{"id":1386,"date":"2010-04-16T13:27:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T20:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2013-10-20T13:38:25","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T20:38:25","slug":"andrea-panel-belly-dance-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2010\/04\/16\/andrea-panel-belly-dance-feminism\/","title":{"rendered":"Belly Dance and Feminism:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Different Issues, Different Perspectives<\/h2>\n

\"Meiver<\/p>\n

Introduction to IBCC Panel on Bellydance and Feminism
\nposted April 16, 2010<\/span><\/h3>\n
Top photo:Meiver models "Arabiia" a computerized belly dance costume that turns into a burqa,
\ncreated by Lebanese designer Ayah Bdeir. Photo by Cati Vaucelle.<\/h6>\n

\u201cFeminism\u201d is a familiar word in the 2010\u2019s, but what exactly does it mean?\u00a0 How does it relate to belly dance?\u00a0 And how can it help belly dancers navigate the pitfalls (and pleasures) of our adopted art?\u00a0 At the International Bellydance Conference of Canada<\/span>, April 21-25, in Toronto, EmmaLucy Cole (Shema)<\/a>, Meiver De la Cruz<\/span>, and Andrea Deagon<\/a><\/span> will present different perspectives on feminist issues in a panel called \u201cDancing in Your Own Voice: Feminist Belly Dance in a Changing World.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Feminism embraces more than one point of view, and feminist perspectives lead to many different decisions and courses of action.\u00a0 Feminism is a tool for thinking \u2013 for understanding and putting a name to issues you may be wrestling with in your own dance life, and for seeing belly dance in the light of broader economic, social and political realities. <\/p>\n

Feminism and belly dance have been intertwined in North America since the 1960\u2019s, so many different varieties of feminism have influenced belly dancers over the past 50 years.\u00a0 Meiver points out that goddess thealogy, physical fitness, spirituality, and \u201cownership\u201d of childbirth have given a feminist \"Meiver\"grounding to belly dance at different times in its development, while ATS (American Tribal Style), with its \u201cformulations about diffusing \u2018the [male] gaze,\u2019 avoiding glitz, and dancing in groups of women with no leader,\u201d provides another feminist interpretation of belly dance.\u00a0 In addition, she points out its economic influence: \u201cMany women all over the world are doing business (and making good money, and careers) out of selling merchandise, teaching, making costumes, etc., related to belly dance.\u00a0 It\u2019s a women\u2019s industry, to some extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three panelists feel that changing times require revision of the feminist perspectives that supported the first Western belly dancers of the 1960\u2019s and \u201870\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AndreaFor Andrea, one issue is that some women-oriented readings of belly dance gloss over problematic areas in how belly dance actually functions in the West. \u201cSome feminist ideas have found a home in belly dancing from the very start: sisterhood, solidarity, claiming power over one\u2019s sexuality, claiming a voice, acceptance of all bodies, using the body as a tool for spiritual experience that can also be sensual, and so on.\u201d\u00a0 But in professional performance, many dynamics \u201ccontradict the lovely atmosphere of the first dance classes \u2013 and we often fail to acknowledge this.\u00a0 I think we need to be aware of places where the myths of belly dance as always enhancing to women are overturned, so we can incorporate a more honest awareness of the ways belly dance is situated in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ShemaFor Emma too, observing some of the unpleasant dynamics of belly dance in both England and North America fuels her own interest in feminist perspectives. \u201cThere have been so many moments performing when I have resented the \u2018sexually available\u2019 representation of belly dance – from having my bottom pinched at a hunt ball, to being propositioned with no expectation of refusal, to the assumption that as a belly dancer I cannot possibly also be educated and intelligent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u00a0For Andrea, one of the ways belly dance can help address this public perception is from within, if belly dancers face hard questions like \u201cAre you complicit in creating situations, for yourself or for others, that do not promote respect for women?\u00a0 Are you true to yourself?\u00a0 Are you responsible to others?\u00a0 Are you falling into traditional cultural patterns that actually undercut your own and others\u2019 ability to function as dancers?\u201d Andrea\u2019s perspective reflects one of the most common tenets of feminist thought: that awareness<\/em> can ultimately lead to change.\u00a0 Emma agrees. \u201cAs women, as individuals, and as artists, we have the capacity to make choices and to change perceptions even on a local level. We do not have to fit into pre-assigned roles or images.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRoles\u201d and \u201cimages\u201d are problematic for many dancers, not only because of the tiresome stereotypes still present in the general public\u2019s views of belly dance, but also because belly dancers almost always adopt the stereotypical trappings of \u201cfemininity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrea comments, \u201cOne of the issues I had with belly dance when I began performing was the \u2018girliness\u2019 of it.\u00a0 I had always been a tomboy and had never used makeup, done my nails, sprayed my hair, or any of that.\u00a0 When I moved into performing, I had mixed feelings about adopting such a traditionally feminine self-presentation as a vehicle for my own experience of life, the music, and all the other things belly dance expresses.\u201d While she ultimately came to accept and even enjoy this self-presentation for its archetypal positioning of the dancer and the polished, powerful position \u201cbeauty\u201d offered her, she still wrestles with the cultural dynamics of why belly dancers, who speak so often of empowerment, acceptance of difference, and individuality, are so willing to embrace this stereotype.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is a key issue for Emma as well. \u201cIt can be very easy for dancers to become caught up in the mythical \u2018fantasy\u2019 element of being a belly dancer – from the sequins to the hair pieces, from perfect nails to that perfect \u2018California\u2019 smile. I do not believe that there is anything inherently wrong with choosing an assigned role when it is so relevant to the sale of the dance as a performance, but perhaps if dancers were able to engage in discussion about these areas, then our community as a whole would learn that there are many sides to this dance – not just the predictable harem-dancer image portrayed so insistently by the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Meiver as well, media images, including subtexts such as the dancer\u2019s \u201cbeauty and acquiescence,\u201d are significant, especially since dancers incorporate these images into their own dancing.\u00a0 Taking a broader view of how performance creates roles and polarizes complex realities, she is particularly concerned with \u201cthe way in which women are presented and represented on stage, and in the element of control which we have over our perceived femininity and place as performers in society.\u201d \u00a0 These issues are more than skin deep, since they include \u201cthe social expectations and media-induced assumptions applied to our bodies.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u00a0As a performer with substantial experience outside North America, Meiver is particularly aware of how the worldwide prevalence of North American media reproduces stereotypical Western ideas of other cultures that perpetuate misleading (and often racist and sexist) fantasies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBelly dance performers, especially those in North America and Europe, are global media and image makers.\u00a0 I am concerned with increasing awareness of how the images dancers create not only represent those individual dancers, but also impact how the world consumes Eastern art forms, and sees the cultures that these dances come from. My feminist approach is one that looks at how sexist oppression intersects with class and racial oppression. <\/p>\n

In that approach a practice that is racist cannot be considered feminist, because racism negatively impacts the lives of women of color around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Meiver
\nMeiver teaches a dance workshop to the young ladies of WEPA
\n(Women Engaging in Physical Activity)<\/h6>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

\u00a0For Emma, feminism offers belly dancers many different ways to address issues they encounter in their dance lives.\u00a0 \u201cFrom an individual perspective, there are so many elements of feminism which could inform and develop a dancer\u2019s performance – from an awareness of social politics, gender relations, and the implications and responsibilities of using a dance which emanates from countries which often have poor reputations for women\u2019s rights, to the ownership of the body and the history of women as performers.\u201d\u00a0 Andrea agrees, giving these issues a personal twist: \u201cThe key belief of feminism, in some definitions, is that the root (historically and otherwise) of all human oppression is the oppression of women.\u00a0 Everything else leads from that.\u00a0 This means, to me, that if we are to address inequities in the real world, we need to speak from a very honest place when we assess who we are and what we want to accomplish.\u00a0 If we aren\u2019t honest about our relationship to the world as gendered beings \u2013 female or<\/em> male \u2013 then it will be hard to be honest about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Meiver sees it, feminism itself requires a broad perspective.\u00a0 \u201cBeyond intellectual and artistic production, and beyond social contexts and social movements, feminism is about everyday life: our right to vote, to own property, to drive ourselves around.\u00a0 Who makes the food we eat, and what they are paid, who makes the clothes we wear, where [they are] in the world \u2026 our personal family decisions to bear children or not, who we are in relationships with and how those relationships are defined, who provides our health care and what access to health care choices we have, what we wear and how our appearance is read by others.\u201d\u00a0 Along with this perspective comes the responsibility to act on it, as a belly dancer, in socially accountable ways.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Andrea\u2019s talk, \u201cBelly Dance in Patriarchy,\u201d discusses the ways in which conventional views of belly dance as matriarchal and empowering mask how it is really situated in the world.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

She raises issues such as the problems of birth and fertility in the popular explanations of belly dance, the feminizing of Arab performance aesthetics, and the ambivalent functions of archetypes, arguing that recognizing patriarchal dynamics allows for a more truthful and grounded experience of belly dance.<\/p>\n

Emma\u2019s contribution, \u201cInverting the Gaze,\u201d uses the ancient Greek myth of Medusa, whose beauty was transformed into ugliness and whose gaze could turn what it touched into stone, <\/p>\n

–to interpret the role of fantasy in belly dance: why the myth needed to exist in the first place, how \u2018beauty\u2019 can both create and destroy us as dancers, and how the role of fantasy or myth is key to our acceptance as female artists.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meiver\u2019s paper, "Women of Color Feminisms and the De-Colonization of Arab Dances," focuses on several key questions of how belly dancers might really seek liberation \u2013 not only from personal constraints, but from problematic cultural dynamics that influence every aspect of belly dancing. Many belly dancers have embraced feminism as a philosophy of liberation, but is the dance form itself liberated? If not, then what does it need to be liberated from? Although we claim to live in a \u2018post-colonial\u2019 era, many of us still either live under colonial relationships, or struggle with colonizing mentalities. <\/p>\n

Can a dance form be liberated (de-colonized) or liberating, if its practitioners are not? Who can de-colonize belly dance, and how?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The \u201cfourth panelist\u201d is the audience, and discussion will follow.<\/p>\n

\"Shema-Emma
\nShema or Emma does Fire Sword<\/h6>\n

Panel Discussion-
\n"Dancing in Your Own Voice: Feminist Approaches to Belly Dance"<\/a>
will be held, Thursday April 22, 2010
\nat the International Bellydance Conference of Canada in Toronto, Ontario<\/em>
\nGilded Serpent will be reporting from the event.<\/h3>\n

\"use<\/p>\n

\n

Have a comment? Use or comment section at the bottom of this page or Send us a letter!<\/a>
\nCheck the "Letters to the Editor<\/a>" for other possible viewpoints!<\/p>\n

Ready for more?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n