanish fusion or tribal improvisation because I guess that's what the term has evolved to encompass.
But like Tarik, if I go to a show (ESPECIALLY a cultural event) and see "Middle Eastern Dance" or Egyptian dance or "Raqs" anything advertised, I EXPECT to see exactly that. If it's Egyptian dance, then I would expect an Egyptian in the audience to be able to say "Oh yeah, I recognize that kind of dancing/music."