Why the Fuss Over Egyptian Style Music and Oriental Dance?
states that women should cover their beauty and show it only to their husbands. They threatened to disrupt with violence any events that involved women performing Oriental dance in front of men. As a result, people have backed away from hiring female dancers for weddings and other happy events, because they don't want their special occasions ruined by violence. When I was in Egypt in 1999, I was invited to two weddings, and neither had a female dancer. Instead, both featured ensembles of young men dancing.
Today, the famous Egyptian dancers such as Fifi Abdo and Dina surround themselves with entourages of bodyguards to ensure their personal safety. Others such as Nagwa Fouad and Soheir Zaki retired in the late 1980's or early 1990's because it just wasn't worth the hassle to continue.
The dancers who used to make a living performing at weddings and the less prestigious nightclubs are having trouble making ends meet. Many Egyptian-born dancers have retired from performing altogether. Increasingly, the dancers who do continue to perform publicly are foreigners from Russia, Argentina, and other far-flung places.
The good news is that while the Egyptian dance environment has decayed, Oriental dance is rising to higher levels of quality in other places.
Now that Lebanon's civil war has ended, Beirut is starting to restore its cultural heritage.
In Turkey, some fine Oriental dance performers are starting to appear in the better night spots frequented by tourists. Interestingly, the majority of the ones I saw when I was there in 2000 danced to Arabic music and used Egyptian props such as cane and candelabrum rather than using Turkish music. Their costumes were lovely and tasteful by North American standards. Although I'm sure it's still possible to find clubs in Turkey that cater to the sleaze factor, there are now many opportunities to see good-quality performances there.
This article is part of the Suite101 "Middle Eastern Dance" topic area. For the other Suite101 articles, discussion forums, and opinion polls related to Middle Eastern dance, music, and culture, see the Welcome page on Suite101. For other articles written by Shira about these topics, please see Shira's own popular web site at www.shira.net.
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