Middle Eastern Dance and What We Call It

This article traces the historical background of the term ‘belly dance’, the English-language name for a complex of solo, improvised dance styles of Middle Eastern and North African origin whose movements are based on articulations of the torso. The expression danse du ventre – literally, ‘dance of the belly’ – was initially popularised in France as an alternate title for Orientalist artist Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1863 painting of an Egyptian dancer and ultimately became the standard designation for solo, and especially women's, dances from the Middle East and North Africa. The translation ‘belly dance’ was introduced into English in 1889 in international media coverage of the Rue du Caire exhibit at the Parisian Exposition Universelle. A close examination of the historical sources demonstrates that the evolution of this terminology was influenced by contemporary art, commercial considerations, and popular stereotypes about Eastern societies. The paper concludes with an examination of dancers' attitudes to the various English-language names for the dance in the present day.

The Male Dancer in the Middle East and Central Asia

Within this quotation the reader may find a rich description of historical and even contemporary Middle Eastern attitudes toward dance and male dancers in particular, penned from a native point of view. In this article I address those attitudes, but more importantly challenge several cherished, long-held assumptions and theoretical stances expressed by native elites and Westerners interested in Middle Eastern dance and dancers. First, I challenge the romantic views that many gay men hold that the presence of male dancers and the sexual interest expressed toward them by Middle Eastern men somehow constitutes evidence for an environment accepting of homosexuality and a Utopian gay paradise, where the possibility of unbridled sexual congress with handsome, passionately out-of-control Arabs, Persians, and Turks exists. Thus, they crucially confuse gay or homosexual identity with homosexual activity or behavior. Because of this confusion, I use an important aspect of queer theory that counters “the monolithic alternative of liberationist gay politics” (Bleys 1995, 7) to look at the phenomenon of professional male dancers in a somewhat grittier, more realistic light. In particular, I refer to Stephen O. Murray's groundbreaking article, “The Will Not to Know” (1997, 14–54) which establishes a valuable lens through which to view how the vast majority of Middle Eastern individuals regard homosexual acts.