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I recently pulled together a list of 500+ songs from the Arab world, along with information on composer and original artist for each. Here's the list alphabetized by song title: http://www.shira.net/music/composers-alpha-by-song.htm Here's the list alphabetized by composer name...

Today, I wanted to "like" a couple of posts, but I couldn't find the "Like" choice at the bottom of the posts in question. Has that feature been disabled? For a workaround, I gave a reputation point to one of the posts, but I wasn't able to for the other due to a need to spread the rep around...

Facebook is starting to enforce a "real names" policy. They are targeting performers whose profiles were opened under stage names and trying to force them to change their names to their legal names. Here's a story about what they're doing to the drag queen community...

I am in the process of working my way through bringing the Teacher & Performer Directory at www.shira.net/directory.htm on Shira.net completely up to date. If you have been waiting to be added, removed, or updated, this post describes my current status. In Post #3 on this thread, which you can...

Has a new limit been implemented on number of PM's a person can have stored? I've received a notification telling me that someone's attempt to send me a PM was rejected due to my box being full. This led me to delete a whole bunch of PM's (both ones I've sent and one's I've received), but it...

At first I thought the thread titled 'My Eyes Are Dim" described the problem I'm having. But then as I read more of the thread, it appeared that everybody else was talking about something entirely different. When I try to view a page of a thread, the top message on that page is blank, and also...

Here are two photos of me in my red Persian lace costume.

I see this is an old thread, but I'll go ahead and reply for the benefit of others reading it who may have questions similar to the one posed by the person who started the thread. It's perfectly fine to cover the midriff when performing. In fact, for SOME styles of belly dance, it's more...

After a lot of thought and careful consideration, I've decided to discontinue the Shira.net web site. 2013 marks the 16th anniversary, and the time has come to focus my efforts on something else. Thank you, thank you, to everybody who has supported my site over the years by linking to it...

Hi! I see we can still rep someone, but that the icon for doing it has changed to a little 6-pointed sunburst. But, how do we go to our own profile to see a list of reps that have been received? The User CP choice to do that used to be prominently displayed on the old version, but I can't...

In a different thread, Kashmir posted this: I'm not sure I agree. First, when the term "Ghawazee" is used today, many people's minds jump immediately to the Banat Maazin, who have been the most high-profile, acclaimed dancers of this style in Upper Egypt. Perhaps that's what you were...

There have been some new members lately, some coming from bhuz. I thought it might be helpful to welcome the newcomers by mentioning a few of the things that make this forum different from bhuz. Of course, there is a somewhat different community of active members who post on a regular basis...

I'll be doing 3 hours of lectures about Egyptian dance history and how it fits into Egyptian culture the afternoon of December 30 in Orange County, California. I'm doing shortened (1-hour each) versions of the following three: Before Tahia. The history of Egyptian dance from approximately...

There's a NEW article on my web site about how the mass media reinforce stereotypes about belly dance's purpose being that of titillating men: Mass Media, Mass Stereotypes: The Beginning, by Shira I'd be interested in hearing everyone's thoughts/feedback.

Should belly dance teachers include suggestions in class on how students can respond to people in their life who say, "Isn't that a dance of serving men? Didn't it originate as seducing the Sultan?" Should teachers say stuff like, "Your friends and family might say..." followed by "...and...

In the past, there was very little accurate information available in English about Badia Masabni and her clubs. The bits we had were misleading. For example, many think she opened the Casino Opera in 1926, but actually Casino Opera didn't open until 1940. Her first club, opened in 1926, was...

I'm preparing to let everyone know about a new article on Shira.net that talks about Badia Masabni. As I was trying to decide which section to post it in, none of them seemed to fit. I'll probably post it in "styles" since that seems to fit best. But it made me think it's interesting that we...

15 years ago, in July 1997, I created a small web site as a tool for learning how to do web technology. It needed to be about "something", so I chose belly dancing as my topic. Today, Shira.net is the world's largest and most popular web site about belly dancing. It has over 1,500 html pages...

Are you done reading Parts 1 through 3 of "The Life of Badia Masabni"? If so, here are parts 4 through 6 for your reading pleasure: Badia Masabni, The Queen of Suffering and Of the Night, Parts 4-6 It's Priscilla Adum's translation of a series that ran in an Egyptian newspaper in 2010. The...

I've posted a new article on Shira.net: Feminism and Belly Dance, by Andrea Deagon. The article actually originally appeared in Habibi Magazine several years ago, but it's new to my site. (Posted with Andrea's permission, of course.) In the article, Andrea offers tools for belly dancers to use...