Tarik Sultan

Dear Caroline and Zorba:

I'm glad you understand what I'm talking about. Zorba, I agree with your statement of dancers becoming a pastiche. The problem that I find among many male dancers is that this is exactly what they are. There seems to be two extremes right now, the overtly effeminate and the overtly "masculine", (By the way, I got your package today and now I hate you, I really, really hate you! That was bad, just grotesque, why didn't you warn me?!).

Speaking from observation and experience with people like this here and in Egypt, there are many guys who use the dance as a way of expressing their sexuality. For them it's less about the dance than it is in finding external validation for their sexuality. They really need people to know they are gay and so they adopt loud flamboyant behavior. There is a big difference between being naturally effeminate and being a caricature and unfortunately, more often than not, they are caricatures.

Caroline, your observation about attitudes towards gays matches my observations in Egypt also. There are many places that are known gay hang outs. I don't know the place you mentioned, but there is a cafe in one of the squares near Tahrir that is a known meeting place. Thing is, other people go thee as well. People know who is who, but they have a live and let live attitude about it. I couldn't tell by looking who was who, but that's because no one was making a big scene.

One incident that I witnessed. The little felucas hire street kids to dance on the prows to attract customers. Some of them are girls, some guys, and some are really swishy queens. The people who usually ride the boats are from the poor areas because its only 2 LE for a ride, (By the way, this was a lesson in the difference between the regular guys who can dance as versus the effeminate kids). All the dancing was Baladi style, but there's a big difference in attitude and carriage between the two. Anyway, there was this one guy who was STONED out of his mind on hash. He was very embarrassed that I, a foreigner, was seeing these young guys flaming out. He said it showed a bad image of his country and he didn't want me thinking bad about Egypt. He was so embarrassed that he tried to beat up one of the young queens. It was the ordinary people, most of them WOMEN IN HAJAB, that blocked his way and told him to back off and leave the kid alone. The difference is that while he saw the kid as a threat to honor, the ordinary people saw him as what he was, amusing and totally harmless. I think this illustrates the attitude of the officials. Since the government is so paranoid about their image, they see a swishy kid as being a threat and bad reflection of them, their country and honor. This is why if guys are going to be taken seriously there, they can't present themselves in a controversial manner.

Zorba

But I did, Tarik, I did! You read my description! The question now is, "What will you do with all the money you saved?"!

I think we're in agreement with the above - A pastiche is a pastiche, be it a pastiche of "femininity" or of "masculinity". It comes down to being REAL on stage, being yourself, blah, blah.
This could open up another can of worms - this is outside my "reality". I don't doubt you for a minute, but this "just isn't me or my vision.". I don't like dancers who sexualize their dancing either, I've seen it with both males and females. Without getting into a 10K byte semantical discussion/argument - our dance is sensual and even "sexy", but not "sexual".

__________________
-Zorba
"The Veiled Male"
http://www.doubleveil.net
"There is nothing sadder than a veil, that is for sale."