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Diane, ren faire, 71Becoming the Object of Your Own Fantasy

"Perfumes of Araby" in the 1970s, Part 1

by Stasha Vlasuk
posted July, 2011

“I live by a man’s code designed to fit a man’s world, yet at the same time, I always remember that a women’s first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.”
Carol Lombard quote from “Women’s Wit and Wisdom”

Dianne and GuyThe Belly dance scene in 1970s Los Angeles:  It is difficult to spotlight succinctly even one portion of a vibrant, vast and quickly growing community of Middle Eastern dancers, their enthusiasts, and the ethnic communities, musicians, festivals and supper clubs that supported the dance arts.  The abundance of inspiration in that era was almost beyond understanding; yet once upon a time before the Internet, music, imagery and information was less readily available.  Knowledge had to be directly and carefully mined from academic, ethnic and cultural sources.  We always performed to live music; recorded music was rare at dance events.  The sociological change of American society in the 1970s also informed our dance community. 

Now, as I reach back in my memory of these exciting times to compose this article, I’m grateful for the researched archiving amassed and available in today’s technological world.  I’ve tried to be precise: please forgive me where I’m hazy!  It was the ‘70s after all!  Please enjoy the links provided at the end of this article for more exciting information to further encourage and stimulate your own creativity as you, dear reader, move our dance form ever further.

This article will focus on the iconic 1970s “Perfumes of Araby” Belly dance troupe, lead by the almost mythical performer/actress/teacher, Diane Webber, who was also my teacher.  I was there!  Through a selection of our performances in that era, we’ll explore dance and costuming as becoming the object of your own fantasy. 

The article also touches on paradoxes of our art form: the performance setting, creating a artificial boundary within which we feel free to have intimate exposure (and how costuming facilitates that), and the seeming female accommodation of male sexism --actually a proclamation of autonomy and a pathway to power. 

Diane Webber was a Playboy centerfold --twice; there’s another whole story there - yet, we’ll stick with Belly dance this time.  Among her earliest Middle Eastern dance engagements were at Lou Shelby’s “The Fez” in Hollywood (Lou was our orchestra violinist.) and on the road with “Haji Baba” star, Guy Chookoorian, who was also the Perfumes’ stalwart oud player in our multi-piece orchestra. Throughout the ‘70s, Guy continued to call on various Perfume members for countrywide performances. Diane also appeared in “The Witchmaker” (1969) as the Nautch dancer.Witchmaker PR still

Diane’s self-made costuming was breathtakingly inventive, interpretive and well structured.  She drew inspiration from classic images of women in Orientalist paintings as well as cheesy Belly dance cover art and ground-breaking modern dancers such as Ruth St. Denis (my “great-grandmother” in Modern dance: my Modern dance teacher Pat McLaughlin studied with Martha Graham, who started with the Denishawn Dancers).  Diane inspired her dancers to create their own beautiful costumes and was intimately involved in their fabric selection and construction. 

Diane at the ren Fair in 1971The Perfumes of Araby dance troupe was initiated in the Los Angeles area in the late 1960s for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.  As producer, director, and lead dancer, Diane Webber chose the name from popular imagery of the early 1600s: Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” (written somewhere between 1603-1607), in the sleepwalking scene "...nor all the perfumes of Araby shall sweeten this little hand..." and Claudio Monteverdi’s 1607 libretto of “L’Orfeo”, where in the second act, nymphs sing to Orpheus, god of the underworld:

“Therefore, Orpheus, make worthy
of the sound of your lyre
these fields, where there blows
a breeze with the perfumes of Araby.”

What an appropriate moniker for these outdoor Belly dance extravaganzas! 

Perfumes of Araby’s repertoire included specialties like balancing on goblets (a.k.a. shimmy on glasses), candle dance, snake and sword dances, as well as folk dances of North Africa, Turkey, Armenia, Syria and Lebanon, with a cabaret style solo dance at the end.  Many members worked individually in nightclubs, and thus, brought a strong entertainment background to the performances.

article on censorshipYoung stagehand Scott Pierce has a fun memory of those days:
“I had the fantastic good fortune to spend many hours on stage with Perfumes of Araby, unobtrusively on the side or in back with the musicians, except for my star turn helping one dancer get her giant snake back in its basket. I remember one afternoon as if it happened yesterday, although it was almost 37 years ago.  We were on the small stage at a corner of the Faire for an early afternoon show. The lead drummer yelled out to the audience, "Baksheesh!", which throughout the Arab world means charitable giving.  Some guy in the audience threw about half a dozen fat joints of dope onto the stage, wrapped together with a couple of rubber bands.  My eyes popped out so far the pupils thought it was recess.  The joints landed a few feet in front of me. I thought to myself, “I’m 13.  I spend hours every day at the Faire on stage with beautiful, athletic, dancing women, and the audience throws drugs on stage!  Am I living one of the best lives a teenager can hope to have, or what?”

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire's entertainment policy changed around 1972; with the questionable critique that “dancers could not show their bellies”.  The Perfumes were canned.  A splinter group composed of two members of the orchestra (Joe Carson and Geoff Hunter) and three dancers (Khadija Cynthia Beck, Maya Hunter and myself) appeared the next year (‘73) and took to a small stage.  In protest, I wore sheer harem pants with a diaphanous Egyptian beledy dress: high neck, long draping sleeves, yet completely sheer with just a wide hip scarf around my hips.  Yes, nude. Yes, sheer. Yes, I have a photo, and no it won’t be placed with this article, this is a family web ‘zine!  Yes, the Faire’s powers-that-be howled, to which I innocently rejoined: “...but my belly is covered... ”

 

musicians
Renaissance Pleasure Faire, Agoura, CA circa 1971

Candle dancerSnake Dancer

 

Diane Webber

 

(please see pix # 1 - 12)

 

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PART 2: the Calabassas Pumpkin Festival

The Perfumes moved on to several other outdoor festivals for the rest of the ‘70s.

At the Calabassas Pumpkin Festival, during the month of October, twice a weekend in often 100+ degree weather, more than a dozen dancers and half a dozen musicians put on an hour-long show before quite a lively audience!  Each of us had a signature costume color; mine was yellow.  One memorable event happened during our performance of a serious North African Guedra dance:  The company all lined up stage front to create a screen while our Guedra dancers positioned themselves mid-stage.  We were packed tightly, shoulder-to-shoulder, impulsing to the dramatic beat with great solidarity: traditional hand gestures, chest drops, all very serious and trance like.  This mood was broken, however, by a guy at the back of the 200 plus audience, who stood on his chair, raised his beer glass and shouted "The one in the yellooooow...." then actually fell completely backwards like a tree that had just been cut!  I hope he was OK!

(please see pix # 13 - 20)

 

 ( 17 ) 1974 Pumpkin Festival,  Photo J. Webber

1973 Pumpkin Festival

 ( 14 ) 1973 Pumpkin Festival Snake Dancer Teresa Davis

 ( 15 )  1973 Pumpkin Festival L to R : Rhonda, Anaheed Mary Ann Cappa, Khadija Cynthia Beck, Ann Graca, Yvonne Partidge, Margaret Turner, Sam King, Stasha Qamar Vlasuk, Donna Bella, ?

 ( 16 )  Perfumes of Araby 1974 Pumpkin Festival, from R to L this time : Rhonda, Yvonne Partridge, Maryann Krakow, Margaret Turner, Shirin, Pat, Ann, Jann Goldsby, Stasha Qamar Vlasuk (the one in the Yelloooow!), ?, Maya Knight, Ann Graca, Khadija Cynthia Beck, ? , ?  Photo J. Webber

 

 ( 18 ) 1974 Pumpkin Festival,  Photo J. Webber

 (19 ) 1974 Pumpkin Festival,   L to R: Stasha Vlasuk, Yvonne Partridge   Photo J. Webber

 ( 20 ) 1974 Pumpkin Festival,  Photo J. Webber

 

Part 3

Beginning in 1973, the prestigious Pasadena university Cal Tech invited the Perfumes of Araby to perform annually the week before finals in order to “relieve student tension”.  How delightful now to look at the audience in the background of these pictures: love that ‘70s fashion.  We also starred in the evening entertainment at the very first Equicon Science Fiction Convention, another bastion of “brainiacs”.

Los Angeles being a media town, our performances often had “stellar” spectators. One Pumpkin Festival afternoon, off to the side of the stage, stood David Carradine, star of the popular “Kung Fu” TV series, with his jaw dropped.  Although I didn’t see him, I’m told George Harrison, my favorite Beatle, attended one of our Beverly Glen Art Festival performances. (He had a house in the neighborhood at that time.)  One private party experience (performed in the vast back yard of a Hollywood mogul’s estate) got so loud and rowdy that the show was stopped mid-way, and we were asked to tone it down!

During the the mid-’70s, we added a costumer to our roster: Kathy Sanders added her expertise in helping us manifest Diane’s vision with continuity.  We all avidly scoured historical sources to create our Turkish court costumes, and some of us included jeweled pillbox hats.

By 1975, Diane designed a bold new costume element inspired in part by Jerome’s “Woman of Cairo at Her Door”: an under the bust vest with a sheer blouse.  Because our outdoor festivals were so hot, most of us opted to create sleeveless versions.  Some of us varied the peek-a-boo factor by doubling the fabric or building the blouse on a sheer fabric bra.  In an almost archetypal will to power, Diane encouraged us to utilize our costuming --and our dance-- as a way to search out and expand our own unique spirit, fantasy and physique, something I try to continue with my students today: become the object of your own fantasy.

How were we, as a group, bold enough to appear in public in these spicy outfits?  We achieved this confidence through combinations of sociological perspective that are most probably endemic in your performing troupe as well.  We brought all these factors to our shows.

(please see pix # pix # 21 - 29)

 

 

( 25 )  Cal Tech 1973

Cal Tech 1973  with Louie Sayeg, drummer

 ( 28 ) Beverly Glen Art Festival program cover

( 29 )  Beverly Glen Art Festival 1975, L to R : Teresa Davis, Anaheed Mary Ann Cappa, My Lucky Dad, me (Stasha Vlasuk) and Maryann Krakow

We had dress rehearsals in full hair, make-up and costume accompanied by our orchestra.  The benefit is two-fold here.  We nail down our presentation, of course.  More importantly we create a world of understanding and functionality: each performer has a function, like parts of the body; all there for a reason, even the small roles.  We’re entertaining because each performer knows their role and performs it; in performance these patterns of group behavior broaden the audience’s understanding.

(please see pix # 30 - 32)

 

 

 

This basis of understanding allows the performers to go a step further and present conflict and resolution: always fascinating to the observing audience.  For example, consider how some elements of a typical Perfumes of Araby performance toy with the notion of power and status from a feminist perspective, the essentials of gender, and subsequently sexuality. Let’s look at a photo of the Calaveras Pumpkin Festival performance of 1977: The censor is danced around the parameter of the stage to set the mood, the slave girls fan the smoke into the audience with giant peacock feather fans.  Note famed drummer Louie Sayeg on the right, concerned-faced Guy Chookoorian on the left.  That's our "slave boy" seated in chains, lost in the music. (Sorry, I can't remember this student’s name - James?)  Dianne thought it was hilarious to dress him in chains. Jan, our "shimmy on glasses" dancer, would do her routine, then lead him by the chain and make him climb up on the glasses and dance. A playful reversal of male chauvinism? or a proclamation of autonomy?  Whatever -- the audience loved it! 

(please see pix # 33 )

Whether we were on a proscenium stage or in the middle of a plaza, we created and defined our space with a large oriental carpet.  Each dancer brought her own large pillow of opulent fabric, perfect for lounging around the perimeter of the carpet, playing finger cymbals and ululating for the performers.  In her book “Sisters of Salome”, about the Salome dancers of the early 1900s, author Toni Bentley refers to the freeing paradox due to this simple fact: division of the show from the audience.

“The performance setting provides the artificial boundaries, the protection, needed to overcome the fear that accompanies vulnerability.  Paradoxically, the separation frees them for the intimate exposure they yearn for.  Because they retain control over the entire event, they can abandon control within it and thereby satisfy their own erotic desires.  For them, as for most performers, it is often far easier, and safer, to expose oneself, physically or emotionally, to a crowd than to one human being.  Numerous eyes and ears blend to form an impersonal safety net.  ‘You can see Paradise - but you can’t get in.’ as Balanchine, the great NY based ballet impresario, once remarked.”
(please see pix # 34 - 42 )

 

Diane Webber’s last solo with the Perfumes of Araby was at the 1978 Cal Tech performance where she wore a sexy Assuit costume that is every modern day tribal girl’s dream.  It probably encouraged some dreaming among those brainy engineering students as well!  During our performances after this, she played dumbec in the back with the musicians, sitting with our slave girls and wearing a spectacular kaftan and elaborate head dress.  With great honor, the solo cabaret spot came to me, and I performed this solo through the end of the 1979 season including Cal Tech and The Pumpkin Festival. (Alas, its last year!)

(please see pix # 43 - 62 )

 

 

By the end of 1979, Diane Webber scaled back her group activities.  Our fabulous sword dancer, Anaheed, (Mary Ann Cappa) became the Managing Director of the Perfumes of Araby Dance Company: a vibrant, encouraging and sustaining force in the Los Angeles Belly dance world of today --and tomorrow.  While Diane continued a teaching and writing schedule, before her untimely passing in 2008, she also maintained the law library of a Santa Monica law firm, and returned to college to study animal husbandry. (She then owned several prize-winning show horses.)

Also in 1979, I moved my base of operations to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to dance, teach, research and enjoy our art world-wide.  One surprise glimpse of the 1970s Perfumes of Araby happened while I was in London performing at the Turkish restaurant, “Gallipoli”, in 1988.  One day when I was browsing in a book store, “Insights Guide: California” caught my proud native Californian eye.  A travel book full of colorful photos enticed the visitor from foggy London to the Golden State.  As I flipped through the book, imagine my surprise at finding a full page photo of myself!  Obviously unaware of the photo being taken, I'm seated playing finger cymbals in my Turkish court costume; I'm an official tourist attraction!
(please see pix # 63 & 64 )

From the 1970 performances until today, in group presentations or as solo artists, Diane Webber’s dancers continuously offer her philosophy of connecting to a spiritual understanding: driven to be in the moment and not think about the future, living life to the fullest in that moment, in our own way; aspiring for a visceral spiritual connection through the sharing of our dance. We are the objects of our own fantasy.

 
Interesting links

Costume inspirations

Orientalist books to read online:

Photo Credits:

Most of the pix come from my personal archive; I supply the links for the other photos @ the end of the article in the "interesting links" section.

For example, re: # 1 of Diane & Guy circa 1966 :   http://www.perfumesofaraby.com/5601.html   this is the web site of our PofA costumer Kathy Sanders, she originally sent me the "raw" pix of me doing the solo @ Cal Tech and gave me permission to use her doctored ones of that and previous years, if I listed her link in the article - which is a no brainer as it's a fascinating site.   Scroll down: You'll find that #1 pix there - as well as the flyer it was used in.  Similarly, I list the other sites as they contain further (and interesting) info + video montages for which there's simply not enough space in this GS article!  

 

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Ready for more?

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