Kharmine

Yes, I do agree with you. Science is always about retracing steps and reweighing the evidence in light of new discoveries and ideas. You can figure that you've got the answer based on what you know now, but there's a lot we still have to leave the door open to.

It was unlikely that Mead chose the title of her book -- those decisions are made by the publishing house.

She did spend a large part of her time with the people she was studying so that they would get to know and trust her. Evidently many people did, but it was still only a "representational sampling" of the larger community. And representational samplings are always at least a little suspect.

When we are researching the history of belly dance we have to remember that the same guidelines apply. Belly dance as we know it today is a fusion of various dance traditions from the Middle East, Turkey and Greece, largely. That's a pretty big swath of folks from different places, times and traditions who have used dance in different ways and have different opinions about it.

From its beginnings as raqs sharqi in Cairo cabarets, it was showcased with a strong Western influence -- Westernized bands and a Westernized style of traditional music often accompanied dancers who incorporated Western touches such as high heels, veils, costumes that borrowed from Hollywood, use of ballet-style arms and spins, etc.

You can see the evolution in the United States where immigrants and imported performers taught the moves from their traditions to Americans, and where immigrants and children of immigrants kept up the tradition of presenting Westernized versions of ethnic music for these dancers to perform to.

Again, this is history that cuts a pretty wide swath so our research has to cover a wide area as well. Leaving out credible evidence because it doesn't match our preferences or previous findings is not scientifically honest.

Every group that has involvement in the evolution and spread of belly dance has a part of the picture, as it were. But it's a big picture.

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Brea

Yes, that is true. I am interested in history (it's my major, after all) and I am surprised at the lack of true scholarly research into the history of bellydance.

-Brea

belly_dancer

me too (interested in history)
I'm not...(surprised)... as I am assuming you know (with your schooling)... most "scholarly research", until quite recently, was done by men... so it either included their biases & prejudices about anything "woman related" or they were simply disallowed access to the true "insider info" on woman's activities, precisely because they were men.......

Kharmine

Well, let's face it - dance in general doesn't get a whole lotta attention as an academic subject, particularly folk dance.

My husband and I do a lot of English country dancing, and he is also a Morris dancer. Both are traditions that almost died out in the UK by World War I. It took people like Cecil Sharp to dig it up, study it and learn how to teach it to a new generation.

Flamenco was considered a peasant or gypsy dance for a long time until it caught on as art with Spain's upper classes. The Argentine tango was born in brothels. Tap started out with Irish immigrants and black laborers. None of these forms got much in the way of scholarly attention for quite awhile.

__________________
What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

cathy

I am also interested in the history of this dance (and music) and its larger historical context including influences of / contact with/ perceptions by the West. Flaubert wrote about travels he took to Egypt in 1849. Sol Bloom exhibited Middle Eastern dancers at the world fair in Chicago in 1893. Badia Masabni opened her Casino in Cairo in the 1920s. Egypt was occupied by the British from 1882-1922. The Golden Era films were when--1940s-50s?

I am also thinking a lot lately about the larger dance and social context of Raks in general-- the social dance that existed before Badia Masabni and after her, that has much of the same movement vocabulary.

Cathy

Shanazel

Actually, this aptly describes my dad's family's mode of conversation. My mother married into the family at 19 and was as adept at this form of conversation as anyone born an Arnold. One of the wonders of the world was to listen to my mom and my aunt both talk at the same time about different things, then answer each other the same way. I've never seen two other people hold two completely unrelated conversations simultaneously.

Aisha Azar

Dear Shanazel,
My father also comes from a loud family, but it seems like they all talked at the top of their lungs all the time with no lull!! They all had these booming voices, even the females. One of my sisters and two of my brothers have that same voice. I was raised in a house with 7 brothers and sisters and when I left there, I moved in with three bikers. The first time I went to visit my family, I was amazed at how LOUD it was, compared to living with the nice, peaceful So Cal bikers!! A lot of it was not even them being loud, but just that there were so MANY of them. I had never noticed it when I lived at home.
Regards,
A'isha