Male Belly Dancing Makes Comeback in Egypt, Defying Suppression
Get the News by email
Male belly dancing, a centuries-old Egyptian tradition, is making a comeback — against the odds, considering its periodic suppression by government and religious officials.
A carved relief at a pharaonic-era tomb near Cairo shows today’s dance prohibitions were yesterday’s norm. It depicts a chorus line of men at a religious festival; each wears a sash knotted on his left hip, a fashion for dancing men and women that lingers today.
Male performers were once considered more reputable than females. In his book “The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,” Edward William Lane, an Englishman and prominent Arabic scholar who lived in 19th-century Cairo, observed that male dancers were preferred by Cairenes who thought women “ought not to expose themselves.” From 1834 to 1849, women dancers, known as ghawazee, were banned from the city.
During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, male belly dancing all but disappeared because it smacked of monarchical decadence. Nasser took over Egypt in 1954, two years after King Farouk was overthrown by military officers.
No one knows the number of male — or for that matter, female — dancers now. There is no belly-dance association, an indication of the profession’s seedy reputation. (Belly dance is a Western term invented by the French; Egyptians call it simply Oriental or “homegrown” dance.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=atLloMTgRlEg&refer=europe
Related posts:
