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Cross-Dressing In Middle Eastern Dance

© Shira

When most people hear the term "Middle Eastern dance" they think of women in skimpy costumes glittering with beads and sequins. But there's an interesting tradition of men dressed as women performing dance in public. This article will take you on a tour through Egypt, Turkey, and Morocco to explore this side of the history of Middle Eastern dance.

The Moroccan Shikhatt

The shikhatt is a Moroccan women's dance which was traditionally performed at the women-only wedding celebrations. From there, it developed into a social dance that women did for other social occasions as well.

In traditional Muslim culture, men and women lived segregated lives. People didn't socialize with the opposite gender outside of the immediate family. When family occasions such as weddings, circumcisions, and other festive events occurred, the men would gather for a men-only party, while the women gathered separately for a women-only party. Living quarters of houses were segregated too: men would entertain other men on the men's side of the house, and women would entertain women on the women's side of the house.

The original purpose of the shikhatt was to provide sex education to the bride. This dance is distinctly different from belly dancing. It uses movements that emphasize the hips and breasts. At the women-only party before the wedding, the bride would sit on a "throne" dressed in her finery while a woman known as the "sheikha" would lead the female party goers in doing the shikhatt for her.

In time, men too began to learn the shikhatt. In fact, many men have also become professionals at dancing the shikhatt. They generally perform it in drag, or at the very least in a woman's caftan and d'fina, due to the feminine origin of this dance.

For more information about the shikhatt, please see a paper titled Dance As Community Identity In Selected Berber Nations written by the dancer Morocco. This paper describes a number of different dance forms from North Africa, including the shikhatt.

The Turkish Kochek

In 18th-century Istanbul, the kocheks were popular performers of Oriental dance in the coffee houses. These were young men, clad in garb that bore a strong resemblance to the women's fashions that were popular at the time. The kocheks dressed in clothing that resembled women's garb in many ways. There were some differences such as their short hair and the caps they wore on their heads.

The kocheks were particularly popular among the Turkish military, the Janissaries. Often, fights would break out in the coffee houses among the Janissaries over the favors of the young men. At last, Sultan Mahmud tired of the constant disruption and banished the kocheks from Turkey in 1837.

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