Brea

All right, I'm opening up this can of worms again. Yesterday I was in a bookstore reading a history book called "Horrible Prettiness" about the history of burlesque. According to this book, and other sources I have read, Little Egypt was the beginning of bellydance being involved in burlesque. At that time the dance was called the 'cooch' or 'hoochie-coochie'. Eventually with all the competing acts it started to become more raunchy and less variety show, and then the shows started having their 'cooch' dancers or bellydancers start taking clothes off. So basically according to this book bellydance is the forerunner of the striptease, much like vaudeville burlesque was the forerunner of the strip show.

I also picked up a book called 'Belly Dancing' by Pina Coluccia, Anette Paffrath, and Jean Putz. There is a great deal of silliness about the Mother Goddess/Great Goddess in there. Although I do admit I like how they focus on sexuality being a very important part of the dance, and talk (if all too briefly) about male bellydancers.

I often wonder how to dispel the goddess myth, as so many people nowadays tend to see the Goddess everywhere, even where she wasn't (such as Ireland or Scotland). In fact there are allegedly no cultures that are truly 'goddess' based...many pantheons but no one female deity. Anyway I'd really like to know how to dispel this myth with bellydance as well as with the Celtic and Pictish histories if anyone has any suggestions. I'm also curious to know what everyone thinks of the history of bellydance as it relates to striptease...this may be why so many people assume we are strippers, or similar.

-Brea

Suheir

I see one of our UK belly dance suppliers is now selling a Burlesque instructional DVD: Aladdins Cave PFDVD05

"Princess Farhana will teach you to strut like a showgirl and vamp a la Gypsy Rose Lee in the retro strip tease style" - how can we complain being labelled as strippers when we're blatantly allowing the connection ourselves?

So a belly dancer also performs Burlesque - why does a belly dance supplier need to sell this DVD? There's a Danish belly dancer who's also an airline pilot, if she produced an instructional DVD on how to land a 747 would they also stock that?

This is an interesting article and comments:


Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - theatre: Stripping away the myths of burlesque

lizaj

We are talking American Bellydance here. I don't think Burlesque ever happened in Egypt?

It's only more recently in history that any entertainers have been thought of "respectable". In the West we may now rever actors and singers and dancers of talent, 200 years ago they were "from the gutter".
In the ME , performing in public is surely a big no no for most and belly dance there for some is still linked with the sex trade. I would have thought only the most successful perfomers are secure in admiration rather than censure and lower down the scale, girls who dance may also ply another trade to make a living just as ballet dancers did in the West centuries ago.

Brea

You're right; I should have pointed out that I meant 'the involvement of bellydance in AMERICAN burlesque'...however, this is apparently how striptease got its start as a show, at least according to these history books.

-Brea

cathy

One of the first times Middle Eastern dance was displayed for the public in the United States was when Sol Bloom brought a group of dancers to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Later in his memoirs he wrote:

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It is regrettable -- of, if anyone should choose to disagree, it is at least a fact -- that more people remember the reputation of the danse du ventre than the dance itself. This is very understandable, When the public learned that the literal translation was "belly dance" they delightedly concluded that it must be salacious and immoral. The crowds poured in. I had a gold mine.

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I know others on this forum disagree with the idea that the name "belly dance" was coined by Sol Bloom on this occasion and that the name "belly dance" has in itself negative connotations. But I think it's clear that whatever the origin of the name, Sol Bloom the businessman intended to profit from encouraging the public to associate it with the exotic and salacious.

We are still trying to overcome this association to this day. Cathy

Aziyade

see above -- EXACTLY!

Plus, it didn't help that in the formative years of bellydance in the US, if you went to many of the nightclubs, the dancers were wearing pasties and skirts split up to there -- because the nightclub owners also knew sex sells. So you try to point out that bellydance isn't about sleaze, and some guy shows you the old album cover to "Music of the African Arab" or "Port Said" and you just have to sigh and say, "that was then" and hope they get it.

belly_dancer

I forget WHERE I read the following.... but do recall seeing it more than once...
basically after the huge popularity of Sol Bloom's circus.... oops I mean the world's fair .... with the original "little egypt" performing, there came MANY imitators using the name to cash in on the popularity/noteriety...
{just like today... when you see a "belly dancer" (who cannot dance (or maybe who can?! but nobody cares!) in a fantasy harem costume w/ snake charming music at a strip club.... it is just a gimic to make $$$$}
so there were MANY "hoochie-coochie" dancers USING the name "little egypt" (& most likely very few of them had actually SEEN the show of the original little egypt... so their "act" was based on the (most likely highly exaggerated) "titillating" stories they heard... probably told to them by the male producers of the show!!!!!!! [that is MY conclusion!!]).... but I doubt the ORIGINAL Little Egypt was in a burlesque show.... some where I read that the original performers went back to their country (Syria???) within a year of the show.....
would be interested what others have read/heard/recall?!?!?!

Brea

Hey everyone,

You know what? I am a history major. Maybe I should start a piece on the authentic history of ME dance. I could do a paper that could lead to a book. I'd love to see something good out there on the subject. I suppose I could provide that. Besides, I've been a bit bored with my usual historical subjects lately. What do you think? Also, I wonder how many things in the history will be upsetting to me, and to others? I wonder if one could even write a definitive history of the dance. I do know, at least, that the man who wrote this book was definitely attempting an actual history of burlesque (in the sense of professional history, that is). So if Little Egypt did join such a troupe...and if his assertions that striptease was based on what was seen at the World's Fair...I wonder what that means for our profession.

-Brea

Aziyade

You know I WOULD LOVE to read this, but I don't think you're going to find an "authentic" history of the dance because we don't know what the dance looked like in ancient times, only in the video era.

A COMPREHENSIVE history would be a better idea, but you'd have to tackle ancient Egyptian dance, Persian dance, Turkish, West African, and the ancient Greek and Phoenician dances, as well as deal with the whole Goddess issue.

Here's one of the older papers on our dance, by a dancer. I think this has been in circulation (in one form or another) since 1993.

http://joyfuldancer.home.comcast.net...g/articles.htm
Origins of Oriental Dance: Pt 1 - What is Belly Dance? (with pictures)

and this one I found in the SCA
http://tribalbellydance.net/papers/dancepaper.
arguable on many points. She relies heavily on Bounaventura)

and if you're interested in Orientalist paintings and Orientalism itself creating the perception of artificial sex roles, I can send you the outline draft of my paper, which someday may actually turn into my thesis. Or not. I have other hobbies now

There are also books with "histories" in them, but you're better to start from scratch with your own research.


Don't let anything discourage you from your pursuit, though. Just know it's not going to be easy and there will be a LOT of debate about it. But that's a GOOD THING!

Farasha Hanem

Brea isn't talking about the geographic Egypt; she's talking about a dancer who called herself "Little Egypt." She performed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Brea, I have the same book, and agree that the authors do take the whole goddess thing too far, but it does have some delicious recipes at the end, doesn't it?

Sorry, belly_dancer, I just now noticed your post. You are right---there were many imitators who came after Little Egypt, who took the dance and made it so raunchy, that even she began to complain about the vulgarity of her imitators.