an article i wish i'd written

[keryx]

Feminism & bellydance (from tribalbellydance.org and Andrea Deagon): except for the association of "feminine" with exclusively "female" (which may be the author's own opinion or just a reflection of the essentialists she talks about), this covers most of my thoughts - and occasional discomfort - as a feminist student of bellydance.

Really, you can't watch a more advanced student wrap a veil around an old white dude's head at a class hafla without engaging your feminist gag response. I think it's particularly weird for those of us on the East Coast, where the dance itself seems to be more soloist-oriented and a bit less about community. [I so envy leftcoasters their access to teachers and troupes that are also radical feminists and fat activists and such.] But it's an issue for anyone who sees or does bellydance. The audience, whatever the dancer may think, sees sensuality = sex, and even the negligibly empowering "it's so feminine and graceful" attitude of most folk I've met boils down to "...and being feminine and graceful and pretty is the job of women" in most people's minds.

Some of you dance - or at least have seen dance performances. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[libskrat]

Much of what is said about the conflict of perception between performer and audience has resonance beyond dance.

Including to, dare I say it, blogging.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about that, but yes. Which actually makes a neat tie between my existence in this feminist blogging bubble and my longing for the westcoasty tribal dance.

Hm. Thanks for something to think about.

[libskrat]

Oh, and may I say, rocktastic new icon.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, as someone who is starting out by learning tribal, there is a lack of emphasis on the "sexy" part. Yesterday a woman in class made a joke about dancing for bachelor parties, and my teacher almost took her head off. My teacher was a student of Morocco's (and danced in her troupe for awhile), and is very interested in getting as far away from the bellydancing = sexy = for men = stripping ideas as possible.

I was out last week at a club night that plays ME music (my other teacher was dancing there). I remarked how bellydance can take the attitude of "I don't mind if you watch me dance, but know that I am probably not dancing for *you*". On the other hand, making a connection with someone while you're dancing can be very powerful (I'm thinking of a dancer and drummer working together on a taqsim).

[keryx.livejournal.com]

One thing I find really interesting is that the dancer's intent and audience's perceptions around the "sexy/feminine" stuff can be completely at odds. The context is very different from group to group, so in some ways it is absolutely a feminist performance but in others it contributes to a "women are X and only X" view. It's complex.

In other news... SQUEE! You're in B'more, right? So that means there's tribal dance there, which makes me happy. As far as I know, there's no tribal troupe or teacher in my neck of Virginia.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

Yep! Baltimore is getting on the bandwagon.

Are you on tribe.net? There's a bunch of Tribal tribes (blahblahblah), TribalDC being one of them.