{"id":1205,"date":"2010-02-02T18:02:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T01:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1205"},"modified":"2013-05-01T15:39:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T22:39:07","slug":"barbarap2serena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/02\/02\/barbarap2serena\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Wilson (1933-2007)
A Student of Ruth St. Denis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 2: Salome and Her Impact<\/h2>\n

\"Serena\"<\/p>\n

by Barbara Sellers-Young PhD<\/a>
\nposted February 2,\t2010
\nPart 1 can be read here<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

Serena Wilson,<\/strong> a member of the first generation of New York\u2019s belly dance teachers, died on June 17, 2007. Current and former students immediately eulogized her on youtube.com with images of her dancing in a Greek temple and on the Egyptian pyramids. This essay looks at her life in relationship to the evolution of oriental dancing in the early part of the century from the stages of Vaudeville and the Salome Craze to the impact of the dance metaphysics of Ruth St. Denis. As such, it provides a glimpse into how one of the pioneers of bellydance in the United States combined the various influences in her life to evolve her version of the feminine through the vocabulary of bellydance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unlike many dancers, Serena never evolved a performance name that would imply an association between her and the Middle East. Although performing within the environments owned and operated by the entrepreneurs with ties to North Africa and the Middle East, her performance history was not linked to this community but instead to the vaudeville family in which she had grown up and to her dance study with Ruth St. Denis<\/span> and images of Salome<\/a><\/strong> projected by Mary Garden<\/strong> and other performers. The movement vocabulary she learned performing in the Eighth Avenue clubs provided a gestural vocabulary that would allow her to follow a choreographic impulse to integrate these influences. <\/p>\n

\"MarySerena\u2019s was asked in 1974 to be a guest instructor at the Aegina Arts Center<\/em><\/strong> outside Athens, Greece. The location of the center provided an opportunity to travel in Greece and Turkey and to study dance with Ted Petrides<\/strong>, a professor of the esoteric dances of Ancient Greece. On her return, she began to define a movement vocabulary and choreographic style that would allow her to integrate her early training in ballet and St. Denis\u2019 version of the Orient with her Middle Eastern vocabulary to create what she most often referred to as \u2018Oriental dance.\u2019 <\/p>\n

When suited to the context, she also had no hesitation in using the term belly dance as she considered the dance as evolving as an Americanized version based on primarily Middle Eastern as opposed to North African influences. <\/p>\n

In her approach to the dance of the Middle East, she was at odds with her New York contemporaries, Ibrahim Farrah<\/strong> and Morocco<\/strong><\/a>, both of whom were interested in authentic dances of this social and cultural area. Serena admitted that the dance was not her ethnic heritage and described her stance in an interview:<\/p>\n

\n

"Despite the many approaches to the dance [belly dance], I believe that there are four basic groups: 1) strict ethnic and folk, 2) cabaret, 3) exercise and therapeutic, 4) interpretative concert. I consider myself\u00a0 to be in the fourth group."(5<\/a>) <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Serena'sIn placing herself within the community of interpretative concert dance, Serena emulated St. Denis in the determination to create within the Oriental dance a personal approach to the movement vocabulary and a similar determination to choreograph pieces that were based on images that held potency for her. One potent image for Serena was Salome and the various dancers who performed her on New York stages. On shelves and end tables throughout her apartment were various art deco statues based on portrayals of Salome by Mary Garden and other dancers and actors of the early twentieth century.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Salome Craze<\/p>\n

The Salome craze, what Susan Glenn<\/span> refers to as Salomania (96-125)<\/a>, is based on the story of Salome and her relationship with her step-father Herod<\/strong> and mother Herodius<\/strong>, The story was the subject of a play by British playwright Oscar Wilde<\/strong>. The play premiered in Paris in 1896, under the French title Salom\u00e9. In Wilde’s play, Salome becomes enamored with John the Baptist<\/strong>. When he refuses her affections she beguiles her step-father into agreeing to kill John the Baptist as a trade for dancing for him. In the finale, Salome takes up John’s severed head and kisses it. <\/p>\n

\"OscarWilde\u2019s play premiered in 1905, in New York. It was produced by the Progressive State Society<\/em><\/strong> and performed at the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre<\/em><\/strong>. The public barely noticed its presence. Two years later the Metropolitan Opera<\/em><\/strong> with sponsors such as J. P. Morgan<\/strong> and W. E. Vanderbilt<\/strong> attempted to produce Richard Strauss\u2019s<\/strong> one-act version of the Wilde play. The play closed after one performance following a complaint from J.P. Morgan\u2019s daughter about the salacious dance of the seven veils, a dance that, as one reviewer described, \u201cspared the audience nothing in active and suggestive detail\u201d (Bentley 2002, 18)<\/a>.\u00a0 However, Bianca Froelich<\/strong>, Metropolitan Opera\u2019s prima ballerina, who executed the Dance of the Seven Veils, subsequently contracted with the management of the\u00a0 Lincoln Square Variety Theatre<\/span>. Riding the wave of fascination with all things Oriental, Salome and her dance became a favorite of vaudeville houses and Florenz Ziegfield<\/strong> added a Salome number to his Follies. Other American entertainers such as Gertrude Hoffman<\/strong> and Eva Tanguay<\/strong> created their own version as well, as did Europeans Maud Allan<\/a><\/strong> and Ida Rubenstein<\/strong>, who brought their performances to New York.<\/p>\n

Follies performer Mlle. Daze<\/strong>, actually Daisy Peterkin<\/strong> from Detroit, opened a school for Salomes. It quickly became popular and by 1908, Mlle. Daze was graduating 150 Salomes every month. Dancing the same routine, they entered the coast to coast vaudeville circuits.<\/p>\n\n\n
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