Sara

Hey dudes and dudettes!

What is this Babelesque thing? Just got an e-mail bout it, and then you tubed it. All I got was fusiony stuff. I thought it might be Burlesquey, but I'm a bit confused. I got Reggaeton fusion and a promo.

Any more info anyone?

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Eshta

Hi Sara,

Haven't seen the show so not the best person to comment but as far as I can gather (and part of the reason I didn't bother seeing the show) is it's a variation on the same theme - ie, 'bellydance' with some other fusion thingamies thrown in to pad it out into a theatre-length show.

Reggaeton fusion, I had to find the clip you referred to. Oh. Dear. No. Not. Good. Why. Dear. God.

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Saqarah - London's monthly Belly Dance Hafla!

Kharis

Same goods, different packaging. It's common practice in marketing. You think you're getting something new....then hey presto....it's near enough the same as every other DVD of this ilk.

Shahravar

I just can't in my right mind give copeland any more money.
When there are so many awesome struggling and independent dancers out there.

Aziyade

Over the last two years, I've seen what Mr. C has DONE for the bellydance community, both directly and indirectly. Behind the scenes and in front of them. What you don't know might shock you.

He really is a supporter of ALL forms of belly dance and behind the scenes he supports a lot of those dancers you wouldn't expect him to support, both psychologically and financially.

I was truly on the fence about the BDSS for a couple of years, until I saw what they became and what that did for interest in the dance in my own community/region. I still think some of the dances are more successful than others, and I've made no bones about the fact that I don't like the Tribal, the Bellynesian, or the double veil. But that's only MY opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own.

Whatever you think of the show, you really have to respect the man for being one of the first or at least strongest to really push Arab music in this country. Sure there was a lot of good (and dreadful) stuff from ARK music even in the 80s, but his label brought us reissues of old glorious classical songs, introduced a lot of dancers and fans to Arab pop, and put Belly dance music in Barnes and Noble. He's also been very generous and very helpful when dancers want to license that music for dvds or stage performances.

Because I disagreed with some of what he said, I WANTED to hate him and believe that he was destroying belly dance as we know it, but that simply hasn't panned out and hasn't been the case.

The show is fun. It's fun entertainment. Could it be better? Sure. I'd like to see the next show have a different approach, because so far they've all sort of looked alike. But I have always left a BDSS show with a GOOD happy feeling, and I've enjoyed myself the whole time I was there.

I wouldn't fret over giving Miles your money. The energy comes back around. He IS supporting struggling independent dancers -- just not in the way you might think.

Kharis

How can you hate someone you don't really know? Despise, maybe.

I don't think he's doing it for the love of anyone or anything. He's doing it because he's been astute enough to realise it's a money making enterprise, and he's gonna keep it as palatable to the paying public as possible ... even to the detriment of the calibre of the dancing. And the main thing is...he's had the bloody finance to do it in the first place.

Aziyade

Oh, cause everyone ELSE seemed to be hating him It was the thing to do.

He has gone out of his way a LOT, for what would be very little financial reward in the long run. I think he genuinely LIKES artists and likes to be around creative people. We're all motivated by money, but I think he has other motivations as well. I wish I could share some stories, but the dancers themselves are going to have to do that.

One I can share comes from Suhaila -- who, after having her on-line ordering system hijacked and destroyed, opened her front door to a Miles who had DRIVEN all the way from LA to San Francisco to load his car full of dvds and cds in order to open a Suhaila section for her on the BDSS website. She said his first response when she told him what all had happened was "What can I do to help?"

Let's also not forget who was the original distributor of Natasha's Senkovich's fab film "The Bellydancers of Cairo."

Aisha Azar

Dear Gang,
First, what the BDSS has done to water down belly dance, add to the fusion confusion, completely distort the image and westernize the dance to death while relying on predominantly thin little bodies and pretty faces to make up for lack of real dance talent..... has hurt the dance and the dance community far more than it has helped it. The general public has not come out in droves to see their shows, but it has tended to have a very strong impact for the negative on dancers. Because of the BDSS example, they think its okay to throw in a few Middle Eastern dance movements, get on your stilts and go. Many dancers think that the BDSS are the end all and be all of the dance world, when in fact, what they present so very seldom resembles anything even vaguely Middle Eastern that it is painful to watch their shows for people who want to see belly dance and know what it is supposed to look like.
Suhaila left the show for some very solid reasons and I have personally heard her say some not so positive things about the show and about Copeland.
For myself, I spent some quality time with him and I actually like him a person. He is imaginative, intelligent, has a great sense of humor, a great feeling of personal theatre about himself and is just plain fun to wile away an evening with. However, he knows NOTHING about belly dance and will admit it if he has had enough champagne. (I know this from personal experience,too!!)
For him, I think this is not about the $$ or about the ego stroke of being surrounded by beautiful women, or about the dance. The following is my opinion after listening to him talk in great depth about himself, about the show, etc. After considering for a couple years, I think the key to his own reasons is really about a personal challenge to himself as a producer. Could he take a niche market product and turn it into a best seller to the general consumer? I will leave the answer to that up to the individual dancer.
Regards,
A'isha

Aziyade

No, Suhaila never "left" the show because she never had anything to do with the show. She was never a part of the show. She was one of the choreographers Miles originally approached about designing the show, but she had other projects she was working on and turned him down, like several other choreographers in LA.

Suhaila and Miles have been friends since the 80s. There is much they don't agree on, but the "hostility" that is there is just play acting.

Here's the REAL history:

The original "Belly Dance Superstars" project was simply a compilation CD, with tracks chosen by "superstars" in the dance -- popular names like Tamalyn Dalal, Neena/Veena, Suhaila, Zahra Zuhair, etc.

A second project was added shortly after: the promotional performance DVD, to promote the CD sales. Some of the dancers who contributed their favorite tracks on the CD also danced on the DVD. Like Suhaila. Some did not.

It was a couple of years after the CD/DVD that the idea for a show was tossed around. After it debuted at Lollapallooza (and did very well) Miles decided to take the act on the road. That was the birth of the show.



Obviously many of us differ in the "impact" we believe the show to have on belly dance in this country, but I'm sick to death of people latching on to the fact that the dancers are thin. THIN IS NOT BAD!

TOURING is exhausting. DANCING while touring is even more exhausting. These women aren't spending their days sitting around writing blog posts and spouting philosophical on the internet like I am. They are DANCING and training to keep their bodies in the best condition they can to reduce the risk of injury. People who haven't danced professionally maybe can't make this connection, but strength training and deep muscle relaxation work is ESSENTIAL for people who dance 5-6 hours a day or more, no matter what kind of dancing you do. Lots of reasons, but mostly so that you don't injure yourself. A dancer burns calories while dancing, rehearsing, taking class. Most desk jobs don't burn 1/10 of the calories I burned at my job in the ballet studio. Leanness and thinness HAPPENS.


Bou Saada didn't DESTROY belly dance, and neither did Bal Anat. Bobby Farrah didn't destroy it either, nor did Dalia Carella or Cassandra, for having dance camps. Neena and Veena didn't destroy it with their mass-market videos, and Harry Saroyan didn't destroy it by manufacturing balanced swords. Neither did Reda and Farida.

But I heard the same thing when I was growing up -- Merce Cunningham was DESTROYING dance!! Ballanchine was Destroying storybook ballets! And Gelsey and Misha DESTROYED ballet in general by taking the technical expectations up so much higher.

The thing is, and I travel a lot -- when I go to restaurants that feature dancers, I see the same kind of dance that I've always seen. I'm not seeing tribal, I'm not seeing fusion, I'm not seeing anything that is all that far out. (I see that on Youtube.) I'm seeing straight-up entertainment, of the same kind you can witness through Dahlena's career (which is pretty well documented on video) and what you can see on Morocco's first 3 videos. The more things change, the more they stay the same ...

Aziyade

I think you're probably right about that -- his motivation. But I think maybe it's SLIGHTLY different:

I think sometimes he really wanted to win over the belly dance community, and BY EXTENSION, bring in people who are friends and family of bellydancers, thereby GROWING the belly dance community (and his potential customer base.)

I'm not sure he ever REALLY planned on trying to direct most of his marketing and attention on the general public -- because he didn't do that. If
he wanted to do that, he could have paid Baker & Taylor and Ingram and the other CD/DVD distribution companies to buy special shelf space at the bookstores, or paid for a point-of-sale display featuring his products. He'd be targeting Borders, Blockbuster, B&N, Suncoast Sound, etc. Instead he focused on advertising to the EXISTING dance community (and basically relying on us to do his advertising for him, which we did -- often just by arguing about it on the MEDance list.)

I'd never really thought anything about the whole idea until I read the Desert Roses casting call email that everyone went NUTS over. INSTANT press. No money down. Controversy explodes and amidst all the craziness, I end up buying my first Hakim CD, introducing me to Miles's record label. Brilliant, really.