charlieL

I ask this because i saw in youtube many people bashing dancers of middle east if not of his/her country and saying that x style is the real belly dance, for example; an Egyptian would say that the best bellydancers are from Egypt and if a foreigner dare to dance that style is a sin, but this only happen if such dancer is from Turkey or Lebanon, the same happen if dancer is from Lebanon or Turkey, they bash among them, do you know why this happen?

jenc

Don't take any notice of what people on YouTube say about dancers!!!!!!!!!! You will often find someone stunning is slated whilst someone mediocre or bad is praised. It isn't dancers doing this.

Hizzy_Izzy

There will *always* be critics. It's a terrible habit of mine to read comments on YouTube. Almost always, I feel this sense of fear in the pit of my stomach that people bad-mouth me like they do to whoever the poor dancer is I'm watching perform.
But there'll always be a critic, or a bigot, or someone who doesn't even dance but who feels like they're the final authority on whatever's halal
or haraam when it comes to Middle-Eastern dance.
Every genre of art of entertainment has its 'comic-book-guy', though. (forgive me if you're not a 'Simpson's' fan, lol).

Thank goodness we on this forum have more sense than to be those types of people!

Reen.Blom

No but I understand the idea, it is not about the youTube, but as looking at foreign dancers as second grade? the sentiment *how dare you do smth out of OUR culture*... Do not think its the dancers attitude, but of some narrow minded people. I would rejoys if someone did something out of my culture cos it means that it is appreciated and admired!

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jenc

Most of these people would not recognise good dancing if it bit them!!

Caroline_afifi

I do come across this alot believe it or not. I think the Western Middle Eastern dance scene is quite seperate from the culture from which it springs and due to many reasons, people do not always come into contact with people from the Middle East or have any idea about what they think of Western women doing it. On the whole, you do not tend to come across this at parties and people who make friends with belly dancers will show only support. This however is not the full picture.
There are many who do not like it, there are many who do like it and see it as funny etc and there are some who really do just like it.
For the Liverpool Arab Arts festival I can not produce a show of all Western performers and people do not realise this. I have to have a high percentage of people with Middle Eastern roots at least. The arts councils do not really like Western women doing this dance either and dont view it with political positivity. I have been trying to slowly change this over the years but it has been hard. The fact that most of this scene exsists in the world of commercialism does not help either.
I would like to go into detail about the various political issues but I am in danger of breaching confindentiality.

A few years ago I was at a conference called the 'Arab Image in the West' and dance was mentioned as one of the postive factors for building bridges between the East and West. I was so pleased.

Back in March my colleague and I from the Arab Arts Festival met with the Un Ambassador in Cairo to discuss developing a conference in Liverpool on the same subject to see where things are at now, the idea came from them which was very positive.

lizaj

...and can you blame some of the people when viewing some of the so-called belly dancing they see on Youtube?
I am not talking about fusion here as I assume fusion dancers will not expect MErs and Turks to understand that what they do may have belly dance roots.
And what do you think they make of the goddessy belly dance guff that gets on Youtube and the bedroom instructional tapes?
I give you the beginning of this:


YouTube - Mia Serra on the origin of belly dance