Let’s face it. We foreign belly dancers are under a lot of pressure. Not only do we have to look good, but we have to dance as Egyptian as possible. Some get closer than others, but none of us ever hit the 100% mark. Personally, I think it’s impossible. Being Egyptian is one of those things you’re either born with or you’re not. No matter how immersed we are in the culture or how well we speak Arabic, we’ll never be as Egyptian as an Egyptian. And we’ll certainly never out-Egyptian one. 🙂 Not that that’s necessarily the goal… Our “disadvantage” notwithstanding, however, we’re constantly being compared to Egyptian dancers. And one of the points of comparison is feeling.
“Feeling” is one of those words that has no real meaning. Yet we use it all the time to refer to some vague concept of Egyptianness in the dance. We can’t exactly pinpoint what it is, because it can’t be defined, quantified, counted, or taught. Yet somehow, we know it when we see it. Most interestingly, feeling is the thing a lot of Egyptian belly dancers (claim to) have, and that we non-Egyptians strive to obtain.
Given that feeling is such an elusive concept, I thought it would be fun to jot down some of my ideas about it—what it is, and what it isn’t. Keep in mind that these are my subjective thoughts based on my experiences and observations. They are thus debatable. There is more than one correct way of understanding things, so you don’t have to agree with everything I write. That doesn’t make any of us wrong.
When Egyptians talk about feeling, they often claim that it’s the main thing foreign dancers lack. They say we have great technique, but that our dancing is mechanical and flat. They think that a lot of us lack that essence—that spirit that is characteristic of Oriental dance. They don’t know if it’s because we don’t understand Arabic lyrics and instrumentality, or because we’re not Egyptian. While I don’t agree that we all lack feeling, I do believe that for a lot of us, it’s a little bit of both.
Feeling happens when an educated dancer is physically, intellectually, and emotionally in tune with the music, and successfully conveys that to her audience. I’m stressing educated because that connection only happens when we’ve acquired an in depth knowledge of the dance. When we master technique, understand Arabic instrumentality, and understand song lyrics. When we know which types of movements correspond with which instruments. When we become intimately familiar with the cultural origins of the dance. When we learn all the rules and know when to break them. When we attain that level of knowledge, it reflects in our dancing.
But what exactly is it?
For me, feeling is first and foremost the way a dancer executes her movements. A matter of styling, if you will. Depending on the energy behind it, a movement can be made to look Turkish, Egyptian, like hip-hop, or like nothing. Same exact movement, different emphasis and thus different feel. It’s a bit like accents when speaking a foreign language. In the United States, for example, where we have a lot of immigrants, it’s not uncommon to hear words coated in thick Indian, Latin, and Asian accents. Though we all speak the same language, each ethnic group’s English has its own distinct sound, or feel. And that’s not a bad thing.
The same applies to dance. I remember when I first started taking belly dance classes in New York, one of my teachers commented that my dancing didn’t look (i.e. “feel”) very Middle Eastern (looking back on it, neither did hers ;P). Sure, I was doing all the movements correctly, but the way I was doing them wasn’t very Middle Eastern, let alone Egyptian. My arms, which I held completely straight, were more suited for traffic directing than belly dancing. My isolations were so huge, perfect, and violent that they looked more like hip-hop than like belly dance. Granted, I did have a bit of a hip-hop/jazz background, so that was the “accent” with which I was speaking the language of Egyptian dance. I’ve since learned to soften up and make my movements smaller. Gotten rid of my accent, so to speak. 🙂 And I’ve learned that my isolations don’t have to be so perfect to the point of looking robotic.
Feeling is more than an issue of styling, however. Part of what we mean when we say a dancer feels the music is that she interprets the music correctly. In other words, she has a good ear. She knows which moves go with which instruments. She knows that the accordion, for example, calls for softer, sinuous movements like figure 8s and undulations. And that the tabla obviously calls for more percussive movements. More importantly, she knows what to do when there are several different instruments playing simultaneously… such as when the rhythm picks up during an accordion solo. A dancer with good feeling will know when to ignore the tabla, when to ignore the accordion, and when to acknowledge both. And that’s something that comes with experience.
There’s another aspect to this whole feeling thing that I want to mention, mainly because there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about it. EMOTION. As we’ve all seen, it’s very common for Egyptian dancers these days to convey the emotion of the lyrics with facial expressions and hand gestures. It’s also very common for non-Egyptians to emulate them. Sometimes, it works. But often, since most non-Egyptian belly dancers don’t understand Arabic lyrics without a translation, their mimicking is exactly that—mimicking. And it can look fake and overdone.
I’ve been noticing this a lot recently, the more I teach workshops out of Egypt and watch student performances. This is a problem that dancers have everywhere, but particularly so in Europe, where the belly dance culture is extremely competitive. On any given weekend, you can find competitions happening all across the continent. This results in dancers striving to outshine each other any way they can. And one of the ways they do this is by making really exaggerated faces of joy, pain, or whatever emotion the lyrics are expressing. Or making really exaggerated gestures. It’s as though they think they’ll nail the “feeling” category this way.
Here’s the thing. There’s a difference between feeling and acting. Feeling is mainly about musical interpretation. And though it sometimes extends into expressing emotion, it shouldn’t be about playing charades on stage, or about proving to the audience (or judges) that you understand Arabic. While it’s always good to acknowledge the lyrics or even sing along if you can, acting out the entire song to prove that you understand Arabic is unnecessary. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
There’s one performance I’ll never forget. It was by a European dancer at one of Egypt’s festivals a couple of years back. The girl was dancing to a song about unrequited love, and proceeded to make frequent and violent stabbing gestures…as if she were stabbing herself in the hip and heart. She then threw herself on the floor and pounded the stage with her hand to the word “bahibak,” which means “I love you.” She definitely left an impression on me, but for the wrong reasons. I felt as though I had just been attacked—like she was forcing me to feel what she was feeling. It’s one thing to express the emotion of the song. It’s another to come on stage and FORCE PEOPLE TO FEEL IT DAMN IT! Which is exactly what she was doing. 🙂
I’ve seen many, many performances like this. And I walk away from them thinking, if only she had toned it down by 50%, danced more and acted less, she would have been convincing.
The competition culture isn’t the only culprit for such exaggerated acting though. Some high profile Egyptian dance teachers are also at fault. Over the past few years, there’s been an increasing tendency amongst influential Egyptian teachers to act out entire songs. This is happening because they select newer pop songs that are instrumentally and compositionally inferior to the older classics, and that shouldn’t be danced to! Because these songs have absolutely no musical complexity, no rhythm changes, and no stringed instrumentation, the only thing you can do is act out the lyrics by playing charades.
It’s unfortunate that this is becoming so common. It seems to be the result of the laziness and carelessness that sets in when super star teachers become exclusively about business. When this happens, they cease to put any thought or effort into the art. They just take the latest pop hit, make a half-assed, charade-like choreography, and teach it in workshops all around the world. And then call it “feeling.” No wonder we’ve all started playing charades! Not only are we mimicking Egyptian dancers, we’re being taught this stuff by teachers we’ve come to respect and admire!
So for the record: just because a song is new or fast doesn’t mean it should be danced to. And just because someone who knows better is presenting junk doesn’t mean we should blindly accept it. Yet this is exactly what’s happening. Because many of us understandably believe that anything an Egyptian does is correct, we’re picking up on this trend and taking it to new extremes. Which is why I wanted to say, this is not the definition of feeling.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum are those Egyptian dancers who actually do feel—perhaps a little too much. 🙂 In fact, sometimes they feel the emotion of the song so intensely that they forget to dance! They sing and scream and make wild gestures and throw in a few vibrations here and there…. I swear sometimes I feel like I’m watching drunken karaoke! :)~ This can be both funny and awkward at the same time. Funny when they forget themselves and forget that they’re on stage. Awkward because they bear their entire souls to the audience. And trust me, you want to be on neither end of that. 🙂 As a viewer, you don’t want to be subjected to that. As a performer, you don’t want to be in the position where you expose your entire psychological disposition to the audience. That’s just too much information, and an invasion of the audience’s right to privacy. And I don’t mean their privacy, I mean our privacy. The audience should have a right to the artist’s privacy.
Think about it. We wouldn’t flash an audience member, or show them our private parts—more out of consideration for them than for us. So why would we show them the most private, intimate parts of our souls? This is called psychological nudity, and chances are, your audience doesn’t want to see that.
Personally, when I’m confronted with this, I find myself psychoanalyzing the dancer. I start trying to figure her out, and imagine all sorts of things about her personality, her addictions, her life, and other things that are none of my business. Talk about awkward. As entertainers, we should never put our audiences in that mental position. Not only can it make them uncomfortable, but it strips us of all our mystery. All artists should have mystery about them. And I don’t just mean physical mystery, although that’s obviously important too. I mean emotional, psychological mystery. Once we lose our mystery, there’s no reason for our audience to come back and watch us again. They’ve seen it all. There’s nothing else for them to discover.
I guess the point of this whole post is that when we’re on stage, we’re in the driver’s seat. We can and should control how much of ourselves we give the audience. Remember, as with everything, too much of anything is never a good thing. That also applies to feeling and acting. The trick to dancing with feeling and authenticity is striking a balance. We should be able to express both the music and the lyrics in a way that is true to ourselves, but not overdone. Not only will that make our dancing more genuine, but it’ll also be more convincing.
As always, comments, thoughts or complaints welcome. 🙂
I lament the fact that Egyptian style is less & less popular in the US. More than ever, new dancers are saying they don't care about Arabic culture or people because they want to make the dance their own. While I have been annoyed by this attitude, lately I'm getting where they are coming from, since non-Egyptian dancers will never (& are constantly told they will never) look Egyptian, I think they would rather dance the way they honestly feel from their own personal experience than to try to falsely emulate Egyptian angst. Other countries (in Europe, So American, Asia) are still deeply passionate about Egyptian, but as they are told more & more they look like clowns trying to look Egyptian, maybe they will start their own thing too and everyone will say "who needs Egyptian, we just want to dance our own way". I have personally been compelled by Egyptian dance, & never worried when I danced for 20 years throughout the '70s & '80s in Egyptian clubs in London & US that I didn't possess the "it" factor since patrons, club owners & musicians didn't seem worried about it. Now I believe because of social media we see so much dance from around the world, we are hyper critical. So what's a non-Egyptian dancer to do, except to say "I deserve to dance & I give up on the whole Egyptian thing if I'm going to be ridiculed". I want Egyptian dance to live on, I believe it's the most beautiful, but with so few Egyptian role models & all this badmouthing of western dancers, I'm afraid it will go the way of the Pharaohs.
Thank you so much for this comment. You actually touched upon something I wanted to put in this entry, but that I deliberately chose not to. (I tried to allude to it though in my first paragraph when I said that maybe being 100% Egyptian isn't necessarily the goal.) While I do agree (from what I've observed in other dancers and in myself) that we'll never move EXACTLY like an Egyptian), this really isn't an issue. As you said, Egyptian venue owners and musicians don't seem to care. And in my experience, they enjoy us more than they enjoy Egyptian dancers. They respect our knowledge of the dance, the fact that we have more technique, and actually give a damn. So, regular "lay" Egyptians appreciate us. The real problem is the Egyptian DANCE TEACHERS, especially the ones who have made a career out of making us all believe that the GOAL is to be 100% Egyptian, that that's not really possible, but come to my festival anyway and you'll get pretty close. These are the people that make you feel bad about not looking completely Egyptian, and they do it so that we keep running back to them for private lessons and festivals. It's strictly a money thing. The other reason they put us down is because quite honestly, I think they're starting to feel a bit surpassed by all the belly dancers around the world who master and create new technique. I think the more they see amazing foreign dancers, the more they feel that they're being left in the dust. And I think there's a (somewhat rational) fear that since foreigners have achieved such excellence in the dance, they might not need to study with Egyptians anymore….which will hit them in the pocket. So to keep themselves on top, they create this myth that we're good, but not quite Egyptian. This is how they try to keep us running back to Egypt. Now, this is something that I've observed, being that I live in Cairo and am privy to all the gossip/garbage. I'm wondering though, how much of this makes its way overseas? Is this really the reason so many dancers are "going astray" and doing their own thing? I don't know. I'm not so sure. I think the dancers who involve themselves in other styles of BD do so without ever having tried Egyptian. They know nothing about it, and don't have the slightest interest in it. I don't think it's an issue of them being turned off by the bull that Egyptian teachers throw at them. I think it's just typical American "let's take something from somebody else's culture and turn it into something it was never meant to be." Anyway this is a completely different topic, and one that I've starting writing about. Thanks again for bringing this up. I think maybe I'll edit this entry and add this in, being that I already wrote wrote about it publicly. 🙂
Hello!
My name is Hilde Lund, and I publish a Norwegian magazine about belly dance.
I found this blog post very interesting, and I would be very happy to have it in my magazine.
Would that be Ok for you?
I am afraid I can't pay for the use of the article, but I will of course be happy to credit your name and blog!
greetings from Norway,
Hilde Lund
Hi Hilde,
Thanks for your interest in my post. I'd be happy to let you use it. Just please credit me and provide a link to my blog. Is this an online magazine, by the way? If so, could you please send me the link after you include my post?
Thanks,
Luna
I was speaking about this with a friend the other night. We watched an interview with Sofia the egyptian dancer, and then naturally I brought up your blog.
As an Egyptian I know how obnoxiously purist we can get about our so called essence, but I think the elusive "feeling" egyptian dancers exude is actually physical sloppiness and sluggy body movement, as oppose to the more athletic approach of foreign dancers. Yet, despite this I still respond more to Egyptian belly dancing, and I figured out it has everything to do with our shared heritage. It takes more guts for an Egyptian to be a belly dancer and own it, which is a refreshingly hopeful and inspiring sentiment in post 25th Egypt.
Thank you for your thoughtfully written blog. I have so much fun reading it.
Hi Haisam, thanks so much for your comment. I agree with everything you wrote. I like how you describe Egyptians' dancing as "physically sloppy" and "sluggy." That's exactly it, and I too find it appealing (within reason of course). 🙂 This is something us more "athletic" foreigners will probably never get…we'll probably never move exactly like that. Which isn't the worst thing in the world. Mostly all of us grow up with some sort of physical activity. If it's not ballet, it's karate or swimming or tennis. And, we learn to be conscious of our weight and posture. This doesn't really apply to most Egyptian girls as they grow up, so naturally, when they do move (i.e. dance), their movements come out differently than ours do. There are some exceptions though. You have Randa Kamel, who is extremely athletic, is the biggest star on the international workshop circuit because of that, and is unheard of in Egypt, also because of that. And there are some foreign dancers in Egypt who get pretty close to "sluggy" and are actually really popular in Egypt.
It does take huge guts for an Egyptian to be a belly dancer and own it, especially post 25. I think it takes even more guts for a foreigner to do the same. We're subjected to the same prejudice and bad treatment as the Egyptians, and to add insult to injury, we don't have the comfort of being in our native countries. We're also duped and deceived a lot more. But yes, belly dancing in Egypt is not for the faint of heart! 🙂
Great topic & one I've given a lot of thought to – yes that delicious sluggy sloppy look. & as you mentioned about the competitions – as in all competition the bar is being raised athletically, which I was thinking was great originally (watching all the European & Russian vid's), but now it's starting to look too perfect & there's something missing that cannot be resolved by adding in some fake emotions. And I just watched a men's bellydance show & darned if those guys didn't have the most heartfelt pain & emotion coming through – & I believe it is the same phenomenon, living a life totally outside the box & against proper society.
Sheesh, I can only imagine how hard it is for you. I cringed reading some of your post jan25th diatribes. I sympathize I swear, I wasn't trying to draw any comparison between the struggles of foreign women and Egyptian ones. It's all fucked up and unfair. And not in a "life is unfair," sort of way, but in a "people are stubborn, ignorant, and lack of foresight" one.
And not to belittle your experience, but you have something most Egyptian women don't: Choice. But then again, for someone who has the luxury of choice, you're making pretty good and gutsy ones.
Oh I know you weren't trying to belittle my experience. I hope I didn't come across that way. 🙂 Honestly though, I think we all have choice, at least in a very existential sort of way. There are plenty of Egyptian women who choose poverty over being a dancer, even though they'd probably be able to feed their families that way. Anyway, thanks so much for reading my blog and contributing!
Wonderful truthful and thoughtful analysis. Thank you so much for sharing your well-written thoughts. I hope to share it with my local belly dance community!
Glad you enjoyed Adriane 🙂
Luna i love ya and i always enjoy reading everyone of your blogs your the best and i enjoy watching your dancing and just talking to you and when you get back to egypt we must hang out and as soon the weather gets a little cool i will come to cairo and see you and if you need a break from cairo you have a home in alex with me … Lots of Love, Patricia xoxoxo
Loved this post! I, too, have felt of tinge of discomfort when a dancer is putting on an "Egyptian in distress" face without doing anything. Or singing the entire song to prove they took the time to look up lyrics and understand it. Or being overly dramatic and unhappy about unrequited love. I do think people overcompensate to emulate certain famous dancers since they associate the Egyptian style with the individual, iconic dancer. And while I do admire their intention to do "justice" to the dance, it's hard to watch, especially for an outsider of the bellydance world.
But I do admit that I prefer watching dancers that possess an "oriental" feeling, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're dancing strictly egyptian. As Gamal Seif (one of my fav egyptian teachers with a noted modern jazz accent) notes, Martha Graham was oriental, in the sense that oriental feeling is expressing a given emotion with well-placed, organic movements and appropriate facial expressions. Of course, in bellydance, there's a set of vocabulary that suits certain musical phrases, but other than that, it's hard to define in so many words why some get it and will be praised for dancing with oriental feeling, while others will be copycats. I guess we know a great dancer when we see one?
Very much enjoyed this blog post, and the comments after it too. I've also struggled to figure out why I'm so often left cold by hyper-crisp North American or East European dancers. (And I'm both N. American *and* E. European, so it's a matter of taste not prejudice!) I find that the moment I see someone who doesn't take each isolation to 11, I'm drawn to them. One example that comes to mind is Nanna Candelaria, who has a way of doing a drum solo that feels really light and easy, which seems unusual to me. And is, to my eyes at least, delightful to watch.
Does the slightly "sloppy" look create pleasure, perhaps, because it also looks like pleasure? When I dance alone in my room, I'm lost in the movement and the music, and I'm not thinking about the crispness of a hip bump. But highly choreographed dance, where each beat has its movement, doesn't look like a spontaneous expression of pleasure.
Just my 2 cents!
Thank you for speaking your mind so open on your blog Luna! Your insightful article and the comments really address what a lot of dancers are thinking without daring to speak about…
I really hope to meet you in September!
Now I'm off to eat up the rest of your blog 🙂
I think if Randa Kamel were on Egyptian TV or film, she would definitely acquire more Egyptian fans (even if she is not as dalla or soft as typical Egyptian dancers). Since she really is a fabulous dancer, Egyptian aside, with genuine feeling, I think her lack of notoriety in the Egyptian household is intentional. In some articles I read, she noted that she purposely turned down these offers because she didn't want her son to be known as the dancer's kid. Then again, you tell me, since I'm not the one privy to the general Egyptian opinion 😉 How do non-bellydance people consider her athleticism over there?
"Yes, the audience has a right to the artist’s privacy.
…
This is called psychological nudity, and chances are, your audience doesn’t want to see that."
You aren't the first person I have read talk about this but a few days after I read your blog on it I saw a performance that reminded me vividly about what you had written. It is so true!
Ariadne Eleni
Hi Faith, great comment! I like what you said about Gamal Seif. I don't know him, but his words sound correct. It is hard to figure out why some get it and others don't, though I think being original certainly helps. It's not enough, but it's how we make the dance our own. The trick is not to let ourselves overpower the dance though….
Haha, glad you brought this up! Randa is definitely a great dancer. There's no doubt about that. Though I must say, the Egyptian GP that has watched her generally prefers a softer dancer. At least that's what they say. They think she's too forceful. I'm sure she could get more exposure if she wanted to, and I have heard her say that she deliberately stays out of the spotlight, though I'm not so sure. People here have a way of twisting the truth if they think it doesn't make them look good. So who knows? Just one more of those belly dance mysteries. 🙂
I think you've hit on something important– living outside the box & outside of "proper" society. That'll definitely give you a reason to feel and express! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thanks Patricia, you'e a sweetheart! Would love to see you again. Let me know when you come to Cairo. <3
Interesting… sloppy + careless = pleasure. I never thought of it that way but you could be right. But I definitely agree that less is more, and that spontaneity is always better than canned choreography. Thanks for writing. 🙂
Hey Coco! Thanks for reading (and eating :D). Indeed a lot of people are afraid to speak the truth… that's their problem. Let me know when you'll be here and we'll get in touch. 🙂
Thanks Ariadne! I know that what I said is not something you hear people say a lot– in fact they say the opposite– but I really do think it's true. Thanks for reading. 🙂
Lorna of Cairo said recently in one of her workshops that what what made a dance 'Egyptian' was being yourself and sharing your personal connection with and expression of the music
This came as I shock to me that I had to be reminded to be myself and that in trying to be something else so much I had neglected my most valuable tool, which is myself.
I think often that we are also so used to being given an 'ideal' to emulate that we apply self pressure in order to dance like Egyptian dancers. The result is that we often felt hopeless because we know that we can never be 'that' dancer. This is something that affects modern western women in all areas of life, not just dancing.
I think we also suffer too much from trying to gain the approval of other dancers. We want to be seen to be doing it correctly and justify our participation in another cultures dance form?
However I think when that happens, and a dancer tries too hard, they loose the joy of dancing and the dance no longer is a gift but a labour 🙁
You make some good points, and I agree with Lorna that you have to let yourself come through the dance. The challenge is to do that in Egyptian way (that is, if we accept participation in another culture and the fact that we will have to live up to its standards, whatever they may be). That doesn't necessarily mean emulating other dancers' expressions and gestures. I think it does mean, however, that we at least use Egyptian technique. And music and costuming. If we fail to do that, then we're not doing Egyptian dance. Which is fine, if that's what we knowingly and deliberately choose. What makes the dance personal is making that technique our own. Letting it sink into our bodies until we reproduce it in our own unique ways. Also, our choice of movements, and the way we string them together… the way we interpret the music. This is how a dancer can develop her own personal style within Egyptian dance. Hope I'm making sense, and thanks for writing. 🙂