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Bringing Middle Eastern Dance To Your Community

© Shira

I frequently receive e-mails from dancers that say something like this:

• "I've just moved to a new city, and I'm trying to establish myself as a professional dancer here, but there is no dance scene to plug into! There are no Middle Eastern restaurants, and no other dancers organizing events. How can I re-launch my dance career in my new home?"
• "I'd love to dance professionally, but another dancer has taken all the gigs in this city for herself. There's no place left for me to dance. What can I do?"
• "The people in my town believe that belly dancing has something to do with stripping, and they think there must be something indecent about it. So no one wants to hire me."

So, you're eager to perform for someone, but people aren't calling you up to fill your calendar with gigs. What are you doing wrong?

Names Have Power

First things first: if you live in a community without a local Middle Eastern dance scene, your first move should be to erase the term "belly dance" from your vocabulary. This term often triggers fears of something "dirty", especially in communities with conservative religious views. An event promoter in the 1890's coined the term in hopes of stirring up a scandal that would stimulate ticket sales. He succeeded. Over a century later, the term "belly dance" is still tainted with an undeserved scandalous reputation.

If you want to avoid the whole stripper misunderstanding, then call it "Near Eastern dance," "Middle Eastern dance", "Biblical dance," or "Oriental dance," but don't call it "belly dance". See my article A Dance By Any Other Name here on Suite101 for the detailed explanation behind this advice. I have never heard a member of The General Public ask, "Does that have something to do with stripping?" when I tell them I do "traditional dance forms from the Middle East". Think about it!

Some dancers firmly embrace the term "belly dancing" because they're trying to reclaim it, transform it into a term of power, and apply it to the divine feminine. I don't have a quarrel with these people, and in fact, I hope they're successful! But, most of these dancers live in communities where many people are already familiar with Oriental dance and have friends or family members who have tried it. These people can afford to call the dance whatever they like, because they're not risking as much when they do.

However, if most people in your community associate the term "belly dancing" with something "dirty", then maybe you need to abandon the "powerful woman" politics and call the dance something less inflammatory. Consider your local environment, and decide which is more important to you: using the terminology you like best, or building local acceptance of your art form. Sometimes you can't have both.

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