Belly Dance: Orientalism—Exoticism—Self-Exoticism

Abstract

The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. (Said 1978,1)The past century has witnessed the phenomenon of belly dancing becoming a key icon of the Middle East in the West. This iconic representation often causes outrage, resentment, and even protest among Arabs who resent Westerners (mis)representing them by focusing on cabaret-style belly dance, a low-class and disreputable symbol for many in the Arab world, as a primary media image of the Middle East. Since the 1970s, millions of women and some men in the West have been attracted to belly dancing, investing millions of dollars and enormous time acquiring the basic skill of the dance in order to perform it. This essay will address several issues that are raised by the phenomenon of belly dancing and its transformation, globalization, and acculturation in the West; it is designed to develop a newly emerging area of performance/cultural research, drawing from the fields of dance and transnational studies.

Pushing Boundaries: Reflections on Teaching and Learning Contemporary Dance in Amman

“…The perception of dance as a taboo behavior by some in the Middle East has long been discussed by scholars investigating diverse dance practices in the region (Shay and Sellers-Young 2003;Maria 2008). The term haram was used by all three dancers to describe how some within their sociocultural context viewed dance.…”

“…In the past, dance in the Middle East has, to a certain extent, been misinterpreted by dance scholars and has often been the subject of distorted, romanticized, and eroticized perceptions. Such misinterpretations have contributed to the stigmatization of Middle Eastern societies being, to some extent, antagonistic toward dance (Shay and Sellers-Young 2003;Shay 2008). However, a growing number of studies are revealing diversity in dance practices and performances in a range of communities and dance genres in various contexts across the region (Shay 1994(Shay , 1999(Shay , 2008Van Nieuwkerk 1995;Kaschl 2003;Rowe 2007Rowe , 2008Karayanni 2009).…”

Fantasies of Exposure: Belly Dancing, the Veil, and the Drag of History

“…Belly dancing does not signify timelessness and universality in the Middle East, but rather bears the historical traces of colonialism that have imbued the dance with connotations of Western imperialism and sexual immorality (Shay and Sellers‐Young 16–17). In conservative parts of the Middle East today, belly dancing is held in strong disrepute.…”

Exotic Identities: Dance, Difference, and Self-fashioning

“…Scholars have explored extensively how orientalist ideas frame Western belly dance (Dox 2006;Jarmakani 2008;Karam 2010;Shay andSellers-Young 2003, 2005). These works reveal how Western belly dance practices conform more to Western women's conception of Middle Eastern culture than to any actual Middle Eastern practice.…”