{"id":2901,"date":"2011-07-05T11:17:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T18:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=2901"},"modified":"2011-09-20T22:30:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T05:30:38","slug":"stasha-perfumes-araby-diane-webber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2011\/07\/05\/stasha-perfumes-araby-diane-webber\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming the Object of Your Own Fantasy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Diane,<\/p>\n

"Perfumes of Araby" in the 1970s, Part 1<\/h2>\n

by Stasha Vlasuk<\/a>
\nposted July 5, 2011
\nPart 1: posted here<\/a> You are here!
\nPart 2: posted here<\/a>
\nPart 3: posted here<\/a> <\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

\u201cI live by a man\u2019s code designed to fit a man\u2019s world, yet at the same time, I always remember that a women\u2019s first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.\u201d<\/em>
\nCarol Lombard<\/span> quote from \u201cWomen\u2019s Wit and Wisdom\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"DianneThe Belly dance scene in 1970s Los Angeles:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Knowledge had to be directly and carefully mined from academic, ethnic and cultural sources.\u00a0 We always performed to live music; recorded music was rare at dance events.\u00a0 The sociological change of American society in the 1970s also informed our dance community.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Now, as I reach back in my memory of these exciting times to compose this article, I\u2019m grateful for the researched archiving amassed and available in today\u2019s technological world.\u00a0 I\u2019ve tried to be precise: please forgive me where I\u2019m hazy!\u00a0 It was the \u201870s after all!\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

This article will focus on the iconic 1970s \u201cPerfumes of Araby<\/strong>\u201d Belly dance troupe, lead by the almost mythical performer\/actress\/teacher, Diane Webber<\/strong>, who was also my teacher.\u00a0 I was there!\u00a0 Through a selection of our performances in that era, we\u2019ll explore dance and costuming as becoming the object of your own fantasy.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Diane Webber was a Playboy centerfold –twice; there\u2019s another whole story there – yet, we\u2019ll stick with Belly dance this time.\u00a0 Among her earliest Middle Eastern dance engagements were at Lou Shelby\u2019<\/span>s \u201cThe Fez\u201d<\/strong> in Hollywood (Lou was our orchestra violinist.) and on the road with \u201cHaji Baba\u201d <\/strong>star, Guy Chookoorian<\/strong>, who was also the Perfumes\u2019 stalwart oud player in our multi-piece orchestra. Throughout the \u201870s, Guy continued to call on various Perfume members for countrywide performances. Diane also appeared in \u201cThe Witchmaker\u201d<\/strong> (1969) as the Nautch dancer.\"Witchmaker<\/p>\n

Diane\u2019s self-made costuming was breathtakingly inventive, interpretive and well structured.\u00a0 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 \u201cgreat-grandmother\u201d in Modern dance: my Modern dance teacher Pat McLaughlin<\/strong> studied with Martha Graham, who started with the Denishawn Dancers).\u00a0 Diane inspired her dancers to create their own beautiful costumes and was intimately involved in their fabric selection and construction.<\/p>\n

\"Diane<\/em>The Perfumes of Araby dance troupe was initiated in the Los Angeles area in the late 1960s for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire<\/strong>.\u00a0 As producer, director, and lead dancer, Diane Webber chose the name from popular imagery of the early 1600s: Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cMacbeth\u201d (written somewhere between 1603-1607), in the sleepwalking scene "…nor all the perfumes of Araby shall sweeten this little hand…" and Claudio Monteverdi\u2019s 1607 libretto of \u201cL\u2019Orfeo\u201d, where in the second act, nymphs sing to Orpheus, god of the underworld:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTherefore, Orpheus, make worthy
\nof the sound of your lyre
\nthese fields, where there blows
\na breeze with the perfumes of Araby.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What an appropriate moniker for these outdoor Belly dance extravaganzas!\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Perfumes of Araby\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Many members worked individually in nightclubs, and thus, brought a strong entertainment background to the performances.<\/p>\n

\"articleYoung stagehand Scott Pierce<\/strong> has a fun memory of those days:
\n\u201cI 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 My eyes popped out so far the pupils thought it was recess.\u00a0 The joints landed a few feet in front of me. I thought to myself, \u201cI\u2019m 13.\u00a0 I spend hours every day at the Faire on stage with beautiful, athletic, dancing women, and the audience throws drugs on stage!\u00a0 Am I living one of the best lives a teenager can hope to have, or what?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire’s entertainment policy changed around 1972; with the questionable critique that \u201cdancers could not show their bellies\u201d.\u00a0 The Perfumes were canned.\u00a0 A splinter group composed of two members of the orchestra (Joe Carson <\/strong>and Geoff Hunter<\/strong>) and three dancers (Khadija Cynthia Beck<\/strong>, Maya Hunter<\/strong> and myself) appeared the next year (\u201873) and took to a small stage.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Yes, nude. Yes, sheer. Yes, I have a photo, and no it won\u2019t be placed with this article, this is a family web \u2018zine!\u00a0 Yes, the Faire\u2019s powers-that-be howled, to which I innocently rejoined: \u201c…but my belly is covered… \u201d <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"musicians\"
\nRenaissance Pleasure Faire, Agoura, CA circa 1971<\/p>\n

\"Candle\"Snake<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Diane<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the 1970 performances until today, in group presentations or as solo artists, Diane Webber\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Coming soon!<\/h5>\n