Belly Dance Festival Goes Belly-up

The latest silly news from Morocco is of a belly dance festival ( see our earlier story here) which was to have been held in Marrakech on May 10, but was cancelled today. The reason for the cancellation was not a sudden burst of common sense (belly dancing is not Moroccan) or a rush of prurient blood to the head; but rather fears over the safety of its Israeli dancers.

Belly dancing in the Fez Medina

“I cancelled it because I didn’t receive any authorization and I was afraid for the safety of my participants,” festival producer Simona Guzman told the media.

No authorisation? Was it the case that the excuse of safety was used to shut down a festival the Islamist government was disapproving of? Maybe so, because Islamist members of parliament and pro-Palestinian associations had criticized the invitation to the Israelis.

Criticism over the Israeli presence was first heard last year when the festival was also held in Marrakesh, but the event went off without mishap.

Some 18 countries, including Britain, Japan, Russia and The Netherlands, were due to have taken part in the festival which was first held in Istanbul in 2010.

Belly dancing in Marrakech

After the Greek and Roman period, there seems to be no documentation of veil dancing in the Middle East or North Africa in literature or in art. At the end of the 1800's and the beginning of the 1900's, there were numerous photographs taken of women dancing with what looked like shawls and kerchiefs. Many of these photographs were posed pictures which were more reflective of the photographers' prurient taste than the culture which they presumed to document. There was a salacious appetite to be quenched for the English and European buyers of these provocative and sometimes seminude photographs. There was money to be made. The photographs depicted the Orientalists' racist, sexist fantasy of how the forbidden women of the harems were supposed to appear. - Artemis Mourat, The Illusive Veil.

While not at all interested in censorship or a fundamentalist response to the festival, it is of concern that some seem to think Morocco needs belly dancing. There is enough indigenous music, dance and culture without pandering to Orientalist fantasies that are not part of Moroccan culture.

Also see our story: What is it with belly dancing?


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Belly Dancing not as Delightful as hoped

According to Dental hygienist and belly dancer Llinas, (pictured above) from Stamford in the USA, “The term belly dancing was coined by an event promoter trying to attract attention to a World’s Fair exhibit in 1893,” she said. “The French have a dance called the Ouled Nail that utilizes abdominal control called le danse du ventre, which translates to belly dancing. This is how the promoter came up with the term.”

Others tell a different story. According to another "expert", the correct name for belly dancing is actually "Oriental Dance". The Arabic name for it is raqs sharqi, which means "dance of the East/Orient", and the Turkish name is Oryantal. 

When belly dancing hit the news, our intrepid colleague, Derek Workman, applied for the assignment because, as he explains, when it comes to belly dancing, he has form.

As someone who won a belly dancing competition at a country fair in Pennsylvania almost twenty years ago against stiff opposition from two skinny individuals with not a shimmy or a shake to their soul, I’ve always been a bit inclined to the shimmery young gels with gyratory hips. When my bike ride in the High Atlas Mountains last year to raise funds for Education For All ended, we all went to the wondrous Comptoir in Marrakech to celebrate, and gawp at the floor show of sinuous belly dancers (although I have to admit that I was particularly taken with the ladies who balanced trays of lighted candles on their heads and danced between the young maids).

It had never occurred to me that this sensuous art might be the cause of political uproar, but the third annual International Belly Dance Festival in Marrakech, which takes place from 10-14 May, has stirred controversy in Morocco after it was announced that Israel will partake in the event. Nobody seems to object that the dance form is not actually a Moroccan one, but imported from places like Lebanon and Egypt.

Objections have been raised over the inclusion of two Israeli names in the list of participants of Mediterranean Delight Festival, belly dancer and belly dancing trainer Simona Guzman and the stylist and owner of an Israeli belly dancing school, Asi Haskal. The dancers form part of a group of experts who will train belly dancers as well as organise workshops and performances as part of the festival’s activities.

Some people objected to the festival altogether on the grounds that it violates the values of a conservative society like Morocco and encourages the ‘propagation of vice’. The pictures of belly dancers on the website, they say, offers insight into the ‘indecency’ the event is bound to promote.

Moroccans taking part in the festival have also had to put up with some harsh criticism. Hakima, a teacher of Moroccan belly dance and member of the festival’s jury, has had a campaign of accusations launched against her.

“Can people who say that belly dancing is not an art explain why belly dance festivals are organized in Europe and the United States and why people stand in long queues to take pictures with belly dancers that are given awards in those festivals?” Hakima wrote on her website. The dancer, who currently lives in Spain, added that she is planning to open a belly dancing school in Europe to teach belly dance in its authentic form. “No matter how Westerners try, they will never master belly dancing like we Easterners do.”

I may never be able make the tassled scarf around the waist tinkle like a professional, but at least I’ve got the photo to show that my belly can move with the best of them.

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