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Dance BanI was very curious to see how the dance may have changed since the Egyptian government implemented the ban on foreign dancers. Would it create a change for the better? Would it give room for local talent to flourish? Or would a declining art form continue its downward spiral? In March of 2004 I had the chance to find out. My first opportunity to see a dancer was on a Nile dinner cruise. The wait staff sang the praises of the dancer prior to her entering the room. They said she was sexy, attractive, and a very good dancer. I couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, the wait was the best part of the performance! She walked onstage in a lackluster manner then flung her veil around the floor like it was a whip instead of a flowing accent piece. She danced like a savage. At one point she actually leaned over and stuck her butt in front of the faces of the men at the nearest table and clenched her gluteus as accents to a drum solo! When she brought the tourist men up to dance with her, she stuffed napkins in their shirts and made them shake their chests. One man liked it so much that he stripped off his shirt and started gyrating. Instead of being outraged, she applauded and encouraged him. With a horrified look on my face, I turned to my guests who had never seen belly dance before and explained that this was not the typical performance and definitely not representative of what I do. Before we left the
dinner cruise, we got a chance to see how ex-Russian belly dancers
reinvented their dance careers. Two thin, pale, Russian dancers came into
the dining room wearing red leather Daisy Dukes covered by red hip
scarves. On their tops they wore red velvet shirts with gold coins. Their
matching red high heeled shoes completed the ensemble. Together they
danced a very simple choreography with the ship’s guests. They smiled as they danced around them and with them. Their act was tasteful and entertaining and much more enjoyable than the hootchie dancer we saw earlier. We called them the Fly Girls of Egypt. Hoping for an improvement, the next night we went to some B clubs in the Opera Square area. The dancers here competed with the cruise ship dancer for “worst dancer.” The dinner cruise dancer won the Ms. Vulgar competition hands down, but the B club dancers scored pretty highly in the area of poor costuming and bad dance skills, so it was hard to determine who was worse. These dancers seemed very disinterested in dancing. Instead they pranced around while shimmying, talked to men, posed for pictures, and got tipped. The costumes looked like something they rolled out of bed in. No beads, no fringe. Except for excessive tightness, there was nothing that might give their dresses the look of a costume. Dina is dancing again. Her photo in the Intercontinental Semiramis lobby announced her presence. Nobody seemed to be aware of it as many we spoke to afterward hadn’t heard of her return to the stage. The half-empty room suggested that her come-back was intended to be low key as the rumors of her working as a prostitute were still circulating around. (For the record, I don’t believe she was working as a prostitute!) Dina is still Dina. Still charming. Still outrageous. Lucy wasn’t dancing because she was filming a movie. So our last view of dancing came from the Nile cruise. This dancer was unimaginative, lacking in personality, and danced without heart. A disappointing end to the search for good dancers. Overall the dancers were heavier, dressed more cheaply, and less talented than in the past. Some say that the reason for the ban was to give locals more opportunity for jobs. Some say that it was an attempt to clean up prostitution. Whatever the reason, the lack of talented dancers is really felt among those who know what good dancing is supposed to look like. It leaves the uneducated tourist with evidence that their harem girl fantasies are indeed rooted in fact. Sadly, it leaves those searching for entertainment without anywhere to go. |