The Occidental Dancer

Wonder Woman Wednesday: Calliope

2012-03-07T07:20:00.010Z

Wonder Woman has always had a special place in my heart. As a wee one playing hopscotch, I would always make a special point of "Wonder Womaning" the turn at the top of the grid by imbuing it with as much drama as possible. Linda Carter's saggy baggy blue knickers were, to me, the very pinnacle of Glamma. A few years, ago, The Man gave me a pristine edition of a Wonder Woman comic for my birthday, which I was going to keep in its plastic shrink wrap until he insisted I open it. Tucked inside the cover was a voucher for a sky dive. Have I ever mentioned I'm afraid of heights?

Anyway, you can imagine the thrill that fluttered up my spine when I found this pic of Toledo-based dancer Calliope in her uterly smashing homemade Wonder Woman costume:

Calliope, who apparently specialises in 'character' belly dance, gets extra Brownie points if she took her name from the first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series rather than from the Greek muse herself.

Unfortunately, however, this outfit is not quite perfect. As we all know from the Wonder Woman theme song, Diana cannot fight for anyone's rights without her satin tights:

Calliope makes up for that oversight with her improv in this number. OF COURSE there has to be spinning!

“Go in peace my daughter. And remember that, in a world of ordinary mortals, you are a Wonder Woman.” Queen Hippolyte

Sha'abi Sunday: Sa'd El Soghayar's 'El Enab' feat. Dina

2012-03-04T16:36:00.003Z

Last Friday's music vid (Zayne's Shake It) went down about as well as a helium balloon in a high wind i.e. not very well at all. At least everyone could agree that the dancing in it was of superior quality.

This week I am skewing the values: I actually like the song but the dancing - despite the presence of Dina - is not the primary focus of the clip. It's more about having a good time and giggling. We've been dancing to this in class a lot lately, and even though this song is a toddler (it's 3 years old) it's now one of my favourite earworms. Also, this charming ode to a life enriched by a steady diet of melons, dates, grapes, and bananas carries a message that our heart disease-riddled world needs to hear more often.*

As someone who spent the better part of the mid-90s peering at the world from behind a septum piercing and a Batboy T-shirt, what I really want for the Funky Friday slot is a doumbek-heavy remix of The Sisters of Mercy's This Corrosion. Dare to dream...

*It's OK, I know that this song is really about massive boobs and buttocks like beach balls. I get it.

Stars of the 1970s (image and text-heavy edition): Juliana

2012-02-29T12:23:00.007Z

On Google Archives, I found a scan of an old newspaper article about Juliana. Well, not that old: it's only 33. And because I love you and want you to be happy, I have typed it up for you with my own hands. Also, I am dense and do not know how to convert image-to-text with ease.

Juliana will be familiar to those of you with vintage George Abdo albums in your record collections: she's the bodacious babe whose image on the covers still inspires rabid fandom. (All images are taken from Radio Bastet's LP Cover Gallery, except where indicated.) Juliana and her husband still perform together, though her photo gallery looks a bit...frozen in time. This is good, not only because it records for all time her wide-leg, black-on-white enormous polka dot pants, but also because it serves as the only online record I could find of what she must have looked like when she danced. Astonishingly, there is no video footage on the internet.

There is a depressing sense of plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose about parts of this article - but at least the move to change the image of the dance isn't entirely recent. May I also say ... shows that run for a week, twice nightly at $4/$5 a pop? Man.

Click here for a review of this album

The Milwaukee Journal

20 October 1978

Belly dancing – the art gets new interpretation

By Bill Milkowski special to the Journal

Belly dancing, the art of undulation. It’s come a long way from the days when a curvaceous lady called Little Egypt introduced it to America at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

Until recently it suggested carnival hootchie-cootchie, but now more and more women recognize belly dancing as good, sound exercise.

One exponent of this Middle Eastern dance is Juliana Khouri, who will bring her belly dancing revue to the Pfister Crown Room Monday night for a two week engagement. She will be accompanied by her dancing partner, Rafael Khouri, and five apprentice belly dancers collectively known as Les Femmes Orientales – plus an Armenian clarinettist named Set Proodian.

The whole revue, called Shiraz, combines the spirit of authentic Middle Eastern dance with the necessary theatrics to entertain American audiences. According to Juliana, her sole stage name, an authentic or purist form of belly dancing simply would not go over well in a night-club atmosphere.

“The act has to be theatrical because in its pure form belly dancing can get very monotonous,” Juliana said in a telephone interview from her home in Coral Gables, Florida. “Our show is meant to be seen and capture people’s attention. So it’s very colourful and elegant, yet it has to be commercial.”

Angelina who?

Juliana admits that her theatrical sense comes from being a performer most of her life. The native New Yorker began her dancing career 10 years ago as a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall and after a year moved on to Spanish dance, performing with many of the top touring companies based in New York City. Within the last six years she has been intrigued with belly dancing.

“I was initially drawn to Middle Eastern dance from the music,” she said, “and I found a close relationship between the Spanish and Arabic styles of dance.”

She characterized belly dancing by the arching torso and undulating movements = patterns with hips, rib cage, arms making circles, arms moving with shoulders in figure-eights, hands curling and opening in snakelike ripples.

But Juliana prides herself in being interpretive and creative within that context. She is constantly adding her own touches, drawing from a background in classical ballet and modern dance. And she works from the improvisation of clarinettist Proodian, much in the same way that jazz musicians motivate and inspire each other to new peaks with the spontaneity.

While there has been a recent boom in belly dancing classes as a means of exercise, Juliana is promoting it as a legitimate art form.

www.raqsploitation.com

“We’re at the forefront of a whole movement,” she said. “Belly dancing magazines are sprouting up around the country and women are organizing to keep the movement growing. I’m hopeful hat people will accept belly dancing as a legitimate dance form instead of looking at it as something lewd.”

She added that there were still areas of the country in which the words belly dancing had negative connotations. She said some women had even had trouble with local authorities in getting licenses to set up studios and classes.

“The officials saw it as a ‘they’re-going-to-ruin-the-neighbourhood’ type of thing,” Juliana said. “But these women are not trying to be sex objects. They just love Middle Eastern dance, the femininity, the costumes. It’s a good outlet for them.”

Juliana and Shiraz will perform twice nightly at 9 and 11 p.m. through Saturday, Nov. 4. Cover charge will be $4 a person on Monday through Thursday and $5 on Friday and Saturday.

www.raqsploitation.com

Magic costume: stays in place with hope alone!

...because behind every great dancer, there's a great moustache

Harem dancers: Chelo Alonso

2012-02-27T08:26:00.001Z

Welcome to Monday, everybody! After today, only four more days until the weekend. Hold on.

Thanks to those of you who have already voted in the poll. Of the few votes so far, it looks like we're all OK with a bit of fake belly dancing from the movies, so before I lose your mandate let's enjoy the stylings of Italian star Chelo Alonso. Unlike so many of the harem dancers featured thus far, Chelo really was a dancer (rather than a model/starlet).

I say 'Italian star' advisedly. Chelo was born in Cuba in 1933 as Isabella Garcia, which explains her rather evocative nickname - "The Cuban H-Bomb". She started her dance career at 17, but her wild, sensual style was at odds with the more restrained classicism of Cuba's National Theatre, and she wound up in Paris at the Folies Bergère. (Allegedly, she was the resident "belly dancer" but I can't find anything to suggest she ever studied Middle Eastern dance.) Her exotic looks and unrestrained sensuality made her something of a sensation and had her favourably compared to Josephine Baker.

In 1961 she married production manager Aldo Pomilia, whereupon she went into semi-retirement. Her last film appearance was in 1969. When Aldo died in 1986, Chelo moved to Tuscany where she bred cats(!) and ran a restaurant. Her disappearance from showbiz was so neatly done that even her IMDB entry seems unsure as to whether or not she's still alive.

This first clip is from 1959's Sign of the Gladiator, and is another gem unearthed over at Peplums, who said of it:

I got hold of a beautiful print of the film which is a vast improvement over the faded and subtitled copy everyone was stuck with for decades. This film was impossible to get a hold of in English and widescreen. Now that I have it my life is complete.

Her Cuban jiggling is anachronistic though.

Be cool, everybody. I already took to the comments on that blog to express my disagreement with that final statement. This is the scene that cemented Chelo as one of the great sex symbols of late 1950s/early 1960s B-grade Euro-cinema. No mean feat, considering that the 'real' female star of this film was Anita Ekberg!

Here she is again, dancing with a gauzy veil in Son of Samson (1960). The bit where she hurls away the apple is pretty funny, but after that she launches into a series of vigorous hip twists and circles that look more like raqs than anything I've seen in one of these films before. Those of you strangely immune to Chelo's charms may instead be diverted by the presence of champion body builder Mark Forest in this scene:

In Goliath and the Barbarians (1959), Miss Alonso got two dance scenes (this is both of them). In the first, she gets a hysterically badass faux sword to dance with. In the second, she gets to dress up like Xena, Warrior Princess:

Funky Friday: Zayne's 'Shake It'

2012-02-24T13:15:00.004Z

Singer/dancer Zayne has a new video out ... starring Tara Lee Oakley and Giselle (i.e. 'real' belly dancers)! In my humble opinion, this is a great way to start your weekend.

Zayne claims that this is THE belly dance anthem of 2012. If you dig it, you can find more of his music via his Facebook page.

^Shimmies off humming to self^

Thanks to Maelle!

Why so quiet, Jilly?

2012-02-23T16:36:00.008Z

My darling calamari pieces,

I really am trying to get through all my mail, I promise. Your Aunty Jilly would never leave you in the lurch intentionally. But I am trying to avoid being tagged by Ron O'Dor: ever since news broke that I can fly, my life has just become one long chase scene!

Presumably you all think I mean 'tagged' as in 'tagged on Facebook'. Alas, for we non-humans, being tagged is a rather more literal and painful affair.

Squids can fly? If you are a member of the relatively small community of squid aficionados you've known this for a while.
But if you are a normal person with just a passing interest in cephalopods and all their many diverse abilities, the fact that these underwater creatures also occasionally get from point A to point B by flying above the water for distances of up to 164 feet at a time might just blow your mind.
Ron O'Dor, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and co-author of a poster called "Squid Rocket Science" presented at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City, said squids have good reason to fly. It is not to avoid predators, as was previously thought, but rather to save the animal energy as it migrates across vast expanses of ocean, O'Dor said. ...
O'Dor, who hopes to publish a paper about squid flight soon, says there is still much more research to be done to understand the ins and outs of rocketing squids.
He is trying to get funding to tag species of squid that he suspects of flying, to see how much they fly and at what times.

By the 'nads of Neptune! Mr O'Dor sure does stink, and if he finds out that I can belly dance too I am utterly fried!

Obviously I can't tell you where I am now - but here's a wee clue: Uppham Beach in Tampa Bay, Florida. It's the most spectacular hafla location ever! I will be back to being your favourite aquatic agony aunt as soon as the heat dies down. Meantime, I have to fly (ha!)!

Bestests,

Jilly xo

Let them bite you, because trolls are toothless!

2012-02-22T14:17:00.030Z

This is for those of you who post videos of yourself on YouTube and are generous/brave enough to allow comments on them.

You've probably been told that you're too old, not old enough, too fat, too thin, too short and too tall to be a good dancer, and anyway, since you own a goldfish/aren't an Arab you've no business belly dancing anyway. You know, the really constructive, insightful and knowledge-based criticism, respectfully framed, that focuses on your technique and musicality thereby enabling and encouraging you to become a better dancer.

Naturally, you eagerly search these comments out, since they are a refreshing change from the requests for close-ups of your pierced navel and tempting offers to become some faceless droolsock's main squeeze.

It's worthwhile stripping the loincloth off the mouth-breathing trolls who dog your every online move, the better to laugh at their pathetic, flaccid, eeny-weeny opinions. It's also good to remind yourself that the bilious sludge spewed forth by the haters isn't personal: haters gonna hate, because that's what they do.

Here's a quote from a recent piece by Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker, which neatly encapsulates this idea:

I tend to ignore both criticism and praise, because I encounter so many dissenting assessments of my own value as a writer [dancer], or even simply as a collection of atoms, it all becomes meaningless noise. At any given moment, I've jumped the shark, returned to form, lost it, nailed it, provoked laughter or silence, impressed or bored the reader [viewer]. After years of carefully skim-reading the comments under my own articles [videos and photos], I can only conclude that none of you have the faintest bloody idea what you're on about.

With Charlie's words ringing in our ears (shaking before our eyes?) let's play a little game. Can you guess from the following YouTube comments who the dancers under discussion are? There are only two dancers here - one is very famous and the other is relatively obscure, though neither is Arab (hence the useful feedback along the "only Arabs can belly dance" lines). Needless to say, all comments are reproduced verbatim except where I could not help myself and user names are included to damn the guilty. Good luck!

chetkh: Hahahahaah!! Yap a horse indeed.nice outfit though shame about the rest...maybe she should take up African dancing instead...she'd be good with the random jerky shakes.lol!
shahzodaify: no one can compere to real Arabic women no matter how hard you try to dance belly.... MASHALLAH TO REAL ARABIC WOMEN ;)))))
smashingpumpkin999: Haha! That was a mock of bellydance!
Lousifer7: my eyes hurt me... i havent see worst video of belly dance even a 2 year old have more feeling in her movements than the lady of the video
Mahidahoan: Arabic Women are the Best Belly Dancers--
shahrzadbellydance: i hate her dance!
liladanseuse28: Her costume is really vulgar :( @clipco1 Yes I agree. She sucks! Horrible! She tried to make some moves that doesn't fit at all in this Raqs Sharqi song. She killed this song! :(
lidz77: meh, not my syle but she deff does have talent. its just to jerky for me, ruins it. wich is ashame thouhg couse the music is rockin
bellysiren: she lets her stomach just sit there when shes doing isolations in her upper body....not very flattering and her style of dancing is odd
sandyw329: the beginning is so weird, i wouldn't even choose the music to begin with. but personal difference. she seems really spaztic, like the sudden weird contraction. i dunno....definitely not my style
raalaa: now that's what i call bad dancing...did she learned from a striper [sic - I'm sure the commenter meant 'stripper' - The Raqasa] how to dance!!!??( is kind o' bad for me to say that ...but...wtf!!!?)she has no talent...anyway
amorsecreto3000: Thanks for the feedback. I am no expert, but it was immediately clear to my eyes that there is no artistry here. [Emphasis added.]
loopopdedak: uhm this is't belly dance just cuz she usses belly dance music en shimmy's;) And arabic prof. dancers often don't have a busy choreographies cuz it isn't 'bout walkinG around 'nd shimmy at the same time. The reason of arabic prof. belly dancers that there choreographies aren't busy is cuz thay have 2 dance a lot 'nd lonG on a performens, NOT just one sonG;)
lustrousorchid: I've been told that the difference between Arabic dancers and American dancers is that Arabic dancers aim for simplicity. This does not mean the MOVEMENTS are simple (they aren't by any means), but that their choreographies aren't as busy.
tempusdance: @lustrousorchid: YES! She dances like [she's having an] epileptic attack!! he he

...and if you guessed that comments 1 to 5 were on an old clip of champion Ukrainian dancer Alla Kushnir, then well done! Comments 6 to 15 were trickier, because they were all left on the same video of a performance by ..., wait, I've got it written down somewhere ... ^The Raqasa gropes for her notes and adjusts her reading glasses^ ... erm, "Suhaila Salimpour".

I'd never heard of her, but despite these very negative comments, she really isn't that bad. In fact, with a bit of work she may even be able to make a living as a belly dancer one day. Good luck, Suhaila!

You should read the story behind the creation of this image!

Egyptian Cabaret (12 February)

2012-02-20T18:08:00.027Z

On Thursday I danced in public for the first time in about 18 months. (I know, I'm going to do it more often this year - promise!)

It was a shamozzle. vvvvvvvbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbtyghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LLLLLL;

Ha! So sorry about that. My cat walked across the keyboard, and she so evocatively described how I danced that night (please note her final, hearty 'LOL') that I couldn't delete her contribution. Many thanks to Bernadette for her co-authorship of today's post.

Bernadette, mouser and dance critic par excellence

Where was I? Oh, yes. As I was saying ...

On Thursday I danced in public for the first time in about 18 months. (I know, I'm going to do it more often this year - promise!)

It was a shamozzle. I can't speak for anyone else in the group performance - although I couldn't really see what everyone was doing, they all seemed to be dancing beautifully - my gallumping presence down the back can surely be excused. Arabesques and heel taps became simple turns (there wasn't room for anything fancier - more of that below). In my defence:

The choreography was finished (almost) on Tuesday. There was no rehearsal on Wednesday, so we had to try and finish learning it at the venue. We tried practising in the bar area that had been curtained off for us, but (a) Shariff needed the space to work with his saaidi stick, and (b) most of us were barefoot and I kept finding bits of broken glass on the floor. It was very dark, so we were all a bit paranoid about cutting our feet. Obviously, the dark, bitterly cold outdoor smoking area with its rough concrete and smouldering butts scattered around was a better option. With only a tinny iPod for a sound system, we shook our stuff while the smokers pretended not to watch, and I tried not to think about the rats the size of dachshunds that Shariff claimed to have seen in that very spot. Oh London, is there no end to your horrifying Dickensian glamour?
Zara (of Zara's Zouk fame) collared Shafeek and asked what we should do to finish. The other seven of us in the group were also mildly curious about this. [Sidenote: Zara and I have only just met in person, and by chance, in Shafeek's class after emailing each other a few times. All hail the intertubes!] "Well," said Shafeek, the evening's organiser and our teacher/choreographer/tormentor, "I have this crazy idea. But I don't know. Maybe." And then he left, to go and rearrange the furniture around the performance space or figure out where all the other dancers were or something. It turned out that the crazy idea was to grab members of the audience and get them to dance. I picked on the one person who really, truly did not want to dance. Of course. She was nice about it, though.
There had been half a chance that Shafeek would dance with us so we could follow him. But as soon as we saw the teeny, tiny space allocated to the eight of us, we knew there was no way that was going to happen. And that there was no way I'd be able to do a barrel turn without seriously injuring another dancer/a musician/a member of the audience. So I didn't barrel turn. I really hope I don't get told off in class on Tuesday for that!

But after about three minutes, it was all over. I didn't die, and I stayed alive with a smile on my face. And the rest of the night was splendid, because I got to sit and watch some awesome dancers and I also got to catch up with some friends I spotted in the audience. Perhaps I also really embarrassed Tara - and myself - by being a bit overly effusive about how great her performance was, but seriously. Geeze, Tara is really good:

Finally, I've never posted a picture of myself on this blog (I HATE having my picture taken). But this is funny because we got photobombed by Shafeek, resulting in me moving my arm to a position where it looks like it's been broken in about eight places, and we're all smiling because we haven't been out to dance yet:

I'm the one kneeling behind Shafeek. And Shafeek's the only dude in the pic, so, y'know. Work it out.

Yeah, I'm not young, svelte and gorgeous. Get over your shock and suck it, world!

It's aaawwwwnnnn...

2012-02-15T18:21:00.000Z

OK, so this thing tomorrow night is really happening. Holy shit. Time for the game face!

Of course, when you say you're performing to people who don't have any form of performance experience themselves, most of them probably imagine that the backstage environs are terribly glamorous. Y'know, something like this:

When in actual fact, 90% of the time, it's something like this:

*sigh*

Anyway, if you're around Shoreditch in London tomorrow, this is where I'll be at:

www.arabiandancetheatre.com/people/

Stalkers, now is the time to show yourselves!

Breaking it down

2012-02-14T08:51:00.004Z

CLICK IMAGE TO EMBIGGEN

Many thanks to Artemisia of Belgium for posting this on Facebook!

On a separate note, I was wryly amused to see somone I follow on Twitter calling out her troupe for bad behaviour:

Sick of troupe members who come late to class and don't read their emails and then bother me by asking what is happening. ARG!

I feel you, girl. But at the moment I'm feeling the pain from the other side. On Thursday I'm supposed to be performing with my class. I think. At least, I put my name down to do it, but that's as far as it's gone because I've heard nothing since.

The costuming hasn't been confirmed, how many of us are going to be in the show hasn't been (publicly) settled, and nor has the running order. To top it off, tonight is our last chance to finish the choreography.

That's right. The choreography isn't finished. Obviously, therefore, none of us know it. Wish us luck!

Original moonwalkers: Bill Bailey, Jeffrey Daniel and ... Dick van Dyke?

2012-02-12T15:10:00.011Z

I snapped this pic outside a dance class in west London

It's hard to innovate. Every time I think I've come up with a "new" step combination I'll realise much later that I've actually ripped it off someone I saw on YouTube/took a lesson from. Sigh. The trick, I've discovered, is to just do a move so well, and so publicly, that everyone assumes it's "yours". For example, if I say "moonwalk" you say ~~Neil Armstrong~~ Michael Jackson, right?

You're not wrong, but you're not quite right either.

From c.1955, Mr Bill Bailey:

And this is Jeffrey Daniel, in his days as a member of Shalamar, representing the whole group and their hit A Night to Remember on Top of the Pops back in 1982. This performance was a year before Michael Jackson, one of Jeffrey's biggest fans, did the moonwalk on TV:

Jeffrey is still going and teaching! He hops off the couch at about 3:49:

Website: www.jeffreydaniel.com

But the moonwalk isn't just for cool guys:

Stupid old joke alert!

"Dear Sir:

Several years ago, I entered your office determined to become an actor. You refused to represent me unless I changed my name, saying that although I was handsome and talented, no theatre would put my name on a marquee and I would never get work. I objected, saying my name had been proudly carried by men in my family for generations, and I stormed out of our meeting in a rage.

However, in the weeks following I reconsidered. After much reflection, I decided to heed your advice. Now I am a famous actor with many roles and known to millions worldwide. Having achieved this fame and fortune, it is often that I think back to my meeting with you and your insistence that I change my name.

I owe you a debt of gratitude, so please accept this check with my humble thanks, for it was your idea that I change my name from Coque Von Lesbian.

Very sincerely yours,
Dick Van Dyke

Jilly the Colossal Squid vs The Green-Eyed Monster

2012-02-10T13:11:00.028Z

Dear Jilly the Belly Dancing Colossal Squid and Agony Aunt,

Last week sumthing terible hapend & i dont kno what 2 do. I was in belly dance class with my friend & the teacher told me i was a good dancer but she didnt say nothing 2 my freind about her dancing being good & now shes mad @ me & thinks i am trying 2 make her look bad. and then her bf [boyfriend] said to her "well Olivia IS a good dancer" and now she thinks i am going to steel him away but i would never coz hes got chest hair & zits & is gross & so i told my friend ew no way but it made her more angrier.

Pls jilly i am only 15 this is recking my life. pls look the clip of a party we went 2 on youtube and tell me if i am really a gooder dancer than her (i dont have a video of us belly dancing soz). she is the 1 in the skanky top who looks like abitch.

Thx

Olivia

Dear Olivia

Have you ever read Shakespeare's Othello? Your beautifully expressed, heartfelt letter put me in mind of the immortal words of Iago:

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on..."

The teenage years are tough, or so I am given to understand from multiple viewings of The Breakfast Club. I reached sexual maturity when I was about three years old, so puberty was pretty much over before I even realised it had started. That your species has evolved to spend such an inordinate period of time as weak, vulnerable juveniles is just one reason why it's so mystifying that, of all of the lifeforms on the planet, it's yours that's the apex predator.

I digress, however. Back to you. Or, as you would put it Olivia, "bak 2 u".

Indeed, I did look at the YouTube clip you supplied a link to but redacted because, well. Really. Frankly you and your friend are terrible dancers, but in fairness to you both I suppose it's quite hard to dance to a song called Cheers (Drink to That) and retain your dignity. Have you ever thought of paying attention in your belly dance classes?

In any event, Olivia, I'm afraid that there is not much you can do. You have nothing to apologise to your friend for apart from calling her boyfriend "gross". As to your friend's fury I can do no better than to echo the wise words of Ru Paul's mother, as quoted by Ru Paul on Oprah back in the day: "Stormy weather always passes."

Finally, let me thank you for giving me the excuse to publish my favourite photograph of all time. It's a 1957 pic of Sofia Loren and Jayne Mansfield at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills. The occasion was a "welcome to Hollywood" party for Sofia, and I think you'll agree Jayne did a sterling job of showing Sofia what Hollywood is all about. And think on this: of the two of them, who's still alive, eh? Eh?

I hope this helps.

Bestests

Jilly xo

Harem dancers: Liana Orfei

2012-02-09T14:20:00.010Z

These are yet more examples of the "harem dancing" (i.e. fake belly dancing) that featured in old movies. Today's clips are a bit unusual in that they both feature Italian star Liana Orfei. Liana has featured as a Babe of the Month over at Peplums, which is where I first heard of her. I'm guessing that Liana was Italy's version of Julie Newmar - a good-looking starlet who could dance a bit but never became particularly famous for it. What I most like about Liana's style is that she reminds me how far I've come since my first class. That sounds bitchier than I mean it to, because she's certainly very charismatic and I guess audiences enjoyed watching her throw shapes.

She made her last film in 1971, having savoured roles like Camilla, Queen of the Vulga in War of the Trojans, Queen Texen in The Giant of Metropolis, Dalila the Philistine Queen in Hercules and Samson (synopsis: "Three strongmen hunt down a murderous sea monster"), The Lion Tamer in Casanova '70 ... you get the idea.

This is from Attack of the Moors aka Kings of France aka I Reali di Francia (1959). Her costume is lovely - very "gypsy" with a lower-case "g" - and I'm quite envious of her sandals!

And here she is as Merith, leaping about in 1961's Nefertiti: Regina del Nilo:

PS

I'm wondering if clips like this are as interesting to you as they are to me. When I started this blog I had half an inkling I wanted to document these kinds of dance scenes, because when I started out back in the Caboniferous Period they were my version of YouTube. Now that YouTube actually exists maybe collating them on this blog is redundant, but I have to admit that I have a real soft spot for them because they were my gateway to actual belly dancing (and the costumes are often sensational). If you have an opinion, please either politely let me know in the comments below or vote in the poll at the top of the right-hand sidebar. Thanks!

Roll up, roll up: Stunt belly dancing

2012-02-07T11:38:00.002Z

In her 2002 book Snakehips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love, Anne Thomas Soffee writes entertainingly (if not, to my mind, with utter veracity) about her early performing days - including in shows on carnival mid-ways. Of course, belly dance in the west has a long association with circuses and fairs. There's Sol Bloom and the introduction of the term "belly dance" at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, the UK's Sorcha Ra, and Jamila Salimpour's start as a rider of circus elephants.

In tribute to the men and women of the fairground, let us pull back the tent flaps, spread the sawdust and gorge ourselves on candy floss for what promises to be The Greatest Show on Earth. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you the Sensational Stunt Belly Dancers!

First up, the originator of the term "stunt belly dancing", the lovely Medu Sirena. She was last seen on this blog as the star of last May's post on belly dancing underwater. Here she is as "The Uncanny Marina", eating fire and writhing around on a bed of nails:

And what's this? A challenger on the bed of nails stunt? Let's have a round of applause for Sabrina!

Now, silence please, for the Queen of Neon, Natasha Veruschka. Natasha is The World's Only Sword-Swallowing Belly Dancer:

What's all that commotion in the back row there? How's that, madam? You claim the Queen of Neon is NOT the World's Only Sword-Swallowing Belly Dancer? Do you have proof of this outrageous claim? Who are you?

That was Kiri aka Betty Bloomerz of Philidelphia! Amazing! And of course there are belly dancers who perform with snakes but we're a circus, not a zoo.

Though perhaps snakes are safer than swords. I don't know if the belly dancer with horrible internal injuries mentioned in this story from Scientific American is Kiri or Natasha. Either way ... get well soon, babe.

Next show's at ten! Tell your friends!

Good to meet you: Tufaha of Bahrain

2012-02-05T12:30:00.003Z

From 2009, this is an interview with Bahrainian belly dancer Tufaha ('Apple' - no, I don't think she's a Coldplay fan):

Q&A: 'My Boyfriend Insisted I Quit Dancing, My Answer was No', Inter Press Service, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 (posted by Global Issues).

This is Tufaha:

And this, I THINK, is also Tufaha, in action in the same year as this interview (2009). However, as is often the way of these things, this dancer is billed as 'Tofaha'. Even if it's not the same person - though I strongly suspect it is - this clip is worth watching both for proper tipping etiquette and for an example of how to rock it Bahrainian styles. OK, so it's not very elegant (how do you do those rolls and NOT get carpet burn?) but, seriously, y'all, I am going to have to up my floorwork game* 'cause this is off the hook:

*Or, indeed, get a floorwork game.

Weird Wednesday Woo: I vant to suck your ...

2012-02-01T12:53:00.000Z

Sometimes, you'll be reminded of a near-forgotten celebrity in the strangest way and you'll realise that actually, yes, you ARE interested in whatever happened to Thingum Majig.

To whit, the "Sexy Vampire Menstrual/Post-partum Goddess Pad" from Etsy shop Mimi's Dreams:

A flash-in-the-pan '90s pop star is an unlikely poster boy for total commitment to women's health issues, but our main man here deserves the honour. He wasn't lying when he said:

"If there was a problem/Yo, I'll solve it."

On behalf of women everywhere, Vanilla Vampire, thank you.

Hat-tip to Dangerous Minds for publicising this whole new take on vagina dentata.

Send Galit to the Fringe!

2012-01-31T11:40:00.000Z

Ordinarily I wouldn't do a post like this, where I put a flat cap on the ground in front of me and start singing an off-key version of Wind Beneath My Wings.

[Why, thank you very much for your loose change, sir. God bless.]

However, Galit Mersand is unfairly talented and I would really like to help her out. How is it possible for someone to be both a great dancer and a hilarious comedienne? Eat your heart out, Margaret Cho:

For this reason, I am sharing with you the email Galit sent out over the weekend. We all know how tough it is for minority art forms like belly dance to get funding and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is Of Major Importance. (Flight of the Conchords is just one of the many acts who got their big break at the Fringe.) It would be nice to see Galit, who is a fantastic ambassador for the belly dance community, get a chance to realise her dream of going to Edinburgh. And she's right: it's extremely competitive and many shows close early after failing to attract an audience.

I know that times are tough all over - we're in the middle of a recession, after all, and dancers never really have any money after we pay for classes/costumes/day-to-day living, but if you do have even a tiny wee bit to spare we could make the dreams of a fellow dancer come true. Imagine! So let's crowd-source this thing and make it happen. From Galit:

"You may have already heard that Bellylicious is going to Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year (in August).

This is a very big deal for me and I am of course delighted, excited and a little nervous :) but very much looking forward to it.

Doing Edinburgh Fringe Festival is quite a big financial undertaking, there's a registration fee, venue hire, travel expenses, accommodation & food, paying an assistant (+ assistant's travel, accommodation, food as well) , advertising & publicity and probably a few more expenses that I haven't yet found out about (this being my first time at Edinburgh Fringe).

I will need all the help I can get.

Making a profit in Edinburgh Fringe is usually unlikely for a small show like Bellylicious and there is no guarantee of breaking even.

I have added a 'Donate' button on the Bellylicious website's home page - www.bellylicious.org.uk/ - and would like to ask that if you can (and I really mean only if you can) please support Bellylicious at Edinburgh Fringe Festival by making a donation, however small { I'm not Tesco but every little bit really will help :) }"

Good to meet you: Prince Erkan Serce

2012-01-30T08:26:00.000Z

Today's post is dedicated to the totally brutal Rae. Were it not for her, I would never have discovered the wonder that is Prince Erkan Serce.

Although I speak neither Turkish nor German, the glory of the Prince transcends mere linguistics. To opt out of watching these clips because you don't speak the language would be kinda like saying, "Hey! It's a unicorn! Too bad that, because I don't understand the noises it makes, it holds no appeal for me whatsoever. Are there any clips on the YouTubes of teenagers whacking each other in the balls that I could watch instead?"

Even if His Royal Highness were not blessed with the lithe grace of a leopard, he would still be a mesmerising visual treat. Behold:

Now that you've watched these I think you'll agree that: (a) there are no words in any language to describe the Prince anyway; and (b) even if there were, you're too speechless to use them.

Pics du jour: Arab Spring graffiti

2012-01-27T14:18:00.002Z

Dancing is the Solution by Gigi Ibrahim (some rights reserved and reproduced under Creative Commons License)

Many thanks to The Man for sending me the link to Gigi Ibrahim's flickr set, where Gigi has uploaded pics of graffiti taken around Tahrir Square and beyond. Verily, The Man has his uses beyond just cooking for me, doing my washing and generally keeping me alive.

You can check out the rest of Gigi's set here, but these two seemed most pertinent to readers of this blog.

Dancing to the Revolution by Gigi Ibrahim (September 2011) (some rights reserved and reproduced under Creative Commons License)

Kind of amazing that the stock silhouette of the dancer in the second pic is so widely travelled. (Among other places it crops up, it's also the logo for belly dancer-driven cancer charity Just Because.)

Lady Buddha with 1000 hands

2012-01-26T12:00:00.002Z

Happy Chinese New Year! Let's celebrate. This isn't belly dance, obviously, but it IS Eastern dance and it is MIND BLOWING.

And that's even if you don't know that all of the dancers involved in this performance are deaf.

Happy Burns Night!

2012-01-25T15:40:00.000Z

(Burns' Night? The editor in me always wonders.)

As Scotland debates the vexed question of whether or not to go the route of independence, this year's Burns Night promises to be one of the most politically charged in years. In honour of one of Scotland's favourite sons, poet Robert Burns (who would have been 253 years old today), Caledonians will be celebrating with whisky and haggis.

At The Occidental Dancer, however, we're celebrating with Scottish dancer Lorna of Cairo, and her magnificent green tartan costume by Eman Zaki. I'll leave it to Jilly to bust open the whisky. Och aye!

On stage with the Arab-Hebrew Theatre

2012-01-25T12:00:00.002Z

Mideast: When Talks Fail, Try Belly Dance, Inter Press Service, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 (posted by Global Issues)

This article isn't written in the plainest English - or, if it means what it says, then what it describes is a bit unfortunate:

"The atmosphere evokes the dizzying abandon of senses of sex-craving male party-goers in a dingy joint. In the incense-filled space — smoking is appropriately forbidden, so please leave your narghile water-pipe in the club's cloakroom — the audience stands up in a roaring ovation at the sight of the exuberant 'Saydati wa Sadati' (Ladies and Gentlemen, in Arabic) cabaret show, clap their hands, climb on chairs, and emulate the actors enmeshed in serpentine and lascivious poses."

I think most of us could do without seeing our dance boiled down to "sex-craving male party-goers in a dingy joint" ogling "actors enmeshed in serpentine and lascivious poses", right? On the other hand, it's interesting to read a discussion of the geo-political facet of Middle Eastern belly dance, even if only at a very high level.

"I'm not too fond of belly dancers"

2012-01-24T08:36:00.003Z

Hat-tip to Mahin's Belly Dance Daily Quickie for today's clip from US reality show All-American Muslim.

Recently I witnessed something that made me more understanding of the point of view held by the woman who speaks at the end of this clip. If I can ever calm down enough to write objectively about it I'll let you know what it was! (The keywords are: tipping; teeth; bra.)

That said, I do think that the dancer in this clip does a good job of being charming, restrained and not at all hoochie. She doesn't have any control over the baggage her audience brings to her performance: that's their shit to deal with, not hers.

UPDATE: Apparently chain store Loew's has a problem with depicting American Muslims as, y'know, Americans who aren't also terrorists and/or religious extremists. They've pulled all their advertising from the show, prompting a boycott of their stores. To quote a book many Christians are (or should be) familiar with, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Amen.

Hateful campaign targets All-American Muslim.

Harem dancers: Rosemarie Bowe

2012-01-22T15:53:00.004Z

What peplum means to me

"Peplum" is a word that has been cropping up on the fashion pages with boring regularity at the moment - it's that weird, stiff frill whovawotsit that now adorns the hips of every fashion victim teetering down the high street. (Of course, 15 years ago I was one of those people who teamed Doc Marten boots with second-hand men's trousers and topped if off with Nana's old lace-edged polyester slip, so what the hell do I know about how to dress?)

However, I am not the only one to whom "peplum" means something else entirely. The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed the appearance of the "Peplum TV" gadget on this blog a couple of months ago. This comes courtesy of the quite frankly mind-meltingly sutpendous blog Peplums, which is dedicated to a genre often dismissed as "swords and sandals". But peplum is a lot more than swords and sandals. Often it's also magic, and monsters, and evil kings, and wicked queens, and political intrigue. And, most importantly, pulchritudinous women dancing.

Those of you familiar with The Occidental Dancer's preoccupations with colossal squids and pretty ladies getting their groove on in old films will appreciate why peplum, with its chiffon-clad lovelies and abundance of sea monsters menacing sailors, strikes such a chord. It seems mad that I didn't discover Peplums ages ago, but it's where I found today's clip. Obviously, the guy who writes Peplums isn't so interested in the dancers themselves so I had to do a bit of digging as to who she is. Hopefully I've got it right! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm almost certain that today's post features the lovely Rosemarie Bowe.

Rosemarie didn't have much of a career to speak of - she appeared in bit-parts in a handful of films - and got into movies via modelling. According to scuttlebutt, she wasn't overly gifted in the brains and talent department, so that may have had something to do with her lack of real roles.

Her life post-acting was marred by a series of personal setbacks - her husband, Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack, died in 2003 (they had been married 47 years, surely a Hollywood record?), and in 1970 Bowe suffered serious internal injuries in a car accident.

In happier times, here she is as 'Ayesha' in one of the least fluid, most stilted examples of harem dancing (what I call the 'not belly dancing-belly dance' that appears in so many of these films) I've ever seen. What sets this apart from the majority of these harem dances is that she's using zills. Digging that 'upcycled curtains' costume!

Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954)

Maelle's classes start TOMORROW

2012-01-19T18:46:00.001Z

What is the point of having a blog if you can't occasionally use it to trumpet the services of your buddies, eh?

My friend Maelle is a champion belly dancer who knows her stuff, and is generous with her support and extensive knowledge. Plus, she is really friendly and can be approachable and charming in three languages.

If you know someone in London who wants to start belly dancing and you don't teach classes yourself, you could do worse than to throw them into Maelle's graceful arms.

You can email Maelle at maellebellydancer (dot) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk. Her super-stylish flyer was designed by Nancy Verthandi Fleishchhauer who is also, not coincidentally, a kick-ass belly dancer.

Stars of the c.1870s: Shafiqa Al-Qibtiyaa

2012-01-17T14:23:00.003Z

This is definitely the earliest entry in the "Stars of" series of posts so far, and likely to be the only one from this period I can get a clip (mmm...sorta) and image for.

When your teachers tell you costumes are becoming more risque, they're not kidding

Shafiqa (or Shafika) was born in the Caireen suburn of Shobra in 1851 to Coptic Christians, but was orphaned early on - there is strong evidence that she was supporting herself by the time she was 12. Before she was very much older, she was a protege of Shooq's. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about Shooq beyond the facts that she reached the peak of her career in the mid-1870s and is widely considered the first "Oriental"-style Egyptian dancer.

Although she married young, Shafiqa was smart enough to use her considerable charms to improve her lot by courting some of the most powerful men in Egypt including, according to her biopic, the prime minister.

She was also a savvy enough self-promoter to carve out a niche for herself by specialising in shamadan. (Some of the material I've read credits her with being the "first" person to dance with a candleabra, but I doubt very much any one individual can claim to have invented balancing stuff on your head while you dance.)

For many years, Shafiqa danced at the El Dorado before opening her own club, or 'salah', Alf Leyla (The 1001 Nights). Despite parlaying her success on stage into running a successful business and becoming one of the wealthiest women of her day, she died cocaine addicted and destitute in 1926.

Now, I promised you a "sorta" clip, and here it is. This is from Chafika el Kebteya (Shafika the Copt), a 1963 biopic starring Hind Rostom as Shafiqa. Here Hind gives us a taste of Shafiqa's legendary shamadan chops:

As an aside, I'm going to do a "Stars of" post on Hind soon. Hind, who was either the "Marilyn Monroe of the East" or "the Egyptian Rita Hayworth", depending on who you ask, was considered more of an actress than a belly dancer, but so many of her films feature her dancing (and she was good enough that Fifi Abdou tried to throw a party in her honour - more on that later) that I think we can claim her as one of ours.

Hind died last August at the age of 81, having famously refused to co-operate with anyone seeking to put HER life onscreen. Ha!

Wee bit more about Shafiqa here:

www.belly-dance.org/shafiqa-al-qibtiyya.html

A gleam from Aladdin

2012-01-16T18:26:00.003Z

Pantomime is one of the few English traditions that never made it to New Zealand. Wikipedia gets that charmingly and predictably wrong, presumably by assuming that all former British colonies are fossilised versions of Merrie olde England in the 1900s. Well ... that may be true to a point, I guess.

An absolute must for anyone with children at Christmas, panto exists only to introduce British sprogs to the peculiarly English obsessions with (a) men in drag and (b) bawling loudly in unison.

Audience: Oh no, it doesn't!

The Raqasa: Oh yes, it does! And thank you for proving my point.

This vintage clip from ever-popular panto Aladdin stars comedian Charles Austin as Aladdin's mother, the Widow Twankey (pantomime dames are always played by either men, cf the ugly stepsisters in Cinderella, or animated blonde beehive Barbara Windsor). Austin was famous from the late 1890s until about the 1930s. British Pathe dates this 1926, which means that Austin's time in the sun didn't have much longer to run. It's a white guy playing an Asian woman - layer upon layer upon layer of socio-political readings to do here, like a big offensive Sara Lee cheesecake. BUT ... can you imagine what those stage sets and costumes looked like in colour?

Old-timey glamour aside, the dance routines in this are pretty slick.

Audience: Oh no, they're not!
The Raqasa: Oh yes, they are!

FIN

I see Paris, I see France ...

2012-01-13T16:31:00.001Z

... and oh, how I wish I could see a certain lady's underpants.

www.nylacrystal.com/how-to-hire-sacramento-belly-dancer/beware/

Instead, I'm treated to sighting of the Raqs Beaver, an animal that is not at all endangered (worse luck).

2012: The year of thinking UP!

2012-01-12T18:22:00.001Z

It's not too late to wish you all a happy new year, is it? 12 days is a mere blink of the eye, chums, although it does seem like the year is a lot older than that already. Hopefully you are all hale and hearty, and awash with that glow that comes from the feeling - however illusory - that the start of a new year is the same as the chance to start life itself again. May you have an absolutely kickin' 2012.

In my many, many years on the planet (I officially became middle aged over the holidays), I have learnt that new year resolutions are bootless things, fit for nothing except inducing guilt when they remain unresolved on 31 December. The prosecution cites exhibits A and B: The Raqasa's resolves to learn to drive and to achieve proficiency in French, both of which are now entering their second decade on the 'To Do' list. If I dwelt on it too long, no doubt I would weep at the vision I have of myself walking off the mortal coil and wishing the world "Farewell" instead of "Adieu".

But weep I shall not, thanks to my new approach to the whole irritating "New Year = New YOU!" school of thought so beloved of weekend newspaper supplements. Instead, I am henceforth adopting a Theme of the Year. This means that, rather than focussing on meeting specific aims by set deadlines, I will be trying to achieve my goals through stealth and with minimal perceived effort.

The Raqasa's spiritual guru shows how it's done

In this spirit, I have declared 2012 to be My Year of Thinking of "Up!". The idea is pinched off my friend Kath, who has been studying Alexander Technique. Her instructor told her that the easiest way to improve her posture was just to think the word "up" to herself at random points during the day and adjust her posture according to the principles she'd been taught.*

The posture thing is part of it for me because I do know that I have a tendency to resemble a hula hoop when I sit or dance. However, my real theory is that by invoking the word "up!" whenever I'm thinking negatively or about to make a choice I know is going to bug me later - e.g. electing to spend the morning in bed instead of going to the gym (a very literal form of "Up!") - I will have a positive, productive year without even really trying. This was the week that "Up!" kicked in and I've made three visits to the gym and two dance classes already (the looming date with Suhaila Salimpour's London weekend workshop has also been quite the motivator). Sure, it's easy to get out of the starting blocks but it's harder to finish the course. I'm not promising myself that I'll never have down days or always skip dessert, but "Up!" seems like a good place to start.

Yeeeaaaahhhh ... wish me luck with this. Meanwhile, I'm off to the third heat of Bellydance Trophies on Sunday and, as usual, I'll be tweeting the action in my customarily difficult-to-follow and not-particularly-informative style. Hope you can play along!

*NB - The Alexander Technique does not hold that good posture is a simple matter of sitting/standing "up straight" - in fact, just the opposite. "Holding yourself up straight" without proper technique often leads to all kinds of damaging muscle tension, and generally can't be sustained when fatigue kicks in anyway.

The last post (for the year)

2011-12-23T19:49:00.003Z

It's been a long, strange year hasn't it? Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful end to 2011 and a great start to 2012.

Playing us out, here's the Mirage Belly Dancers of Rochester, Michigan in a 2008 "hula-esque" performance. [EDIT in response to Tamsin's comment below: This dance is to hula what Julie Newmar's dancing is to belly dance.] This is to Bing Crosby's Mele Kalikimaka (there are no prizes for guessing what that translates to, sorry). It's the song I SHOULD have learnt a hula to at the Fantasia this year, but alas didn't. So this goes out with an extra serving of "aloha!" to Tamsin at Hawaiian Hula UK and to my dear friend Rachel, with whom I'm spending Christmas Eve and who knows all the words to this song by heart. And does a damn good version of it after a few festive sherries, too.

Joy and peace to all you occidental, accidental and oriental dancers out there! x

Christmas Special: Wookie Woo

2011-12-19T11:06:00.002Z

By the man-bits of Chewbacca! It's almost the end of the year already and it's Christmas this weekend - can you Adam and Eve it? Let's get into party mode with this mad French ballet/disco homage to Star Wars:

Are you feeling festive yet?

No?

Then how about some more disco Star Wars-style, with Kris Kristofferson and Donnie and Marie Osmond?

How about now?

*************************************************
I went to the last Hafla on the Hill for the year in North London on Friday night. It was so much fun - not least because downstairs there was some kind of men-only Irish rock party thingee. We got lost and a bit confused, and wound up there first, but the nice lady from the bar ushered us upstairs to the right place. My friend Nicola performed beautifully (and you can follow her on Twitter - search @CreativeHarvey) and there were great performances from Sunny, Hadassah Stars, Setsuna, Bellydance Belles, Arabian Dance Theatre (well, two of them!), Anna Zaremba and the night's organisers Dunya Belly Dance. Many thanks to Rosy and Michelle for putting the evening together, and for the gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins and Christmas mince pies on the tables. Nom...

Based on the advertising for last Friday's event, it seems that there were a few last-minute no-shows (every event organiser's nightmare, I'm sure), so the performers deserve extra special kudos. Many of them stepped up to fill the gaps with unscheduled sets, some of which were improvised. Now that is the mark of the professional.

It would be remiss of me to wrap up this post without giving a massive zaghareet to Zara's Souk, because I won a hip scarf from them in the raffle to support Sure Start Camden! I never win anything so I was well made up. I've bought from Zara's online shop and had great service, so am only too pleased to give 'em some props.

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 5): When Photoshop effects attack

2011-12-14T12:04:00.004Z

Greetings, minions of Earth! I am Demonica, the Belly Dancer from the Eighth Dimension. Yes, mortal fools, behold the bizarre arrangement of my left leg and despair! Right leg? What is this "right leg" you speak of? I, Demonica, have only a fleshy, square plinth beneath my skirt, the better for balancing with.

The wonders of my body are what you – with your pathetically limited number of joints and laughably extraneous number of limbs – can only dream of. This foot is detachable, you know. Other anatomical differences between our kinds provide me with hours of mirth at your expense. The main joint for my right right arm is actually at the wrist, where it attaches to my skull, and I do not have a shoulder as such – what you would consider the 'top' of the arm is actually the bottom of mine. It so amuses me to see your reactions when I deftly swing my scapula towards you like a club (a favourite party trick in Eighth Dimension speakeasys when foreigners are in the audience).

Your worship of the rounded breast confounds me, when plainly my own "twin soup bowls" arrangement is the pinnacle of desirability. Gaze deep into the shape on my chest that closely resembles a pair of outsize novelty sunglasses, and feel the shudder of fear you SHOULD feel when you realise that I am peering back at you with the eyeballs-cum-nipples my costume conceals. MWAhahahaha! While you are often compelled to say "My eyes are up here" to one of the many repellent males of your species, I, Demonica, need never waste my breath on such a fatuous instruction for I have eyes everywhere – even in my barest suggestion of a navel.

Ah, I wish you could see as I do the looks on your repulsively mobile faces when I poke the two skewer-like digits on my left hand at your disgustingly moist eyeballs! Although it turns my stomach to be in such close proximity to you, how your yowling justifies my own permanent facial expression of malevolent glee! I, Demonica, the Belly Dancer from the Eighth Dimension, need never trouble myself with this "anti-wrinkle formula" and "Botox" your puny race is so enamoured of.

Your kind is so grotesque to me, and the light in this realm is so bizarrely un-nauseating, that out of sheer spite it is tempting to levitate out of the screen and clack my Zagats of Madness at you until blood streams from your nostrils. Instead I shall return to the infinitely superior Eighth Dimension, where I believe we are having Lobster Bisque for lunch.

So suck it, plebs. Enjoy your sandwiches. Demonica out.

Christmas hells

2011-12-12T17:10:00.007Z

Dear Jilly

My workplace is a very conservative one. It is in the legal/financial sector and everyone wears suits all the time. We do not have dress-down Fridays because our client base would not take kindly to it, and we have a company-wide dress code stipulating that women are not to wear long earrings or studs larger than a shirt button. Next weekend my company is having its annual Christmas party. Usually this is a smart affair in a nice restaurant we have booked out for the occasion, and we often have entertainment of some sort. To give you some idea, last year it was a magician, the year before it was a group of actors who got us to play charades.

However, business has not been very good this year and so the budget for the party has been cut. We will instead be having a meal in our in-house canteen after work on a Friday, although it will be catered and drinks provided. This has not stopped some people from feeling rather cheated and this is where my real problem lies. Senior management have asked if I will belly dance at some point between the main course and dessert. (Rather foolishly, I included my hobby on my resume when I applied for my current role. I thought it may give me some ‘edge’ over other candidates, because in my line of work I was sure it would make me memorable when it came to short-listing applicants.) I have declined, on the grounds that I don’t want to mix my hobby with my work, but my line manager has assumed that it is because I was not offered payment. In fact, I am concerned that my very straight-laced colleagues will make me the subject of spiteful, unfounded gossip.
My line manager has all but accused me of being selfish and greedy for depriving my colleagues of a bit of Christmas cheer. I did try suggesting alternatives – Andrew from sales is always looking to demonstrate his hand trumpeting skills, for example, and Danusha is a champion juggler – but this has fallen on deaf ears. Should I reconsider for the sake of my career? I do not want to be seen as someone who is not a team player.

The Pinstriped Pirouetter

**********************

Dear Pinstriped

You haven't got where you are today by being as dumb as a barnacle, have you? And I'm willing to bet that you've got gut instincts a ship's rat would envy. After asking around, it seems that refusing to dance for free at a work do is not a sackable offence. If your first thought was to leave your Bella at home then trust that feeling! Obviously, I've never been to an office party, but if what I understand from popular culture is true then at some point in the evening one of your workmates will dance for free anyway.

Hope that helps!

Jilly x

A weekend of it

2011-12-11T23:34:00.004Z

On Friday I was lucky enough to go to Amira's Christmas Hafla in Balham, London. Gotta say that it was the venue of the year so far: the sumptuous surrounds of the local Polish community's meeting hall, complete with gilt-framed mirrors, red curtains and Czech crystal chandeliers, are pretty tough to beat. It was also a night of fantastic performances - I can honestly say there wasn't a duff one in the bunch.

Although I tweeted the night's proceedings (oh, don't worry, that makes me feel a little squeezy too), here's the actual run sheet from the night:

First half

Delilah
Beckenham Improvers (Sakina, Jyl, Taneka, Anouf, Marrissa, Jill and Anna)
Jenny
Gilda's Students (Annie, Lani, Leah and Trish)
Tooting Improvers (Jane, Carol, Danielle, Jo, Rita, Helen and Elaine)
Desire [it's pronounced "Dez - ah - ray", actually]
Beckenham Intermediates (Sue, Linda, Anna and Maddy)
Amira

Unfortunately, Anais was unable to perform as scheduled.

Second half

Nefiseh [Shamadan and zagat]
Veil Dance (Jane, Sakina, Sue, Linda, Carol, Anna and Gilda)
Maho and Students [ATS]
Jane and Sakina [veil]
Balham Intermediates (Jenny, Pauline and Rachel)
Gilda [veil]
Anna Kemper [of Small World Belly Dance, Brixton]
Razia - in her last London performance until at least 2013. And she made sure we'll miss her, too!

Thanks to Amira and the organisers for such a fun night out.

This weekend also saw the Fantasia festival in Turnham Green. [Sidenote: aren't English place names the awesomest?] Alas, my plans to go and support friends in the competitions and attend a couple of workshops were thwarted by a combination of prior commitments on Saturday and generally feeling lousy today. HOWEVER, I do know that Hawaiian Hula UK had a splendid time, which makes me even more rueful because that workshop was on my wishlist, and that Rachael looked beautiful in the Isis competition (Facebook is good like that). Ahnemon took out bronze in the Palace Dancers competition, with only their second-ever performance together. This rounds out a great fortnight for Ahnemon's Maelle, who came second in her heat at Belly Dance Trophies last weekend. Phew!

Next Friday, all going well, I'll be attending my last hafla of the year, Hafla on the Hill, where my friend Nicola will be performing. And then I suspect I'll be all hafla-ed out....

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Or not?

2011-12-09T15:14:00.015Z

Today's burning issue: Should you do it just because you can?

The Olympic motto of "Faster, Higher, Stronger" has never been more apt. Olympic athletes today have more speed, height and strength than ever before. By way of example, the fastest man in the world today is Usain Bolt. His current 100 metre men's sprint record is 9.58 seconds (set in Berlin, 2009). Compare that with the first-ever official men's 100 metre record, set in Paris in 1891, when Luther Cary sprinted the distance in 10.80 seconds. To put that into perspective, if we could have time-travelled a peak-form Cary to Berlin in 2009 to compete in the final that Bolt set his record in, and have guaranteed that he would run the distance in 10.80 seconds, he still would have finished 0.46 seconds behind the slowest person in that race (who, for the record, was Darvis Patton at 10.34). That's right - all eight runners in that 2009 final were significantly faster than the 1891 world record holder.

Thanks to the virus my blog installed on your computer so that I can see you via webcam, I can tell you're wondering what on earth all this has to do with dancing.* It has A LOT to do with it, because the parallels are the same. Professional ballet dancers, for example, are now expected to be more flexible and have more stamina than the dancers of 100 years ago. This doesn't mean that the dancers of 100 years ago were terrible, but it's highly unlikely that a dancer of their standard would find work with a professional company today. Exhibit A.

It's not just ballet, either. You only need to compare clips of Egyptian Golden Age dancers with those of dancers like Randa Kamel and Suhaila Salimpour to see the difference. Crucially, however, there are still belly dancers who aspire to dance like the belly dance stars of fifty and sixty years ago. In large part, this is because belly dance has always had room for performers who can overcome their lack of training or limited physical range by connecting with the music and the audience (Egyptians, in particular, place a great emphasis on a dancer's emotional range, with some dismissing Kamel's style as "too Westernised". So cultural origins play a part too). Belly dance's roots are in folk dancing, which goes some way to explaining its continued popularity as a hobbyist pursuit, but in common with burlesque it has an element of populist "showbiz" that "high art" forms of dance can sometimes lack.

As far as sport goes, the changes in what's physically possible for humans to achieve is exactly what events like the Olympics are for. The measurements are wholly objective, even for sports with nominal elements of artistry like gymnastics and figure skating. In the context of dancing, the ability to execute technically difficult moves may well come at the cost of something less easy to quantify, such as emotional expression. There's not a lot of room for conveying nuance when your face is pinched with concentration.

It's a fact that art evolves, but I've seen student belly dancers do difficult moves badly, often for no other reason than to demonstrate that they "kind of" can do them. Quite often it will taint what is otherwise a really solid performance. It bothers me because it contributes to the idea that belly dancing is one of those undemanding pursuits that anyone can "kind of" do "well enough" if they have hips and the inclination.

The author demonstrates her "less is more approach" to costuming,
and how blogging has improved her strength and flexibility.

For many Western belly dancers (who, like me, often come to it as adults when the window for being moulded into a rubbery acrobat has long since closed), there is a perceived challenge to be seen as "real" dancers despite the fact that belly dance doesn't require the gravity-defying leaps and joint-straining positions of other mainstream dance forms. This is, of course, ridiculous. There are many professional, amateur and hobbyist belly dancers who work incredibly hard and are as or more accomplished than dancers in other genres. It's not the fact that I can't put my leg behind my head that makes me a bad dancer - it's that I don't breathe properly when I dance and have terrible posture that makes me a bad dancer.

Besides, there are belly dancers like Anasma who have come from other dance backgrounds to create something wholly new: belly dance, but not as Tahia Carioca would have known it. There are so many different kinds of belly dance now, and all so different from each other, that the fact there's still one umbrella term to cover all of them is frankly astonishing.

I say all this to clarify my position: I'm not anti-fusion. I'm not anti-physicality. And I'm not against people using belly dance as a spring-board for creative self-expression - though I still reckon that student haflas are not the place for that piece about how your mum gave you a gimp mask for your tenth birthday. My beef is solely with swapping out dancing in favour of nifty stunts.

A couple of years ago I saw an otherwise very good dancer attempt to do the 'bridge' yoga position in the middle of her choreography. Apropos of nothing in particular, she performed a perfunctory amount of floorwork and then pushed herself (with evident effort) into a back bend. It didn't fit with the music. It didn't fit with any of the other phrases in her choreography. The only possible reason she had for doing it was to demonstrate the flexibility and strength of her back. In the context of a dance, that's not a reason. In the context of a gymnastics routine, it's a very good reason. I have the same gripe about the splits. While sometimes it's a very useful tool, carrying the dancer fluidly from standing to floorwork and back again, more often than not it's done as a stunt - "Hey! Look at me! I can do the splits!"

It's fine to have a signature move, but not if it gets shoe-horned into every performance whether it needs to be there or not. This is never more evident than when you see a dancer who has made a demanding move a core part of each of their choreographies. I'm not just whinging about this because I have all the bend and flex of a concrete lamp post, although I'm not too proud to admit that I am impressed by the very flexible.

The loss of originality, grace, expression, artistry and sheer pleasure from dancing is a real risk for dancers who focus solely on their athleticism. Having said that, conditioning, strength and flexibility all make for better dancers, because they help to extend the range of motion and, hence, dance vocabulary. Knowing when to keep the party tricks in the box is as much a skill as being able to perform them.

Recommended further reading:

Ballet postures have become more extreme over time (via Science Blogs)

Simukova in a Nutcracker that's way ahead of its time

*Just kidding - you look great.

She dreams of 1969*

2011-12-07T02:05:00.003Z

When Israeli metal band Orphaned Land (gotta love that name) performed in France earlier this year, they were joined on stage - as usual - by Johanna Najla (also known as Johanna Fakhry). Johanna is a Lebanese belly dancer. Here is Johanna talking about her career and being on tour with Orphaned Land to French Metal in an interview posted online five days ago (clip is en Anglais):

All very interesting - what it was like to grow up in a conflict zone, what it's like to belly dance to metal and yaddayaddayadda. Search Johanna and Orphaned Land online, however, and you get a story that she doesn't even mention:

Yes, earlier this year she and the lead singer of Orphaned Land waved the flags of their respective countries of birth at a bunch of French metal heads. Peace, love and battle jackets, man. [Sidenote: does the lead singer of Orphaned Land know that he looks a bit like Jesus? Does he heck.]

Unfortunately, since The Lebanon and Israel are still officially at war, it is illegal for Lebanese citizens (even those who, like Johanna, have not lived in The Lebanon for a long time) to have any public dealings with Israelis. When the above clip hit the internet back in July, Johanna got death threats from her compatriots. How seriously she took those is probably indicated by the amount of time she spent discussing them in that recent interview.

*Today's post's title comes courtesy of Phil Oakey and The Human League:

The makeup! The shoulder pads! The hair! The earnest politics! God, '80s pop was fantastic.

Another weekend, another hafla

2011-12-04T15:13:00.003Z

In a couple of hours I'm off to Wembley for round 2 of Bellydance Trophies. As with the hafla I went to last weekend, I'll be tweeting in between performances if you're remotely interested in finding out how it's going.

From its website, the venue looks the set of an early 1980s sci-fi show (i.e. worth going to whether there are dancers or not).

UPDATE (Tuesday 6 December): For those of you who did follow along on Twitter, I apologise for the misspellings of names! An especially humble apology to Zana, the heat winner, whose name I just couldn't catch no matter how I angled my ear trumpet towards the MC. My companion, the beautiful and patient Christina, receives extra props and abject expressions of thanks for spending the time between performances staring at my ear as I hunched over my phone.

For those of you who didn't follow my inane tweets, the Round 2 contestants and their placings in the heat were as follows (the numbers before their names are their competition numbers):

08 Amy

09 Bianca = THIRD PLACE

10 Chloe

11 Firuza

12 Maelle = SECOND PLACE

13 Keisha* (originally meant to perform in the March heat but swapped places with Saffron)

14 Zana = FIRST PLACE

The judges were Nawarra, Anne White, Shafeek Ibrahim and some random dude from the audience. A huge congratulations to all seven dancers. They put on a terrific show and all of them looked like they belonged in the final. I think the judges made good decisions and I don't envy them being the ones to make it!

Heat 3 is, I believe but don't quote me on this, 15 January 2012. How nice for the dancers in that heat, to spend all Christmas and New Year in a state of panic. It will again be in Wembley, in the same tatty venue with its carpet of old black chewing gum. Ah, belly dancing. It's a glamorous business, innit?

Hair be drag-ons

2011-12-02T17:19:00.004Z

Having broached the sensitive issue of depilation earlier in the week, it was total kismet that lead me to this:

I've seen London's Hurly Burly Girls* do a variation on this - while Polly Rae crooned I Must Have That Man, upstage a sailor with "his" back turned to the audience slowly stripped naked while most of the women present bayed like banshees. At the song's end, "he" whipped off "his" cap (spoiler alert!) to allow a cascade of blonde hair to fall down her back before turning around with her hands strategically placed in front of her crotch. It was the only truly "burlesque" moment in the whole show.

As for this piece - well, although I like the element of Crying Game-esque surprise, it could be meta. (Link supplied for younger readers who don't get the aged pop-cultural reference.) Who else thinks this would be awesome if we were seeing a woman dressed as a man in drag? And is it so wrong that I'm tempted to make it a reality myself?

(Please do excuse the lousy double-whammy of puns in this post's title. It's Friday and I'm a little low on inspiration.)

*Link NSFW. But I'm sure you'd figured as much.

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 4): Dancing barefoot, but in heels

2011-11-30T12:42:00.003Z

Some bright spark with a knack for Photoshop has been ruminating on the "meaning" of cosmetic surgery and where it might go next. If our fashion and body-obsessed culture is telling us that invasive surgeries and uncomfortable clothing are the way to attract love, success and happiness, why not combine fashion and surgery so that certain wardrobe embellishments can permanently become part of our bodies?

What they've come up with may be pushed into sick reality by an incredibly indecisive Oriental dancer who can't choose between heels and dancing barefoot.

If you are squeamish, then so sorry about this and so on, but really - what are you doing on the Intertubes? In any case, just remind yourself that these are brought to you via the magic of Photoshop:

via Geekologie

Hair be dragons

2011-11-27T16:36:00.015Z

This week my friend had a horrifying/hilarious trip to an over-sharing manicurist that got us talking about - of all things - dancers who don't whip off all their body hair.

I must confess that, given the rather limited exposure I give my armpits on a daily basis, I'm kind of relaxed about letting the undergrowth just do what it will when I know I'll be wearing sleeves 99.9% of the time. Only ever once has someone commented on this in class (when I was wearing a tank top and had to lift my arms over my head), and even then I know I wasn't supposed to overhear the horrified gasp of "Ohhhh kaay!". Puh-lease. I shower daily and wear deodorant - it's not like I was about to grab her by the back of the neck and push her nose in there.

Anywho, it seems there is at least one professional belly dancer in the world who doesn't shave or wax her legs either. She's fair and blonde, so I guess she can get away with it. All of which is a rather long-winded of way of finding an excuse to share with you the wonderful world of Maria Smedstad's Em cartoons.

Is a full-body waxing session a compulsory part of performance prep or not? One of my former teachers insisted it was, arguing that no matter what your socio-political views on the subject of body hair, a luxuriant crop of sub-scalp follicles was simply distracting to an audience. If you wanted the crowd to walk away talking about your dancing rather than the perms in your pits, went her reasoning, then you'd best make friends with a razor. (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist.)

Photo du jour

2011-11-25T12:17:00.002Z

"A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you."

Brigitte Bardot

It's just a shame that this photograph didn't capture for eternity what the dude in sunglasses behind (the now famously Islamaphobic) BB was looking at. This looks like it was one hell of a party.

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 3): Can Can from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld

2011-11-23T09:14:00.003Z

But there was nothing too weird about that, right? In fact, the 1970s-Bollywood flavour actually went down pretty well with me.

Oh, I see. Tough customer, huh? Well then, whaaaat aboouut ... Robert De Niro doing the Can Can in vintage ladies underwear?

(From Stardust (2007).)

Boy oh boy. Golly wow. NOW I'm weirded out.

Thought so. My work here is done!

How I became a dancer

2011-11-20T12:00:00.003Z

I'm always asked, "Jilly, how did you get into belly dancing, seeing as how you're a colossal squid and all?"

Well, it's not a very exciting story really. After I left school I went to work in a Lebanese restaurant as a dishwasher (pay attention in class, kids. That's all I'm saying). They had a dancer and she and I got on like a house on fire and soon became best friends. We bonded over the fact that we had similar names. I wonder whatever happened to Jillina anyway? If you’re out there, girl, holla!

Pic originally posted on Tribes, artist/freakazoid unknown.

Stars of the 1940s: Houriya Mohamed

2011-11-19T14:26:00.002Z

Vane is right - yesterday's post was mean spirited. There's no getting away from it and I'm very sorry that I posted while in a bad mood, thereby breaking my own blogging cardinal rule. It's true that Alexandra is far from the worst dancer I've ever seen, and although I personally prefer dancers to wear longer skirts it's her prerogative to wear whatever she likes. The post won't be deleted (though it's pretty tempting), because unfortunately it's unlikely to be the last regrettable post I ever make. Plus, if I hadn't made it I wouldn't have got Vane's feedback. So ... rough with the smooth.

Now that the rough part is over, let's have some smooth.

Houriya Mohamed was one of the first stars of the Golden Age of Egyptian cinema: Edward Said claims that Houriya (indirectly) taught Taheya Carioca to dance. However, as Taheya's star began to rise Houriya and Taheya became bitter rivals - LebDancer's bio info for Houriya claims that either Houriya or her mother once destroyed one of Taheya's costumes prior to a performance, and that the relationship between Taheya and Houriya degenerated so much they wound up in a physical fight. You can read all about such undignified behaviour here.

Bohboh in Baghdad (1942) starred Houriya as Bedour, a Bedouin slave girl rescued from the desert. This is the celebration scene, in which Houriya wears a strikingly simple, modern-looking costume:

And here she is seven years later in Fatima and Marika and Rachel. The plot to this movie sounds a bit like a pub joke - Fatima is Muslim, Marika is Christian and Rachel is Jewish - but in this truly wondrous clip, as good as anything in an MGM musical, Fatima sings a song about "the brown skinned guy" a fortune teller has just predicted she'll meet. The costume is a lot more bling-bling this time:

Although, thanks to the different alphabets, Egyptians often wind up with many variant spellings of their names when they're transliterated into English, LebDancer advises that in Arabic "Houriya" means a beautiful heavenly woman - but Horeyya (as Houriya's name is often spelt) doesn't have any meaning at all. So there you go.

Mad, mad props

2011-11-18T17:12:00.004Z

While looking for clips of famous Greek dancers, I took a wrong turn on YouTube alley and wound up meeting characters I wasn't looking for. I brought one of them home to meet you - everyone, this is Alexandra, who according to her videographer (if no one else) is the "most famous belly dance[r] in Greece".

To which, if this is true, we can only say, "Poor Greece. As if it didn't have enough problems at the moment":

You have got to be kidding me. She can't dance - and I say this as someone who is standing metaphorically naked in a proverbial glass house and hurling massive boulders of "look who's talking, stumble bum". Her snake arms smack of "will this do?" Her chou-chou shimmy is just a tired gesture towards one (probably not aided by the high heels) and her Isis wings evoke not so much an Egyptian goddess as they do a pigeon trapped against the windows of a disused factory.*

However, she is very flexible and strong and she radiates confidence, even if the blonde hair/blue costume combo reminded me of Smurfette. But the sword/wings overload is a classic example of losing the dance in service of the props - you see it all the time at haflas, where people are just really excited to be showing off a new toy. But at the Hilton? From a top-level pro? You may notice that the clip begins with her discarding a veil, so that's veil, double sword AND Isis wings in one hit. Paint me unimpressed in an impressed kind of way.

I was halfway through this post when I thought "Hold up. Give the woman an even break - maybe without props she's awesome." Unfortunately, when Alexandra loses her props, she also loses her costume - if you're at work, just be warned that the camera operator here is looking for a second career in gynaecology:

Give her back her swords, and her clothes reappear. It's like a truly crappy form of magic!

That's a nice costume, and the dance itself was better but ... I don't know that I'm utterly convinced that Alexandra is great. What do you think?

*OK, I know that's not strictly accurate: she wields those things like a ninja, even if it's like a very wired ninja after a speed ball with an espresso chaser. It's just that she looks quite frenetic with them, and to me there's always been something faintly "billowy curtains in a Meatloaf video" about Isis wings anyway. So I guess I'm a bit prejudiced.

The day in awesome: males in veils

2011-11-15T13:36:00.001Z

Dangerous Minds reports that Egyptian student Aliaa El Mahdy has set up a Facebook page where men can post pictures of themselves wearing the veil. Some of the gents are taking it one step further and are also rocking a little kohl with a soupçon of coquettish smile.

Said El Mahdy:

"The girls I know who wear the veil do so because of their families or to avoid being hassled in the street. I don’t see why we should always dictate what women must wear and never what men must wear."

Aliaa has form for using the internet to challenge the perception of women - previously she posted nude pictures of herself on her blog (link takes you to an article about it, rather than the blog itself). However, this strikes me as a far more creative and engaging initiative, and far less open to misinterpretation or wilful misappropriation. Mad props to Aliaa and all the guys taking part.

Although it's in Arabic, the ability to "like" her page - called "Resounding Cries" - can be done in any language.

Thought for the day

2011-11-14T10:28:00.002Z

The last post was so unwholesome and skeezy that I think we all need a palate cleanser:

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin.

Benjamin E Mayes.

"Sin" is a pretty harsh word there, fella. And also, while I admire Mr Mayes' sentiments, I am willing to bet that he wouldn't have thought it a calamity if the dream to create this had remained unfulfilled:

Mem-Art Ceramics and Gifts

Noble failure or outright disaster? Your call.

(Side note: if you want to be completely creeped out, you should A) check out the unpainted version of this and B) brave the horrors of Mem-Art's unicorn babies.)

Bo Derek learning to belly roll in "Bolero" (1984)

2011-11-11T12:00:00.001Z

"In your belly is life's greatest treasure..."

Yep, that's particularly true in my case at the moment, where life's greatest treasure happens to be a good slice of chocolate brownie in the process of being slowly eroded by my digestive juices. Aiwa!

Oh. I don't think that's the kind of treasure that the writer of Bolero (1984) meant:

"[Bolero] follows the tale of a young woman's sexual awakening and subsequent journey around the world in pursuit of her ideal lover. Encounters include an Arabian sheik [played by well-known Arab actor, uh, "Greg Bensen" - The Raqasa] and a Spanish bullfighter. Her friend and butler accompany her and help to arrange her couplings. Moderate nudity and soft-porn."

In a review entitled "Not even Bo Derek's naked body can save this", IMDB user GlenGaryGlenRoss wrote:

"OK, I admit it. Bo has a beautiful body. And I will admit this too. Bolero is so bad that it easily ranks as one of the worst movies ever made."

I think I'll give it a miss.

"Why yes, I AM a professional belly dancer!"

2011-11-09T17:36:00.010Z

fransdreams.blogspot.com

Helllooo my little limpets!

It has been so long, hasn't it? Well, truth to tell, your Aunty Jilly has been having a few problems of her own of late. Yes, my deadbeat ex-boyfriend tracked me down on Facebook and I foolishly agreed to meet up with him for a "few" drinks for old times' sake.

Next thing you know, we're drag racing pods of killer whales off the Southern California coast during the blue whale migration and five weeks later I wake up somewhere near Alaska, dressed up as an Orion Slave Girl and with the remains of a fishing boat wedged into what passes for my cleavage. My family always told me to stay away from him because he's a Kraken. "He's a drunk!" my mother would holler at me as I'd swim out to meet him in my longest tentacle extensions. "He's an artist!" I'd blub back. I thought the olds were just being species-ist, but it turns out there are good reasons they never liked Aegir: just ask the tattoo of a mermaid I now have on my butt.

But I was young, and he really is an artist. Look at that beautiful drawing he did of me on our trip, still wearing my Orion body paint and hauling some poor sailors to their graves. Of course, he made my chest a little bigger and gave me arms, but otherwise that's a pretty accurate portrait. Let it never be said that your Aunty Jilly doesn't understand the complex workings of the heart - people, I've known trouble. I'm sharing this sorry story of depravity with you so that you will be even more comfortable sharing with me.

Anyway, while I get around to answering some of my mail, please watch this depressing gem, entitled "Why yes, I AM a professional belly dancer!":

Hat tip to Dress for Bellydance!

Arm-ageddon

2011-11-07T13:55:00.002Z

Yesterday was performance appraisal day, and overall I'm pretty happy with how I did. I didn't fall over, I didn't stare at my feet and I'm pretty sure I actually did move around a bit rather than staring glassy eyed at my class mates. It was a real honour to watch everyone else's dances - not only was everyone just so much fun to watch, but the music selections were great and the atmosphere in the room was really "up". No mean feat, given there were fewer than ten people in the studio. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but ... I actually had fun, even though I ran a bit late thanks to a bit of a "cat-astrophe".* So thank you, Razia!

Watching back the video of my first performance later, however, I could see two things straight away that I'll need to do A LOT of work on: my arms and my footwork. Oh, the arms. How many times have I pratcised lifting with my back muscles and keeping my elbows elevated? Too many times to count. And what happens when I get in front of actual human eyes? My chest collapses in on itself and my elbows wind up somewhere near my hips. Pffft. Now I'm looking forward to receiving my feedback form, because at the moment all I can think about are my limp, inert upper limbs, dangling as uselessly as John Wayne Bobbit's original penis.

Luckily, help is to "hand" (fnar!): the Guardian's rather excellent "MoveTube" dance blog recently spotlighted the importance of arms to the performance of the Dying Swan.

The post is in two parts, the first featuring legendary ballet dancer
Uliana Lopatkina in a traditional interpretation and the second focused on a Brazilian hip-hop dancer, John Lennon da Silva, who self-choreographed a contemporary version of the Dying Swan when he entered a reality show competition. Magic begins at about 1.50:

As Luke Jennings says: "The city of São Paolo, where he lives, is one of the most dangerous in South America, and the closing moments of Da Silva's piece seems to speak of young men like himself, dying before their time." No wonder that judge is weeping.

Meanwhile, I'll be making myself weep by giving this a crack:

*I mentioned we moved - the new pad came with a resident elderly black cat we've named Bernadette. She's poorly at the moment and decided to leave some, erm, leavings indoors. Just as I was about to do my stage face! And then this morning she brought in a mouse and devoured it whole in front of my horrified eyes. Despite all this, I think she might be the greatest roomie I've ever had.

Bellydance Trophies

2011-11-03T17:49:00.001Z

Apologies in advance for the late notice, but this arrived in my inbox only this afternoon.

If you're going to be in Wembley, London on Sunday - and frankly, if you're not there, you're not anywhere - then you could do worse than to check out the first round of the Bellydance Trophies competition.

A £12 donation to UNICEF gets you tickets to both the competition and the after party.

Plus, Brighton Orient and Zara's Souk will be "exposing" at the event. I am sure that the organisers meant to say that those august purveyors of costuming supplies will be "exhibiting", but maybe it's a burlesque fusion-type thingee.

Unfortunately, I can't go because on Sunday afternoon I have my performance appraisal and plan to spend the rest of the day curled up in the fetal position in a corner somewhere. If you are fortunate enough to attend, you can write down how you found it and slide your review under the door of my padded cell. While you're about it, if you could slip me a slice of processed cheese too I'd consider it most kind.

Stars of the Millennium: Rachel Brice

2011-10-31T14:28:00.002Z

OK, fine. I admit it: I don't know my Tribal and my Tribal Fusion from my tushie. Don't worry, though, because I am suitably embarrassed about my ignorance. At the moment I'm finding YouTube, The Pink Coinbelt Chronicles, The Bellydance Blog and Crumbs in the Costume Closet rather excellent resources in the ongoing battle against my lack of nous.

Since it is Halloween (happy All Saints Day/Samhain/Great Pumpkin Festival to you all!), it seems as good a time as any to bust the Tribal cherry with this completely splendibulous horror movie/belly dance mashup, entitled Whisper Hungarian in My Ear. Thrill to the beauty of Indigo Belly Dance (Rachel Brice, Mardi Love and Zoe Jakes) vs White Zombie (dir. Victor Halperin, 1932):

The music is by Dan Cantrell and The Toids.

And here is Rachel all by her lonesome, performing at Salon L'Orient a year ago:

Is it so very wrong that her costumes always make me want to weep with envy? And just quietly, she was the best thing about American Belly Dancer too...

Man of the Day: Omar Sharif

2011-10-27T18:57:00.002+01:00

This just in from the Dohar International Film Festival, where legendary douchebag and actor Omar Sharif was turning on the charm at a screening of his 1991 film An Egyptian Citizen:

The woman he strikes is a journalist who was presumably just going about her business. I don't know what upsets me more - his utter lack of remorse, as though he goes around hitting women all the time and thinks nothing of it, or the journalist's near-total lack of reaction, as though she's used to men she's never met before whacking her in the kisser. She keeps smiling, FFS! While I admire her grace in the face of this revolting old man's outrageous and insulting behaviour, the primal beast in me wishes she'd returned his slap in kind.*

*Perhaps my foul mood is because I moved on the weekend and my new neighbour likes to play electric bass IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAMN NIGHT. Verily, hell is other people.

Stars of the 1990s: Howaida Hachem

2011-10-26T18:18:00.002+01:00

Howaida Hachem, or (cue deep, heavy sigh) Houwida El Hasem or Howaida Al Hacem or Howaidah Alhashem, was (is?) a Lebanese dancer famous for her drum solo performances. She's almost too inspiring: it's all her fault that I've bitten off far more than I can chew and am going to be doing a drum solo for my performance assessment with Razia next weekend. A drum solo, needless to add, that will look nothing like one of Howaida's.

Howaida rose to prominence on LBC Television in the late 1980s, had a very successful career during much of the 1990s and then, according to fanoos.com, sometime during the late ‘90s/early 2000s, Howaida just – and I quote – “disappeared. She is [no] longer performing any dance shows”.

There are numerous clips of her performances on YouTube, but as for biographical information ... well, I've just shared all that I could find. I've no idea how old she is, where she lives now or even if she's still alive. Mysterious is not the word:

Here she is in 1996, which makes this shortly before she “disappeared”:

Howaida was also famous for her Lebanese Beladi, a dabke-style solo with cane. I found this clip on Bellydance Adventures:

Bellydance Adventures, like Howaida's career, is now seemingly defunct. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

{There is the sound of a breaking window somewhere in The Raqasa's flat.}

Hey, what's that noi ....

Libyan zokra

2011-10-21T10:00:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, it was confirmed that Gaddafi is dead. Hopefully, the people of Libya will be able to reclaim their country (which is apparently beautiful) and rejoin the world community.

Apparently, this is a clip of a pair of Libyan women performing to 'zokra' music. Nope, I'd never heard of it but there is a lot available on YouTube. It was part of International Night at the Vivaldi Hotel in Malta, so hence the watermark on the clip.

It's very folkloric, the 'big dress' is apparently called an 'albdlah alkbirah', and I intend to direct people to this when they ask me if "belly dancing is like lap dancing" (true story):

Fingers crossed that we will now be able to learn a lot more about Libyan culture now that their country is not cut off from the world by an evil despot.

Happy birthday, Barrie Chase

2011-10-20T12:00:00.080+01:00

Recently I wrote a retrospective of the Thompson and Scorsese treatments of Cape Fear for Filmwerk. In the 1962 Thompson version of the movie, Robert Mitchum's Max Cady attacks a drifter, Diane Taylor, who is played by Barrie Chase. Barrie Chase was born on this day in 1933.

This is what Chase looked like in Cape Fear. This is from the scene where she first encounters Max in a bar and gives him the glad eye:

The role of Diane is a small one, but Chase is so good in it (and, I admit it, so jaw-droppingly beautiful) that I wondered why she'd not become hugely, mega famous. IMDB went some way to explaining why:

"She was originally set to play Claudine in the movie Can-Can [1960] the part that made Gwen Verdon a Broadway star. But when the studio gave her two dance numbers - an apache dance and 'Garden of Eden' - to star Shirley MacLaine, she walked off the picture, and was replaced by Juliet Prowse. Barrie eventually bought out her Fox contract and left the studio that largely wasted her talents."

Wait. Dance numbers? Imagine my excitement when I found that Chase was, in fact, a professional dancer - a professional dancer who featured in 1960s movies! It's like she was born to have her career documented on this little-read blog of limited appeal.

Of course, I'm joking. Chase's career was far more successful than that. She was Fred Astaire's partner for a while - both on stage and off, despite their 34-year age gap - and she featured in four of his television specials. Here they are in a Pygmalion-inspired number from 1966:

(Her muscle control in that opening vignette is quite something.)

Even better, from The Occidental Dancer's point of view, is that in the 1965 Robert Aldrich film Flight of the Phoenix, Chase appears in a dream sequence as Farida, a "Berber dancing girl". Here are a few shots of her in that role and on set with Aldrich:

Perhaps not the most authentic Berber outfit we've ever seen, but she does have a small tattoo painted between her eyebrows that wouldn't look out of place on a Tribal dancer now (put 'Barrie Chase Farida' into Google images and you'll see what I mean).

Alas, try as I might I could not find a clip of her dance scene in that film, but I hope you'll find this, complete with MC Bette Davis and its live drummers, adequate compensation:

Wowza.

Now, you may have thought based on the IMDB quote above that Chase was being 'difficult' or just chucking a diva strop. But people, people, people. Barrie Chase could DANCE! She was Fred Astaire's dance partner! And the studio wanted to give her two big showcase pieces to Shirley MacLaine. The same Shirley MacLaine we see here, allegedly dancing in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965) [Shirley's massive ball of Oh Dear God Someone Make Her Stop starts at around the 4.03 mark, but there's plenty of chiffon-on-girl action before then]:

The other featured dancers in this scene are Nai Bonet and Sultanna (more about them in future posts!). In an irony that has presumably been lost in the mists of time, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home was directed by J Lee Thompson, who only a few years before had directed ... Cape Fear, with Bobbie Chase.

There is no justice. Nevertheless, happy birthday Barrie.

PS - if you're interested, here's MacLaine doing (a) the 'Apache dance' and (b) the 'Garden of Eden dance' in Can Can:

Still think Barrie would've been better. Click here to see her in a rare public appearance from earlier this year, being interviewed by the Film Noir Foundation about the experience of making Cape Fear.

Julie Mendez in "On the Buses" (1970)

2011-10-19T13:26:00.001+01:00

This is not safe for work. In fact, it's just not safe. Let's acknowledge the dire truth: it's AWFUL, laden as it is with sexism, racism, classism, xenophobia and polyester. BUT it does also have Julie Mendez and her snake Lulu! Remember them?

On the Buses was an English 'comedy' that ran from 1969 to 1973 - not exactly glory years for the on-screen depiction of anyone who wasn't a white, heterosexual male, it must be said. A US-version of the show, Lotsa Luck, ran on NBC from 1973 to 1974, so if you're from the States this might look faintly familiar to you. This was a whole new world of "What the hell?" to me, though.

If you're going to watch this episode, do it soon because I bet you anything these clips will disappear due to user infringement before long.

Although I'm aware I often let this blog go off on a Quixotic quest to document the careers of little-remembered female bit-players from days of yore, may I just say that, when Stan and Jack are being all leery, Julie's face (at 4.06) is such a picture of perfect sadness that to me it completely pulls the rug out from underneath all the laddish, sexist, racist "humour" and conveys a real human experiencing real feelings. Good job, Julie!

Not so much of a good job? Her dance costume and those regrettable pelvic thrusts. Proof, if ever it were needed, that "vintage" does not always equal glamorous and flattering:

And here's Part 2, in which Lulu steals the show:

And to think, the English once had an empire!

You look like you need a hug

2011-10-18T18:58:00.002+01:00

Well, hi there hot stuff! How is Your Royal Gorgeousness doing today?

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. It isn't right that someone as fantabbadosious as you should be in the dumps. Have a cookie ... hm? You've got no appetite and you don't feel like you 'deserve' a treat?

Ah. I see. Someone looks like they need a cuddle. Come back. COME BACK.

Sri Lanka the Belly Dancer

Now, don't you feel better? Aw, geddoffit. You do NOT feel 'skeevy, sick and wrong' just from looking at this. That's just your grumps talking. I mean, sure "Sri Lanka" is a totally inapt name for a teddy bear in a barely-there raks outfit, but that ain't no thing. After all, she can be yours for only $250 dollars! Yes, US dollars - a honey like this doesn't change hands for Belizean dollars, you know.

Of course you want to buy her. Yes, you do. Sure, $250 would buy you a decent bra and belt set, or maybe buy your groceries for a month, but you'd be a total moron - fabulous though you are - to pass this opportunity up. It's not a very nice thing to have to admit, but I will judge you for it if you don't buy this RIGHT NOW.

Now spank my butt and call me Betty - how stupid of me to forget! Of course Sri Lanka is not your cup of tea! You love cheesecake-style costumes! In that case, have you got £35?

http://www.characterbears.co.uk/

Since when do you NOT love cheesecake-style costumes? Fine. How about a Rachel Brice-inspired bear?

"Rachel Rose" by SWStitchery

No? Actually, you know what? Take this cookie anyway and stick it. I'm done trying to ~~sell you stupid shit~~ cheer you up.

The Raqasa x

Om Kalthoum: "Enta Omri" vs Guns n' Roses: "November Rain"

2011-10-15T12:08:00.040+01:00

This is not the two-hour version, alas, but here is Om Kalthoum (or Om Kalsoum, Om Koulsum, Om Kalthoum, Oumme Kalsoum or Umm Kolthoum depending on your transliterative preference) performing "Enta Omri" in Paris, 1967, and this video provides captions of the lyrics translated into English. Razia gave us a mind-expanding comparison between "Enta Omri" and Guns n' Roses' "November Rain" on Wednesday night - a seriously apt comparison.

Please now head through the doors of perception, where you'll hear Axl Rose's ode to his miserable divorce from supermodel Stephanie Seymour, "November Rain":

1992. Man. I remember forcing myself to stay awake until 1 am on a school night so that I could hear "Civil War" debut on commercial radio. Those were the days.

Can we also get a "Hell, yeah!" for the YouTube commenter who points out that those who were physically present on the ground with Slash during the filming of his climactic solo could actually hear nothing except the helicopter and the plinking strings of Slash's unplugged electric guitar. Now that, my friends, is a headtrip.

EDIT: Just to be clear - Razia wasn't saying that "November Rain" was influenced by "Enta Omri", just that you could often find the same sentiments from popular Middle Eastern music expressed in similar terms in popular Western music.

Friday Night at the Movies: "Lady of Burlesque" (1943)

2011-10-14T09:22:00.001+01:00

There are many belly dancers who do a bit of burlesque on the side, so I thought I'd post a noir musical starring Barbara Stanwyck as Dixie Daisy, a showgirl with cool lines and hot moves.

"After one member of their group is murdered, the performers at a burlesque house must work together to find out who the killer is before they strike again."

Includes such deathless dialogue as this, when Biff (a comedian) tries to chat Dixie up:

Biff: What's the matter with comics?
Dixie: I went into show business when I was seven years old. Two days later the first comic I ever met stole my piggy bank in a railroad station in Portland. When I was 11 the comics were looking at my ankles. When I was 14 they were...just looking. When I was 20 I'd been stuck with enough lunch checks to pay for a three-story house. Naw, they're shiftless, dame-chasing, ambitionless...

Yes, this is the WHOLE FILM. Enjoy!

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 2): Belly dance on tiny wheels

2011-10-12T12:00:00.004+01:00

Yeah...meet Hatem:

Because I'm always searching out the weird for this blog, I banged "belly dance roller skate" into my internet machine and found that Pirika Repun had shared this on Belly Dance Forums. Do you love 'im or Hatem? Geddit? He he he he ... um.

UPDATE: Hatem doesn't always dance on roller skates! Here he is rocking a peacock costume and getting the party started with some friends:

Stars of the 1980s: Dina

2011-10-10T12:24:00.001+01:00

Haven't done one of these "Stars of" posts for a while, so why not get back into it with a polarising figure? Dina Talaat Sayed Mohammed was born in Rome in 1965 and has been generating controversy ever since she first took the stage. A common complaint from other dancers is that Dina doesn't really "do" anything other than show up and look ~~like a porn star~~ very glamorous in a very in-your-face way. Love her, hate her or be mortally offended by her, you have to admit that there are not many people in the world who have so much charisma that they can get away with half of what she does (or, depending on your point of view, doesn't do) and be so hugely successful at it.

As this astonishingly florid piece I found on Worldcrunch shows, Dina can still move the occasional journalist to Victorian levels of purple prose. Here's a sample:

"... the last grand dame of Egyptian belly dancing has a toned figure that might tempt an imam. And with her black velvet eyes, sculptured silhouette, wrists adorned with bracelets and index finger sporting a diamond the size of the Ritz, Dina Talaat Sayed Mohammed is a picture of grace, beauty, luxury, serenity and voluptuousness. Sitting in the lounge of the Hotel Raphael, recounting her extraordinary life, she takes your breath away."

Ye gods. If you feel confident that you can handle that jandal, by all means follow the link. For my own part, I'm not bowled over by her style, but I am hugely impressed by her insistence on living her life on her own terms. So there.

Now, I know I've headed this up "1980s", but I tend to date the stars in the "Stars of" posts from when the dancers first became famous, not from when their careers petered out. With that in mind, here's a recent-ish clip of Dina performing in what the poster described as a "Xena, Warrior Princess" costume:

And here she is again in an older clip, not wearing one of the costumes that first brought her notoriety:

Weird Wednesday Woo: "The Belly Dancer is a Sexy Spy"

2011-10-05T15:13:00.002+01:00

Hello.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

Honestly, I wasn’t going to post this. Really, really, wasn’t. But the more time that went by, the more I thought about this clip, the more it became clear to me that I HAD to post this. Because it blew my freakin’ mind. I’m serious.

There’s a lot to waggle your eyebrows at here. Off the top of my head, I’m going to list my top head-scratchers as:

1. Why didn’t the costumier bother finishing the decoration on the dancer’s bra, or give her the rest of the front of her skirt?
2. How did this Marco Polo character convince so many people to partake in his peculiar form of egocentric madness?
3. The fact that this exists at all.

There’s no plot to speak of here – as far as I can tell, this is one episode in the ‘Crime Jazz’ series called The Spy from the Ghetto – produced by, directed by, written by and starring some geezer calling himself ‘Marco Polo’. It has its good points: The music is actually pretty cool, and the performances are unintentionally hilarious. At least, I don’t think they’re meant to be hilarious – as this write-up on Marco Polo’s YouTube channel proves, he himself is deadly serious.

I don’t know what else to say. It’s entitled The Belly Dancer is a Sexy Spy, but the dancer isn’t credited even though almost eight minutes are devoted to showing her dancing in various leery close-ups. Just before the eight-minute mark, the blonde woman at the bar lets go with what may be the greatest noise ever made by a human and recorded for posterity. The bartender doesn’t seem to think it weird that, in the middle of the day, the only people in his joint are four shifty characters – one of whom is obviously armed – and a belly dancer performing in front of a silver mannequin in a red scarf. And there’s no way that the tattooed woman is from Prague, unless there’s a Prague somewhere in New York. Other than that, please fix yourself a nice stiff drink or take several deep breaths before hitting ‘play’:

Your thoughts, please. Please.

Harem dancers: Maria Felix

2011-10-03T08:43:00.002+01:00

Mexican film star Maria Felix was never as successful in the USA as she was in Europe, thanks to her refusal to start at the bottom and work up. She insisted that she should make her entrances through "the big door", and when Cecil B de Mille offered her small roles she contemptuously declined, sniffing "I was not born to carry a basket."

However, Spanish and French film directors adored Felix and in later years she earned the sobriquet 'La Dona'. In 1954, when she was 'already' 40, Felix was cast as the Egyptian belly dancer in Jean Renoir's Technicolor spectacular French Cancan:

Man, that is one verbal performance.

The film also features a cameo from Edith Piaf, and is being re-released on DVD at the end of this month. Yay!

Story time

2011-09-29T16:44:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I realised that I am still in holiday mode, because after putting on my mascara I forgot to apply my “Chuck Norris’ Extra-Strength Human Repellent (City Commuter Rush Hour Grade)”™ face. This is a vital topcoat for anyone contemplating a ride on the London Underground.

The Raqasa's audience had no idea what the fuck she was on about,
but soon realised that it could slip off to LOLcats without her noticing

But maybe my forgetfulness was just as well, because as a result I learnt a very important lesson about marketing yourself as an artist.

As the fickle fingers of fate had finagled it, yesterday was also the first day of Razia’s “Performance Prep Course” so such issues are more prominent in my noggin than usual. The course covers things like getting your stage face on (the subject of last night’s class – and yes, I have hi-larious pictures that I am trying to decide if I will share with you or not), how to structure a performance, booking yourself gigs and so on. Which, in a very tenuous way, brings me to The Story of the Paula Abdul-Loving Pamphleteer.

As anybody who has to contend with crowded public transport will appreciate, the only way of hanging on to one’s own fragile sense of self during all that unavoidable personal space invasion is to retreat behind an imaginary wall. This wall is often comprised of earphones, studiously avoided eye contact (usually aided by reading something or becoming absorbed in 'Angry Birds') and wearing a facial expression that conveys slightly less kindness and generosity of spirit than one of Anton LeVey’s publicity snaps.

The book I’m reading at the moment is Maximum Movies, Pulp Fictions: Film Culture and the Worlds of Samuel Fuller, Mickey Spillane and Jim Thompson by Peter Stanfield. Pithy title, and nothing to do with the work of Quentin Tarantino. I got on my train (no seat available, of course) and whipped the book out of my bag the moment I saw a guy cruising the carriage and trying to foist religious tracts on people. Undeterred by my iPod and book fortress, Religious Tract Man still had a go when he got to me. Dammit! I will never forget my “Chuck Norris’ Extra-Strength Human Repellent (City Commuter Rush Hour Grade)”™ face again.

Religious Tract Man (spying two words on the cover of my book): Have you seen Pulp Fiction?
Me (wondering what the hell he’s on about and trying to sound as unfriendly as possible): Yeah.
Religious Tract Man: I like John Travolta. Do you?
Me (having never thought about whether or not I like John Travolta before): Yeah.
Religious Tract Man (brandishing a pamphlet with a sunrise on the cover): Do you want a book?
Me: No, thanks.

You will notice that I made two crucial errors during this exchange: 1) I ‘engaged’ with him; 2) I said ‘No, thanks’ instead of ‘No, sod off’. Maybe this explains what happened about 20 minutes later when we reached my stop and he followed me off the train.

I was queuing to get into the lift at the station when I eventually became aware that someone was repeatedly and rather forcefully prodding me on the arm. Turning in the expectation of seeing someone I knew – or, at least, Clive Owen, come to his senses at last – I was dismayed to be confronted by Religious Tract Man, still trying to offer me his cheaply produced publication. Mercifully the lift showed up and we all piled in. That’s when Religious Tract Man got totally weird.

Do you remember the song Straight Up by Paula Abdul? No? Well, Religious Tract Man does. He started warbling it in the lift, acapella styles. It was actually kind of cool – because London commuters had to decide if they were going to pretend it wasn’t happening or start risking eye contact with each other. In the end (dude, it’s a long way from the platform to the street at Goodge St station), one brave soul took a pick axe to the icy layer of cool remove.

Brave Soul: Sounding good, man.
Religious Tract Man: You like my singing? I’ve got videos online – my name’s Neil.

There you have it – how not to market yourself as an artist. If you would like to hear a bonkers, but totally harmless, man with an average singing voice giving his all to minor pop hits of the late 1980s then get ready to hurl your Spanx in the air in celebration. You could have your prayers answered if you type “Neil” (or possibly “Neale”, “Neal”, “Kneel”, “Neel”, “Kneal” “N’eal”, “N’eil”, “N’eel”, “Nee-ell” or “Kneil”) into Google and hit “I’m feeling lucky”. Bonne chance!

Apologies

2011-09-27T08:42:00.002+01:00

That's all I have to offer you with this post. Apologies. {sigh} You may have noticed that the posts have been a bit erratic of late - I did mention the 'auto-update' function a while ago. Well, for the last three weeks I've been away and I thought that the auto-update function would cover nicely for me in my absence. It did, up to a point, because I hadn't reckoned on having to respond to comments! I got comments while I was away! So thank you very much for those and I will respond to them all by Friday. I haven't been ignoring you, I promise. It's just that I didn't anticipate comments, so apologies for that.

Anyhoo, while I'm busy with the excuses, I may as well apologise to you all for posting this:

As Foodycat pointed out, you work your heart out trying to improve the image of your art form and what happens? +facepalm+

Meanwhile, in Trinidad and Tabago ...

Ziller gorilla

2011-09-22T12:00:00.001+01:00

Today is my sister's birthday. I therefore have the flimsiest pretext possible for posting this awesome party outfit:

Karnival House

Apparently this is still in stock (I know! I would have thought it was sold out too!), but you might have to purchase the jeans and work boots separately. You're welcome.

Don't believe everything you read

2011-09-12T12:00:00.033+01:00

Hoohoohoo boy. Have I got a special treat for you today.

All of us, even if only occasional class attendees, will be aware to a greater or lesser degree that this dance form provokes some odd reactions and unearths some weird assumptions and prejudices. When I was attending RAKS in Belgium, my room-mate in the hostel was a Georgian woman studying for her MBA. "So I think this is a dance you use for exciting your husband, right?" she purred while giving me a laughingly flirty look. "If only it were that simple, I wouldn't have wasted my time and money coming here!" I laughed back. But really, I was bothered. She's 24 years old. Dancers have been working on changing that perception FOR DECADES. How many more years is it going to take before we leave all this Sonny Lester stuff behind?:

Had I known about it at the time, I would have been able to tell Anna that there's even a Facebook support group for men married to dancers: that's how delightfully mundane being shacked up with someone who thinks in terms of Figure 8s and zills practice is. Sometimes, when our relationships go bad, we turn utterly nuclear and wage eight-year "hate campaigns" against our exes and their new partners.

Plus – and I'm just going to go ahead and be bold with the banana here – despite what may be assumed from all those old album covers and the hoochie Bettie Page routines and whatnot, there are many, many belly dancers in the world that you would not want to see naked but are awesome at what they do. (There are also some, like yours truly, who have the double handicap of not being awesome at what they do and are certain never to trouble the pages of Maxim either.) The ugly, the elderly, the very young, the knock-kneed, the overweight, the flat-chested and bony, the dangerously buxom, the scarred and the scared: we're all in class together, trying to think kind, charitable thoughts about the willowy 22 year-old next to us with the perfect skin, flawless makeup and glossy mane who is effortlessly layering camels over her shimmies. The bitch. No, she's not a bitch, she's lovely. Shit.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

As bad as it is, that whole "make your man a sultan" shtick is benign compared to that (tiny) portion of the population who see the art form as downright immoral. I thought I had tripped over one of their number when I encountered Dr Toby Hill's new book, Never Hug a Belly Dancer:

Board member Dr Toby Hill recently published “Never Hug a Belly Dancer and 99 Other Meditations for Men.” A habitual journal writer, he decided to publish his writings in hopes they will be of benefit to others. When asked about the title, Dr. Hill said, “It basically means sometimes what you see and what you desire is not what you really want.”
Amazon.com describes the book as: “Devotionals for men who seek strength, encouragement and direction in life. Toby Hill shares his life-experiences [sic] with every man and how he has dealt with many conflicts, situations and decision-making. It takes a somewhat humorous look at life and gives one man's views of resolution and how to achieve the ultimate.”
Here is an excerpt from the book: “Last evening was Anna Lee’s birthday. Our youngest adult daughter wanted to take her mom to a local Mediterranean restaurant so that we could all watch the belly dancing as we ate. The hidden agenda here was that our granddaughter likes to get out on the dance floor and belly dance with the dancer. The dancer was a nice, young, blonde, attractive lady. She entertained us well as she danced with a sword on her head and with flames in her hand. She gyrated and cavorted with us all and was especially gracious to our little granddaughter as she often let her leave the table and join her in her “belly” dancing. On the way out of the restaurant I gave the young lady a generous tip. As she took the money she turned to give me a hug. I admit, I was kind of looking forward to it. After all, she was young and pretty and blonde and she had few clothes on. Go figure. Well as we hugged each other I learned something else about my new young female friend. She was also sweaty! After all, she had been dancing all night long. The eagerly anticipated hug had not lived up to my expectations. So often being disappointed is the result of our expectations when we base them on worldly standards. It does not make any difference if we are looking forward to a new house, and new car or a new woman. Inevitably they fail to meet our expectations. The expectations of our world when seen through Gods [sic] eyes rarely disappoint. When we reflect on those things that God would have us yearn for – peace, patience, love, healthy relationships and most of all a relationship with him, we are never disappointed when we have obtained what he desires us to have. We should spend some time thinking about how many times in the past that the acquisition of possessions has not lived up to our expectations and what we could have done and should do differently in the future. With all of that said, I still think about the local Belly Dancer [sic] every once in a while. Maybe next time, I’ll tip her earlier in the evening.”

{Drumming fingers on the desk and staring out the window as I wonder where to start.}

'Kay, first off, that central premise is hard to argue with. We've all had the second helping that looked tasty but made us feel sick or whatever. Secondly, it's also not like he's arguing that the belly dancing is something that 'nice' women don't do (in fact, he uses the word 'nice' to describe the dancer in his anecdote) or that believers shouldn't be the audience for it – on the contrary, his granddaughter is allowed to get up and have a go, though part of me wonders if that will be allowed as she gets older – and he even talks about a return visit to the restaurant. So far, so good, Dr Toby. You and I could totally sit down and break bread together, though I would take you to task on that cover. What is that all about, eh? A picture of a candle or a sunrise used to do just fine for cover images on books about spirituality. But not now. Oh, no. Now men need bedroom eyes and old skool Orientalist fantasies with their efforts to become better people. Bah!

We might also have some tense moments when I point out to Dr Toby that he uses the same old tired adjectives that people who don't know what they're looking at use: 'gyrating and cavorting'. Go on, Dr Toby! Chuck in some 'writhing', and if you're feeling wild, why not a generous pinch of 'grinding and wiggling' as well? Why not? You think she was so young and pretty and blonde that you describe her that way not once, but twice! Plainly your vocabulary could do with some stretching. Or you just need editing.
Now, there is a chance that the dancer in question was doing exactly what the good “doctor” described and maybe her performance was less than ladylike. But I'm willing to bet that anyone who can cope with sword and fire dancing in a restaurant while entertaining small girls at the same time has racked up her fair share of hours of study and knows what she's about.

This brings me to the main concern I have with Dr Toby's interpretation of events. Given that this woman has a regular restaurant gig, how likely is it that she is going to hug a strange man just for tipping her? I cannot help but envisage a situation in which she merely stuck out her hand for a friendly, though formal, handshake to say thank you, and instead found herself dragged into 180 pounds' worth of Dr Toby-style bear hug. (A bit like someone sticking their hand into that dough-boy thing from Ghostbusters II.) Since Dr Toby closes his tale with a thinly veiled threat to start stalking her, we can be forgiven for thinking that maybe the sweaty hugger was wearing a tie rather than a sparkly bedlah.

I therefore eagerly await the dancer's version of events, perhaps to be titled Never Trust a Randy Chancer.

Special Feature: Star Trek's Slave Girls of Orion

2011-09-09T12:00:00.001+01:00

Rachel Nichols as the most recent incarnation of the Orion woman.

Today's Orion woman is in the military rather than a slave,

but she still has to gad about in her smalls. Of course.

I hope that you’re blessed with a strong constitution, because we’re about to go into the outer reaches of the universe and the women there do look rather peaky. I suppose warp speed travel will do that to you.

Star Trek was default mid-Saturday viewing when I was a student. It’s not that I’m really, creakily old – it’s just that weekend television tends to be repeats, and New Zealand TV had a more retro echo than most because it screened shows that were ancient even when Methuselah was teething. And so it came to pass that there are probably generations of kiwi men out there whose first crush was on a scantily clad woman with green skin and freaky dance moves: today’s post is all about Star Trek’s Slave Girls of Orion. (In a nod to the changing political climate they eventually became the ‘Women of Orion’, but they were still fodder for viewers who wanted to embellish their Lt. Uhura fantasies.)

It would take a stronger pop culture muscle than I possess to out-geek the Wikipedia entry on the Orions of Star Trek, so I won’t try:

Orions are a green-skinned, humanoid alien species. An Orion was first portrayed as an illusion in the original Star Trek pilot, but was not seen in the broadcast series until this original pilot was incorporated into the two-part episode "The Menagerie" in the first season. Orions have also been portrayed in Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. Rachel Nichols played Orion Starfleet cadet Gaila in the 2009 Star Trek film [but she did not dance – The Raqasa]. The Orion Syndicate is a criminal organization operated by Orions [No! Really? Operated by Orions you say? How fascinating! Do go on – The Raqasa]. The culture initially was shown with Orion males dominating and enslaving Orion females, said to be some of the most sensuous female humanoids in the galaxy. The reality is that the Orion females control Orion culture, with Orion males co-operating with their "mistresses" to promote the illusion. [The women] appear to exert their control through sex, and it is a rare male of any species who can resist one. On scant evidence, the Orion females appear to do this through telepathic rather than biochemical means, as do Elasian women (see TOS episode Elaan of Troius).

“The reality is that the Orion females control Orion culture, with Orion males co-operating with the “mistresses” to promote the illusion.” ^Throws back head and laughs long and loud^. Oohh, yeah. It’s just like how the real world operates, isn’t it! Gah. Anyway, if you think that rather desperate piece of apologetic revisionism was truly, outrageously far out then you ain’t seen nothing by way of truly, outrageously far out yet. Strap yourselves in:

Here’s Susan Oliver as ‘Vina’, the original woman of Orion, in the 1965 episode ‘The Cage’. (Vina is the ‘illusion’ referred to in the Wikipedia quote above.) Poor Captain Pike looks like Bambi at a barbecue where they’ve just run out of meat:

Jump forward four years, and things haven’t changed much in women’s fashions on Orion. This is Yvonne Craig as ‘Marta’ in the 1969 episode ‘Whom Gods Destroy’. I believe the over-used, vaguely patronising word we’re looking for is ‘feisty’:

By the time this episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, ‘Bound’, went to air in 2005, the Orion women have shed even more clothes and their dancing is distinctly Salimpour-esque – in my humble opinion. The featured dancer here is Menina Fortunato as ‘Maras’:

On the off chance that all that green skin hasn’t made you feel a bit queasy, you might want to challenge your tolerance level with the megamix:

If your lunch is still settled, you cast-iron gutted traveller, you, and you're feeling inspired to do your own cheeky cheesecake version of an Orion slave girl routine feel free – but you should know that you’ve been beaten to it by, among others, Amira:

AND Oasis Bellydance (seen here at BabelCon 2009, going completely OTT by fusing Star Trek with Michael Jackson’s Thriller):

AND too many other cos-playing, Comic Con attending femmes vertes to mention:

exposay.com

bluebuddies.net

Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space. Live long and prosper.

Cassandra vs "Cattandra"

2011-09-05T04:00:00.001+01:00

To paraphrase former US President George W Bush: "Often is the question asked, 'why are belly dancers liking the cat so much?' But seldom is the question asked, 'why is cats like belly dancers?'"

Unless, of course, it's simply that Cassandra of Minneapolis is exuding something through the screen that we humans cannot smell:

Good to meet you: Ebony

2011-09-02T12:00:00.012+01:00

In yesterday's post on Bettie Page, I made a rather snide comment about how her moves were comparable to those you might see from drunken party animals when the DJ in some godawful club starts playing that stupid Akon song about "shaking your body like a belly dancer".

Then I got to thinking (I know, I should have done that BEFORE I posted). It dawned on me that maybe there was a dancer out there who not only knows what's what but would, you know, take that song and own it. And whaddya know:

Oh, she looks GOOD. Great outfit, great smile, fabbo moves. I could do with some more of that:

These clips aren't here in service of a fusion debate. I really enjoy watching Ebony dance no matter what style she's doing (she also does straight up raqs, and you can catch that on her YouTube channel). She toured with the Bellydance Superstars in 2008 and doesn't need to prove her chops to anyone. Of course, that hasn't stopped the mouthbreathers from chipping in with their insightful criticisms of the "fuk this this sux" variety, but Ebony is gracious enough to rise above it. "i understand if you don't like it. i'm sure you're not alone. but it makes me happy, so i do it!"

As long as no one uses that line as a justification for rolling on the floor like they're at the Badda Bing when the tips are flowing and calling it 'belly dancing', all I can say to that is Amen.

Bettie Page 'dancing'

2011-09-01T11:39:00.003+01:00

Hello, my name is The Raqasa and I'm not 'into' burlesque {dodges all the rotten fruit and coins being hurled at her}. It's not like I don't know that I'm missing the zeitgeist by not having even a passing interest.

Because it's not something I know a lot about – beyond the fact that it's come a long way from its roots in the bawdy, political and social satire of the musical hall – I even went to see Miss Polly Rae and the Hurly Burly Girls in the West End, to see if maybe I just hadn't seen the 'right' kind of burlesque to spank my plank yet. The answer, sadly, was No. They were beautiful women, very talented dancers and they put on a slick show, but I still walked out feeling a bit ripped off. (Though it was cool to see a live version of Siouxsie & The Banshee's Peek-a-Boo, even though as a choice of song it was a bit ... obvious. As burlesque tends to be.)

As you may know if you've been here before, you will be aware that I do like vintage pin-up girls and cheesy dance routines from old movies and TV shows. And who would blame me when that Bettie Page was so gosh darned purdy? At the risk of turning this into some sort of hideously embarrassing 'Post Secret'-type thing, I gotta tell ya that I once made a cover for a mix CD of my Arabic dance music that used this picture:

Calm down, everyone. This was YEARS ago (a CD! When now it would be a playlist!) and I now know that this image sends totally the wrong message about Oriental dance. Still have the CD with this cover, though. {smirk}

Seeing as how you've had a chance to straighten your tassels after that shocking revelation, I'd now like to share with you a clip of Bettie doing an endearingly lousy approximation of 'harem dancing' in the outfit pictured above. Now don't you worry, she's going to keep her costume on right until the end:

Granted, our girl here can't dance for nuts and if I saw this routine at a hafla I would totes be among the first giving her a good-ole dose of stink-eye. This is the kind of stuff that novices do on pub dancefloors at one in the morning when that stupid Akon song comes on, and is no more 'belly dancing' than is what goes on with Princess Kashmir at the Maison Derriere in The Simpsons episode 'Homer's Night Out':

But I'm right about Bettie's costume being really cool, aren't I? Aren't I?

RAK*S Stars bonus: Queenie

2011-08-30T12:00:00.002+01:00

RAK*S Stars: "K" is for Khalida

2011-08-29T12:00:00.007+01:00

YouTube channel Website

RAK*S Stars: "A" is for Artemisia

2011-08-27T12:00:00.007+01:00

YouTube channel Website

RAK*S Stars: "R" is for Razia

2011-08-25T12:00:00.018+01:00

And, for the sake of reinforcing just how different the same piece of choreography can look, let's see that as performed by a troupe:

YouTube channel Website

And we're off ...

2011-08-24T08:49:00.001+01:00

While I'm at RAKS this blog will be updating itself. I recently discovered the 'schedule posts' function and I think it's about to change my life.

Over the next few days, all going well, every other day (starting tomorrow) you should be treated to clips of the three RAKS teachers (Razia, Artemisa and Khalida). See you on the other side!

No sleep 'til Leuven

2011-08-21T23:00:00.008+01:00


And then Jilly said, "We're going to need a bigger suitcase."

A suburban flat, somewhere in London. Interior, day. Jilly and The Raqasa are packing for RAKS.

The Raqasa (TR): Jilly, have you seen my yoga mat?

Jilly: You have a yoga mat?

TR: Yeah, it's a purple one. I thought I'd stored it in the cupboard under the shelf you live on.

Jilly: Darling, I have never seen you do yoga, much less use a yoga mat. Have you checked where you hide the cigarettes you don't smoke? Maybe the yoga mat you don't use is in the same place.

TR: Shut up, Jilly. The email said to bring a yoga mat or a large towel. Since I have a yoga mat, I am going to justify the money I spent on it and pack it.

20 minutes later.

TR: Ooh, here it is!

Jilly: It's grey.

TR: Yeah. So?

Jilly: You said it was purple. Purple would have been nicer. The grey one looks like a roll of dessicated elephant hide or something. How can you bring yourself to lie on that?

TR: I can't. I guess that's why I'd forgotten what it looked like. Do you know where my stick is?

Jilly: This is going to be a long afternoon, isn't it? Have you looked in the top of your wardrobe?

TR: (Perching on one leg on the edge of the bed's footboard so as to reach the top of the wardrobe) Look at me! I've invented 'bedroom Parkour'! Whee!

Jilly: If you break your ankle looking for it you won't be going anywhere. Focus!

The Raqasa spends a good long while searching the whole flat.

TR: This is ridiculous! How can such a tiny flat have so many nooks and crannies?

Jilly: Try the top of the wardrobe again.

TR: Well ... will you look at that. Huh.

Jilly: I'm going outside for a smoke.

TR: Hang on a tick. I need you to come and sit in the bag.

Jilly: Why?

TR: To make sure there's room for you.

Jilly: You're not serious! I'm not travelling in there. Your dance shoes stink. Besides, it sends the wrong message. It's like you're embarrassed to be seen in public with me.

TR: Of course I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. I'm a grown woman lugging around a soft toy, fer chrissakes.

Jilly: ....

TR: Sorry, Jilly. You know how it is.

Jilly: I'm going outside to smoke. I may be some time.

TR: Aw, don't be sore. I'll tuck some ouzo in next to you, how's that?

Jilly: Look, I'll be back in five minutes. And you'd better damn well make some progress.

Ten minutes later.

Jilly: How's the packing going? AND WHAT THE SCALLOPS IS THAT?

TR: It's my 'tribute to Patricia Arquette in True Romance' bathroom bag in fetching pink leopard print vinyl.

Jilly: If I could narrow my eyes suspiciously at you, I would. Is it from Forever 21?

TR: It is, yeah. How did you ...

Jilly: Did you look at the bottom of the carry bag?

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/emazmine/59621079.html

TR: Woah. OK. Heavy.

Jilly: Did you look at the horrors revealed about that chain on Wikipedia?

TR: I won't go there again. Well, not before next pay day anyway.

Jilly: Tsk. Really, I despair of you. All the facts are staring you in the face and still you can't walk past a £6 T-shirt. It's because of people like you that the world's in the state it's in. And I bet you haven't even packed underwear yet, have you?

TR: Actually, I have packed some, yeah. But I bet some of it was made in sweatshops so will you still let me wear it?

Jilly: Sarcasm is a very unbecoming shade on you, m'dear.

TR: I'm only getting defensive because I know you're right. Besides, there are worse things I can pack, like coin belts. Why do people still wear them anyway? Ghastly, heavy noisy things. Perhaps I should sell mine... Hey, can we take a break? It's still sunny outside and we could go have a gin and tonic on the deck.

Jilly: An idea so good it would give a jellyfish a hard-on. I'll cut the lemons. By the way, I'm not going to need a passport but you will. You know where yours is, right?

TR:

Feline Friday

2011-08-19T17:37:00.002+01:00

I hereby do solemnly swear that The Occidental Dancer is not about to become Another One of Those Blogs. There are plenty of places where you can go and get your squee on. Like, geeze. I dunno. The Daily Squee?

However.

It is Friday. The sunshine is streaming through the windows. I finished a major project today, one that was overdue and had been hanging over my head for months. And dammit, I want to celebrate.

I am particularly charmed by the hand just hoving into view (upper left), lured in by the siren song of that cute widdle-fluffy-wuffy-tummy. 'Ose a puddy tat? You are! Yes, you are!

We rent and the landlady won't let us have pets, so this is as good as it gets for me. Cut me some slack if you feel this is a gross deviation from the kind of stuff you come here for: the blog's tagline is "Navel gazing at its best" and I think we can all agree that this is as close as we will get to gazing at the navel of this species.

More danc-y stuff posting over the weekend (promise!), but if your appetite is whetted you can get more pics of cats sleeping on their backs here.

Good to meet you: Tracey Jones

2011-08-15T17:28:00.006+01:00

This is Tracey Jones, in a clip filmed last year. In 2006, she was the winner of the UK National Belly Dance Competition. If, like me, you'd never heard of Tracey or you didn't know her story, you might watch this and think that at times there is something a little 'off', but you probably wouldn't be able to pinpoint what it is.

Well, as good as she is in this clip, Tracey is even more amazing than she seems. You are as stony-hearted as a stony-hearted thing with a stony heart if her story doesn't get you to at least the 'peeling an onion' stage of teary-eyes. I will never use cramp or bad weather as excuses to cut class again.

YouTube channel Web 1 Web 2

The Cuckoos: Dancing the Devil Away (1930)

2011-08-12T12:00:00.007+01:00

~Staring eyes. Gaping mouth.~

Yes indeed. That was a song and dance scene from the 1930s comedy The Cuckoo starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsley, who were kind of the Farrelly brothers of their day (not really, but you get the idea). Wheeler & Woolsley, as they were known, often worked with actress/comedienne Dorothy Lee, who you see getting down with her bad self here.

The singer, in the role of 'Gypsy Queen', is Maguerita Padula but I'm afraid I can't tell you any more than that.

There is a poorly written synopsis of the film on Wikipedia, but it's so crap as to make the film sound even more confusing than this clip would suggest. Therefore I've taken the liberty of chopping it up so only the key words and phrases remain:

"A phony fortune teller ... Mexican resort ... gambling casino ... falls in love ... American girl named Anita ( ... lived with Gypsies her entire life) ... [gypsy] leader ...also in love with her ... wants her to marry the Baron ... money. Miss Furst falls in love with Bird after getting her wallet back ... kidnap her ... go back to Mexico to save their loved ones from the Baron and the Gypsies, and succeed in doing so."

I'm glad we're clear about how this scene fits into the plot now. But seriously - can't you see the theme of this vignette working brilliantly for a troupe performance?

Belly laughs

2011-08-11T13:34:00.003+01:00

Guess what? I went to my zagat class on Tuesday with Galit Mersand and there was NARY A PEEP to be heard on the streets of London. I have never seen the Euston Road filled with so many empty buses trundling along. If you were in Manchester on Tuesday, however, my condolences.

Although I've blogged a couple of clips of Galit before, I wanted to show you why she's totally worth being clobbered with a billy club for. Plus, she turned up to class too so it would have been cowardly custard of me to bunk off. She's Israeli so maybe a few teenagers on the prowl for X-Boxes aren't that intimidating to her ("Have you heard that people have been queuing to loot?!" she demanded of us at one point. "That's the English for you! 'Form an orderly line if you're here to break the law'!")

Anyway, here's what the big deal is: she's a great dancer and a comedienne. At the same time:

Quiet riot

2011-08-09T17:12:00.002+01:00

Tonight my company is sending us home early. We're in an office just off Oxford Street in central London and there are riot vans parked outside our building in anticipation of 'trouble' (i.e. violent mouth-breathers doin' some lootin' an'-a muggin').

This puts a spanner in the works of my plans for the evening: I have a pre-paid zagat class with the marvellous Galit Mersand that I am loath to miss. It's not until 7.30pm and I was going to hang out here until about 7 and then head up towards the Euston/Kings Cross area. Even if I could still do that without being booted out by security, one of my friends has just pointed out that since that part of town is known for being a bit, well, 'volatile', maybe I should skip class altogether. But what to do in the meantime? Find somewhere where I won't be swept up in mob violence and then go to class? Or just head home and stuff my face with food while the city burns for the fourth night in a row? Ha-hummm ... it is a beautiful evening ... but I do want to learn this choreography and summer classes were so hard to find ...

Dammit. Why have these bastards got no respect for the needs of middle class hobbyists?!

UPDATE (7pm): I'm home and I'm off to class. Best of both worlds, because if we don't try to live our lives as usual then ~~I paid £10 for nothing~~ this thing will never be over.

Good to meet you: Aziza of Cairo

2011-08-08T09:11:00.003+01:00

This is obviously not Aziza, Canadian flavour. But this Aziza is a rising star on the Cairo scene. A surprisingly informed and, by YouTube standards, respectful debate is raging about whether or not she's just copying Dina.

Meanwhile, lest you think that that costume marks a new era of austerity for dancers, check out the 'groping hands' cups on this bra!:

"I'm a woman, honey, not a radio. Twisting those things won't get you WKRP FM."

Time travelling

2011-08-02T09:01:00.001+01:00

Quite often I do some digging around in various online archives, and here's some stuff I've dusted off from the Guardian's. I unearthed this 1999 gem about the state of belly dance in Cairo. It features a few soundbites from Yasmina of Cairo and touches on the West's dubious contribution to the artform: the use of pop music. (Foxy has already provoked, erm, 'lively' debate over at Shimmies, Sequins & Slippers on this very issue. (For what it's worth - i.e. nothing - in my humble opinion it's a bit like the old maxim about playing jazz. Once you know the rules about dancing to Arabic music, then you can go off and dance to pop music occasionally. Otherwise you may as well take up street dancing.)) Since this was written over ten years ago, it would be great if there was a follow-up piece about how the Arab Spring has or hasn't affected the Egyptian dance scene. But I won't hold my breath.

There's also this Q & A with one of my teachers, Jo Wise, in which she dispenses such pearls of wisdom as "No six pack, no problem." Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe I've found the legend I will have tattooed in Gothic script across my bread basket, Tommy Lee-styles.

And finally, this very, very, short-to-the-point-of-why-bother? bit about male dancers in Istanbul, which opens with the most deliciously terrible opening sentence since "It was a dark and stormy night":

"When darkness falls over the Bosphorus, veils are adjusted and sequins shimmer."

Don't think too hard about that one, 'kay? If you start wondering how sequins can shimmer in the darkness and why the night seemingly gets really clumsy over the Bosphorus and so on, your head is going to explode.

Ask Jilly, the belly dancing colossal squid and agony aunt

2011-07-27T23:43:00.001+01:00

Dear Jilly,

I attach a photo of all my ebay purchases within the last month. This is pretty much the source of my problem: I am running out of space and money.

Suzy's ebay purchases for the month

Nevermind all the pricey costumes I’ve amassed: when you factor in the cost of workshops, weekly classes, summer schools, CDs, iTunes downloads, instructional and performance DVDs, swords, Isis wings, zagat, shoes and Pedralta sandals, drums, jewellery, a belly-dance themed cruise I’m taking on the Mediterranean with Nesma and Ozgen, tambourines, a decent camera with video capability, knee pads (so important for floor work and handy for doing the gardening), canes, shamadans, stage make up, Sai'idi dresses, photo shoots, khaleegi gowns, hair pieces and wigs, cover-ups, books about belly dance and the Middle East, galabeyas, tickets to haflas and shows, a subscription to Mosaic, fake flowers, extra fringing, assuit shawls, practice wear, tassels, Bellydance Superstars merchandise, melaya leffs and veils, I reckon that since I took up belly dancing about 18 months ago I’ve spent roughly £2.7 million on my hobby.

So far I have funded this by selling (among other things) my house and one of my kidneys. I have moved into my car to save money on bills and rent. My husband left me and took the dog, and I was secretly relieved because there wasn’t room for them and my collection of Bella costumes in the back of the Toyota. Also, I recently acquired a sewing machine and a large amount of sari fabric and bags of beading and appliqué, so I needed the front seat (where the dog used to sleep) for storage. The other plus is that there wasn’t enough money left at the end of each month to feed all three of us, and while I’m happy with a bag of popcorn every second day my husband’s whining about his rapid weight loss and cramped legs was getting on my nerves.

There are a few other bits and pieces I’d like to get too, and I’d like to live in a proper building again so I can show off my huge collection of vintage Fifi Abdou movie posters. Unfortunately this won’t happen any time soon – I recently lost my job because I have sold all my ‘regular’ clothes to make more room for my dance kit. As a result, all I have to wear are melaya dresses, harem pants, 25-yard skirts, kick-flared tribal trousers and cabaret costumes, but my boss took me aside and said I no longer project “the right image for a funeral parlour” and that he would have to let me go.

Now that I’m single, unemployed, homeless and my dog has left me, what do you think I should do? Start performing professionally to make a living, or enter a Texas Hold’em tournament in hopes of winning enough money to buy a trailer to store all my stuff in? My only concern is that after only 18 months I’m not really good enough for ‘the circuit’. Since I’m taking up burlesque classes soon, ideally I’d like enough money to buy a house I can install a dance studio in, but I realise I need to be realistic.

Many thanks

Suzy Squashed

PS – how much do you think a large albino python would cost, and where would I get one?

Dear Suzy

I am not a doctor, but it seems obvious to me that you are suffering from sequinosis fabulosa (colloquially known as ‘the shines’), a common but serious ailment that afflicts roughly 99.999% of all belly dancers, ballroom dancers, figure skaters, burlesque artistes, showgirls and drag queens. For reasons that no one quite understands, it also tends to be fairly common among Australian women over the age of 50, though they are the only group outside of the performing arts known to be affected.

There is a milder, but similar, illness called glitteritis splendidiosa (‘the sparkles’). In its early stages, the shines is often misdiagnosed as the sparkles and this is why sufferers quite often develop a chronic form of the disease, despite the fact that it can be treated if caught early. The differences between the two are few but significant, and I’d like to take a moment to reproduce this section from Common Complaints and Ailments of the Eccentric (pp 1305 - 1306) for the benefit of other readers:

The Shines
The patient may not have always had an attraction to what they insist on calling ‘shiny things’ [hence the name], but after intense exposure to extravagant clothing, for example during an episode of Dancing with the Stars, they may develop an obsession with ‘shiny things’ almost overnight.
Their everyday attire may remain quite drab and/or conservative, but there will be beaded, sequinned and fringed items concealed around their home. Sufferers will often say things like, “I know I’ll never wear it, but it was so beautiful I just had to have it.”
Even “shinies” will be able to objectively admit that some of the follies they are splashing their cash on are quite hideous. This is part of what makes sequinosis fabulosa so dangerous: just because an object or piece of fabric is highly decorated and reflective, a shinie will feel compelled to buy it even if they know they neither need nor like it. The justification for this will often be something along the lines of “I’m going to cut that up and turn it into a costume.” Though this may be said with conviction, it is a lie.
Left unchecked, a shinie’s compulsion to acquire ‘shiny things’ will eventually take over their whole life until even their taste in interior design is affected. Among belly dancers, there have been reported cases of this developing into a distressing obsession with accumulating various items of “Egyptianalia”: plaster casts of black cats and shabti figures, plastic pyramids, brass lamps, gilded tea glasses, figurines of camels, reproductions of Tutankhamun’s death mask and so on. See also “Egyptophrenia”, “Turkophilia” and “Moroccomania”.
The Sparkles
Common among teenagers, five year-olds taking ballet classes, Katie Price, Peter Stringfellow and women who drink alcopops.
A variant form has also been diagnosed in members of so-called ‘hair metal’ and ‘glam rock’ bands, but thanks to an intensive vaccination program undertaken in the early 1990s cases are rarer now. A predilection for ‘pleather’, lace, fluorescent neon shades and fur was also noted in most of these patients.
Unlike the shines, many patients will ‘grow out of’ sparkliness in their late teens/early-mid twenties. Quite often it is the acquiring of a 'real job' that seems to effect a cure. However, much like herpes [cold sores], symptoms may recur throughout the patient's life. Symptoms typically recur only on very specific occasions (for example, when dressing for a big night out or when the patient is organising their own wedding).
Long-term physical effects are usually no worse than nail art, a fake tan and a butterfly tattoo.
Often, but not always, patients may show a fondness for animal print, soft toys, and the colour pink.

You can see where the two maladies overlap. But Suzy, as surely as my mass is more comfortable when well submerged, you have a full-blown case of stage 4 shines. It's bad, and you may be beyond help. I note with concern the joy you seem to take in listing your acquisitions, and the fact that you think your 'real' problem is that you don't have the space or funds to indulge your obsession even though you have lost everything. I am therefore going to get a proper shrink to get in touch with you privately, and publish this only as a warning to others to be on their guard for the early warning signs in themselves.

But for Poseidon's sake, DO NOT take up burlesque classes (you have no room for corsets, tiny hats and feather boas at this point in time) and DO NOT get an animal. This poor beast belonged to a dancer in Omaha who had developed full-blown shines with aggravating Egyptophrenia*:

I wish you luck with your recovery.

Bestests

Jilly x

*Or is totes Photoshopped. Up to you.

A belly dance costume without glamour is ...?

2011-07-21T18:44:00.001+01:00

At the risk of stepping on the beautifully pedicured toes of Amulya over at What Were They Thinking?, I would like to direct your attention to this unusual design, currently available from Farida Dance for the bargain price of £180.

www.faridadance.com/sensational-performance-costumes/others/370-kami.html

[Whistling and inspecting my fingernails as I wait for you to recover.]

The cap and the wristbands are a nice touch, dontcha think? Who hasn't watched a dancer spinning around a restaurant and thought, "That dancer has lovely hair, but not so lovely that she should be performing without a baseball cap"?

Farida bills this honey as the perfect outfit for 'Forces Fusion' (ye gods...please, no one do that for real). However, if you have seen the documentary Beauty Will Save the World, about an international beauty pageant in Libya, you may be reminded of the blackly comic finale in which the competitors used the medium of modern dance to re-enact Gaddafi's bloodless military coup.

I have to give props to Farida for sticking this on a smokin' hot blonde with a kick-ass smile. Nice move, Farida - I was almost convinced that this costume was the shizz: then I realised the model would look great in a bin liner and came to my senses.

Mouh + The Raqasa = Aloha from Hell

2011-07-16T18:00:00.001+01:00

For today's post to make any sense, please refresh your memories of the wondrous Mouh Friend.

The perfect outfit for a day on which you attend both a hula workshop and a hafla?

A week ago today, The Raqasa posted about going to a hula workshop and a hafla. She said that if she was not too tired she would post the next day about her experiences. So where has she been this last week, no one asked? With me, my friends. With me. Fatigue did not claim her - I did. In a way.
Our story goes like this. On Sunday I sent an email to The Raqasa. She responded immediately. To Mouh, women always respond immediately. It is The First Law of the Cosmos. "Meet me," I said. "Discard your nun-chucks of desire on the road of satisfaction and meet me."
Two hours later we are together in my lavish but humble dwelling place, in the Land of Much Lightening and Enormous Eagles. "It has been a hell of a time to get here," said The Raqasa, who insisted I called her 'Clare'. For some reason. "First I had to cross a river of boiling blood. Then I had to battle a hoard of spirits. Then I had to outwit some screaming harpies, and other such half-remembered horrors from Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. And then there was a signal failure on the Northern Line."
Mouh Friend is renowned for his bravery, my friends, but even he shuddered at this last. The Raqasa who is now called Clare then said, "Do you have anything to drink?" We drank.
She described her Saturday. The hula workshop was both informative and fun, she said. She learnt many things, and was embarrassed by her inability to uwehe. Also, she found out that Tamsin from Hula UK is totes awesome. Clare talked and talked and drank and drank. Mouh began to weary, my friends.
Then Clare talked some more, about the Brixton Summer Hafla. The dancers were all "amazing", especially Xanthe doing her first-ever solo (and, according to Clare, if no one had told her it was Xanthe's first solo, she never would have guessed). The 'suprise performance' was from Ozgen. Aiwa! The same Ozgen as the one you are probably thinking of, my friends. She described "a bloody weird" veil dance to Roxette's Listen to Your Heart. This is not a song that Mouh was familiar with, but having listened to it 30 times on the YouTube, I must say it is a song to cradle your lover to when she is sad. I do not understand the mentality of the 128 users of the YouTube who have indicated their dislike for the song.
The fact that the dancer was "floor humping" to this song made me wish very much that I, Mouh Friend, could also have been at the Brixton Summer Hafla. At this point, I have started to think that, despite her defeating of my Facebook friends and her harrowing journey to the Land of Much Lightening and Enormous Eagles, perhaps Clare and I are not meant to be. Also, she is wearing a wedding ring. Mouh would do anything for love, my friends, but he just won't do that.
While my thoughts are wandering, Clare is still talking. And drinking. She talked of how she bought a drink at the hafla and was shocked and delighted in equal measure when her paper cup was filled with rum and then topped up with ginger ale. She talked of how the friend who accompanied her to the hafla was burgled that same night. Also, of getting the night bus home from Brixton to north London. This last story was very boring.
When she had drained the last from her glass, Mouh made a hard decision. I bade Clare return to the world above. "But it will take me ages," she said, with what I detected was a note of complaint. "If you want me to go, I will. But if my blog hasn't been updated on Friday, I want you to update it for me because it means I'm still on my way home. Getting here only took two hours because I was fuelled with desire and an urgent need to pee, but I am less motivated to get back. Here are the blog's log-in details, which I will change as soon as I can. If you alter or delete any of my other posts, I will teach Jilly the Colossal Squid, belly dancer and agony aunt, to wield nun-chucks and come back for your Enormous Eagle-mastering butt."
(I know that Clare was not really upset about the amount of time it was going to take her to get home. Really, she was heartbroken that Mouh was not going to make her A Friend. But a woman who will claw the eyes out of strangers and brandish nun-chucks is not a woman who will let the man she is set on spending her life with see her cry, even if that man has deemed her to be unworthy of him.)

Mouh is a man of his word. This is the post she bade me write. So, my friends. Mouh is still available. But I have twice as many Facebook friends as I did when The Raqasa first fought for me, and one of them is a star of adult film. You know the odds you must surmount. So surmount!

The Raqasa goes to the Pacific (and Brixton)

2011-07-09T12:09:00.000+01:00

Today I will be attending my first ever hula workshop with Hawaiian Hula UK, whom I met through the medium of blogging. How about that? (While I'm on it, check out her post on 'bellynesian': contrary to what the raqs purists would have you believe, the issues around fusing dance forms don't all run one way, y'know.)

And after the workshop, I'm heading to Brixton to a hafla, where a friend of a friend will perform her first ever solo. Naturally, I will be whooping and cheering until I'm croaking. What all this means is that tomorrow, if I have the energy, there will be a big ol' retrospective of Clare's Big Dance Day.

I'm very excited about the hula class - it will be my first real brush with Pasifika culture since leaving Aotearoa/New Zealand. Since Maori Language Week is just winding down there, here's a taste of some Kapa Haka:

If you're wondering what the reference to 'Poi-e' is all about, it was the biggest-selling kiwi-made single of my youth. The Patea Maori Club was formed in response to the closing of the freezing works (i.e. abattoir) in Patea in the 1980s as a result of the removal of government farming subsidies: a closure that knocked the stuffing out of the town, leaving almost every man unemployed and every family without an income. (Don't get me started on the economic 'reforms' of the 1980s. Even today, driving through Patea is like driving through a ghost town.) The club was supposed to help people rebuild their sense of community, but the song they recorded also happens to rock like a werepig:

According to urban legend, the breakdancing guy just showed up in the background of some shots trying to get noticed, hogged the limelight and then was never heard from again. What a legend.

Bring it to win it

2011-07-06T09:06:00.001+01:00

Nine year-old Robert Jeffrey owning the New York skyline.

I performed to Madonna's Vogue in the Summer of 1991 when my parents took me to Hampton Beach Casino in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. A business in the casino at the time gave tourists the chance to lip-synch to their favorite pop songs in front of a blue screen background, and I was lucky enough to partake that summer.

Confidence. He had it.

Belly dance/burlesque fusion: the issue that will not die

2011-07-02T11:38:00.002+01:00

I am indebted to Mahin of The Daily Belly Dance Quickie, purveyor of fine tips for practising at home, for tweeting this (you can and should follow her: @DailyBDQuickie or sign up for her e-mailing list), with the question: "Does this belly dance fusion cross the line for you?"

Perhaps a better question would be: "Does this count as 'fusion' at all?" I only see a belly dancer in a burlesque costume.

^Holds laptop upside down and sideways in case the angles reveal something new^

Nope, I still just see belly dancing in the wrong outfit. Hm. At least starting out in your knickers negates the chances of this happening:

Sooner forget your skirt than your smalls, eh?

Booby traps

2011-07-01T10:53:00.001+01:00

If you're a woman, chances are it sometimes feels like the whole world is staring at your chest. Do you know why? Because it is.

From the hills of Papua New Guinea to the bridges of Madison County, from the mountains of Tibet to the pissoirs of Paris; everyone is thinking about boobs, talking about sweater puppies, feeding from fun bags, assaulting police officers with chesticles, looking at jugs, making ice cream from bazoomas and owning breasts.

Personally, I am very fond of mine and if you are lucky enough to have some of your very own, why not show them some respect? Give yourself a breast exam (it could save your life). Don't shove hunks of silicone into them in the name of 'cosmetic enhancement' -- trust me, to enhance a breast is to gild a lily. The best thing you can do to show off your charlies in all their natural glory is to get yourself a bra that fits.

On that note, do you really need to sleep in a bra? I had not realised that anyone did this until I read about this "anti-wrinkle" bra. Seriously. I get that if you have gargantuan bolt-ons it might be more comfortable to strap the girls in for the night, but this is not about comfort. The woman who invented this ghastly contraption used to sleep in a regular bra with a pair of rolled-up socks stuffed between her breasts, until she came up with this and began flogging it for £45 (approx US$72):

My advice, if you are truly worried about a wrinkly chest, is to use the inventor's original (free!) method. If you're insane and think this is the sexiest look ever and would like to emulate it in your own boudoir (your partner might have a fetish for baseball catcher's protective wear for all I know), just duct-tape one of these between your bazongas:

See? Good as a bought one.

And, if you are a belly dancer, you might want to think twice about investing in one of these unless you are smaller than an AA cup:

My sister bought me one of these, with a matching belt, in India. It's a beautiful colour but I've never been able to wear the top because of all the indecent exposure.

Asmahan of London

2011-06-27T16:34:00.001+01:00

The delightfully, theatrically batty Asmahan of London, teacher at the delightfully batty Pineapple Studios (where Madonna filmed her studio scenes for the video to Hung Up, dontcha know), and some of her students, talk raqs with the Guardian:

I will fight you for him

2011-06-25T10:32:00.001+01:00

As previously mentioned, in August Jilly and I are off on a belly dance based holiday (RAKS BE). Because it is the year 2011, RAKS BE has a Facebook page. Anyone is welcome to publicly declare their "like" of it and write on its wall.

You might think that a Facebook page for belly dancers might attract a certain undesirable element of the heterosexual, internet-using, male population. Happily, thus far that has not been the case. In fact, to the joy of RAKS BE attendees everywhere, the reverse has been true.

One wall post has emerged head and lightening-surrounded shoulders above the prosaic venue announcements and questions about whether or not to bring a melaya to fill the RAKS BE page with testosterone-soaked, female-attracting magic.

Here is the delectable Mouh Friend:

Be still, my beating heart. I apologise for the quality of this image, but I think the suave-itude is still dripping of the screen in waves, isn't it? This is obviously the profile picture of a man with a deep knowledge of, and abiding respect for, oriental dance. His FB page confirms as much: his favourite movie is Rambo and he supports Real Madrid, the belly dancer's football team of choice.

"Please ask for friendship with me in Facebook", murmurs Mouh, and ladies -- we had better move fast. We may ask for his friendship, but reading between the lines it seems obvious that Mouh will offer a lot more in return. Mouh already has ten Facebook "friends", and at least eight of them are young, attractive women.

16 is a barely manageable number of eyes to scratch out as we literally claw our way to becoming Mouh's best girl, but if you want to really impress Mouh hand-to-hand combat skills may not be enough. Familiarity with heavy weaponry and falconry would be advantages.

Plus, you'll have to make it past me and my nun-chucks if you really want a chance to share Mouh's heavily Photoshopped world. Verily, the course of true love never did run smooth.

Thought for the day

2011-06-24T08:37:00.001+01:00

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young - or slender.

William James, US philosopher

It's not just you

2011-06-21T18:30:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was all about the "OOFF!" But today is about the more Mudane Moments of Merde.

You don't need to spectacularly face-plant in order to walk off stage or out of class feeling like the most unco-ordinated set of limbs ever to be attached to a torso: but don't worry because ....

... it's not just you.

Though, it must be said, the little girl who uses her errant hip scarf as a prop is For The Win! A budding Cassandra Fox*, methinks.

*Mini-disasterette strikes at about the 6-minute mark.

Ryan Dunn memorial post: Agonising moments in belly dance

2011-06-20T22:59:00.003+01:00

Ryan Dunn, erstwhile star of the ridiculously sado-masochistic MTV franchise Jackass, was killed in a car accident this morning. No one who has reported this sad fact, including me, can help but mention that 34 year-old Dunn will be best remembered for inserting a toy car into his anus. On camera. Perhaps it is best to leave no legacy at all than one like that.

My point is that Ryan would likely have appreciated the clips in today's post. However, if you are not an overgrown teenage boy with all the finer feelings of a pair of medieval forceps, you may not want to watch this first one at all. Or at least, you may want to watch it through your fingers.

She's a pretty good dancer, so if you want to enjoy this without the horrifying ending, I'd recommend just hitting 'stop' the moment she breaks into her backwards chou-chou shimmy. Are you ready? 'Kay, let's do this:

Ye gods - but I can assure you that there's a slightly longer version of this clip that clearly shows she gets up and carries on like nothing happened! Now that is a professional. Hopefully she got a good stiff drink while she was down there.

This is not a professional, and because it doesn't involve falling from a great height on to the business end of a bar you should find this pretty bearable. At least, it's not in the same league as The Wardrobe of Justice:

And tomorrow, there'll be more of the same but without the pain. Can't wait!

The Furry Dance

2011-06-18T11:31:00.001+01:00

Yes, my friends, you read that correctly. Part of travelling involves the learning of new things, and I learnt something as I passed through the Cornish town of "Helston: Home of the Furry Dance". When I saw that on the town's welcome sign, I had great visions of beardy men clad in fur, dancing like bears and badgers.

Alas, this is not the case.

Still awesome though!

cornwall-opc.org

There was also a church hall offering "sequence dancing" classes -- assuming that was just a new euphemism for "line dancing" I got my snicker ready, but actually "sequence dancing" is this. It's true, y'all - travel broadens your horizons.

PS: It's true that I also thought "Furry Dancing" might involve people who are, y'know, um, "into animal costumes in a grown-up way" cough, blush furiously, but we SO don't need to go there ...

Harem dancers: Lisa Guiraut

2011-06-10T08:59:00.007+01:00

Lisa Guiraut (Leila) is best known as the dancer who catches the eye of Sean Connery's Bond in From Russia With Love (1963). She also had dance cameos in the TV show Espionage (in the episode The Weakling) (1963), starring Dennis Hopper and Patricia Neal, and in the classic 1962 film The Days of Wine and Roses.

UPDATE [23/02/12]: After months of searching, I have found a pic of Lisa in the "dancing on the yacht" scene from The Days of Wine and Roses! If anyone has a clip please let me know.

She was in a German TV mini-series in the late 1960s, had a walk-on part in a 1982 French farce about a bank clerk "given" a prostitute as a retirement gift. And then ... nothing. Not even a Wikipedia page.

EDIT (31 October 2011): Originally this post featured a clip of Lisa dancing in the 1966 Charlton Heston vehicle Khartoum. Unfortunately, it's been removed because the YouTube account holder had breached terms and conditions. Here is a still picture of Lisa in Khartoum instead:

Her costume here is not at all authentic given that the film is based on General Gordon's ultimately doomed defence of Khartoum in the early 1880s. On the other hand, Laurence Olivier is not at all authentic as the Mahdi (Muhammed Ahmed), and Charlton Heston is not at all authentic as a Victorian Englishman. So at least there is a vein of consistency there...

As soon as I can find another version of this clip I'll re-post it! In the meantime, you can download the whole film from this site: http://jooy.ru/node/22136

Good luck with that if you're brave enough to try it.

Bizarre costume time

2011-06-09T09:01:00.001+01:00

I really can't see this look catching on, can you?

The Occidental Dancer

Wonder Woman Wednesday: Calliope

Sha'abi Sunday: Sa'd El Soghayar's 'El Enab' feat. Dina

Stars of the 1970s (image and text-heavy edition): Juliana

Harem dancers: Chelo Alonso

Funky Friday: Zayne's 'Shake It'

Why so quiet, Jilly?

Let them bite you, because trolls are toothless!

Egyptian Cabaret (12 February)

It's aaawwwwnnnn...

Breaking it down

Original moonwalkers: Bill Bailey, Jeffrey Daniel and ... Dick van Dyke?

Jilly the Colossal Squid vs The Green-Eyed Monster

Harem dancers: Liana Orfei

Roll up, roll up: Stunt belly dancing

Good to meet you: Tufaha of Bahrain

Weird Wednesday Woo: I vant to suck your ...

Send Galit to the Fringe!

Good to meet you: Prince Erkan Serce

Pics du jour: Arab Spring graffiti

Lady Buddha with 1000 hands

Happy Burns Night!

On stage with the Arab-Hebrew Theatre

"I'm not too fond of belly dancers"

Harem dancers: Rosemarie Bowe

Maelle's classes start TOMORROW

Stars of the c.1870s: Shafiqa Al-Qibtiyaa

A gleam from Aladdin

I see Paris, I see France ...

2012: The year of thinking UP!

The last post (for the year)

Christmas Special: Wookie Woo

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 5): When Photoshop effects attack

Christmas hells

A weekend of it

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Or not?

She dreams of 1969*

Another weekend, another hafla

Hair be drag-ons

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 4): Dancing barefoot, but in heels

Hair be dragons

Photo du jour

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 3): Can Can from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld

How I became a dancer

Stars of the 1940s: Houriya Mohamed

Mad, mad props

The day in awesome: males in veils

Thought for the day

Bo Derek learning to belly roll in "Bolero" (1984)

"Why yes, I AM a professional belly dancer!"

Arm-ageddon

Bellydance Trophies

Stars of the Millennium: Rachel Brice

Man of the Day: Omar Sharif

Stars of the 1990s: Howaida Hachem

Libyan zokra

Happy birthday, Barrie Chase

Julie Mendez in "On the Buses" (1970)

You look like you need a hug

Om Kalthoum: "Enta Omri" vs Guns n' Roses: "November Rain"

Friday Night at the Movies: "Lady of Burlesque" (1943)

Weird Wednesday Woo (Part 2): Belly dance on tiny wheels

Stars of the 1980s: Dina

Weird Wednesday Woo: "The Belly Dancer is a Sexy Spy"

Harem dancers: Maria Felix

Story time

Apologies

Ziller gorilla

Don't believe everything you read

Special Feature: Star Trek's Slave Girls of Orion

Cassandra vs "Cattandra"

Good to meet you: Ebony

Bettie Page 'dancing'

R*A*K*S Stars bonus: Queenie

R*A*K*S Stars: "K" is for Khalida

R*A*K*S Stars: "A" is for Artemisia

R*A*K*S Stars: "R" is for Razia

And we're off ...

No sleep 'til Leuven

Feline Friday

RAK*S Stars bonus: Queenie

RAK*S Stars: "K" is for Khalida

RAK*S Stars: "A" is for Artemisia

RAK*S Stars: "R" is for Razia