The units of analysis are critical incidents (see Webster & Mertova, 2007 and Bruner, 1996) found in the narrative case studies and represent key developmental stages which practitioners identify as crucial in becoming an ‘authentic’ Belly Dancer. The narrative case study approach, commonly used within social sciences and educational research, has a holistic approach to complexity, multiplicity of perspectives and human-centredness that lends itself to the narrations of Belly Dance identities for this study. As described by Webster & Mertova’s text Using
Narrative Inquiry as a Research Method (2007), critical event(s) or incidents (see Bruner 1996)
within a given narrative provide the researcher with key “mechanisms by which the most important occurrences are transmitted” (2007, 72). The critical aspect of these incidents is best defined by Woods as the “right mix of ingredients at the right time and in the right context”
(1993, 357), allowing researchers to pinpoint changes and transformations occurring during the formation of a specific identity.
Most dance ethnography is written without this overlay. I have found that the large amount of primary data produced during the research process lends itself to this type of organization, however. An important aspect of the research is to discover the moment, the critical moment(s) of change, resistance to past English Belly dance practices, and the development of new English Belly Dance identities in response to external stimulus, creative insight and in some cases fashions and trends within the community. During the process of conducting interviews practitioner’s interchangeably describe their personal development and their development in Belly Dance practice in the form of insightful moments and or new perspectives they have drawn from training, new instructors, experiences in the field, travels to Egypt and so on, it would appear that the sense of “beginning to find out or discover the ‘truth’” underlines the search for
authenticity in Belly Dance performance. Bruner’s critical incident (1986) model provides the most coherent and accessible method of data organization and locating as accurately as possible the incidents of personal and processional Belly Dance transformation.
2.2 Methods
Methods of observation and generating primary data
Initially seven case studies were formally interviewed using a structured interview script for a period of three hours. These interviews were recorded and transcribed long hand. Interviews were conducted over a two-year period, which provided further and usually more detailed and nuanced material from which initial data could be verified and drawn out to reveal additional changes of perspective over time. The interviewing process began in 2008 and was completed in 2011. My own formal interview was conducted by Adam Dalton18, over a four-hour period following the structured interview script used for all practitioners. Further material that I generated on Belly Dance internet discussion sites provided secondary material with which to compare and contrast my formal interview.
One of the main components of the research is dance; each practitioner was filmed executing movements during the interview. The purpose of the filming was to capture each practitioner’s Belly Dance teaching, detailing how they moved, how they described the movement and how they taught movement units found in the Belly Dance lexicon. Other information appeared during the filming, including comparison with older material. For example Caroline Afifi
demonstrated a previously taught method of producing a camel and more recent methods – learnt in Egypt – to produce the same movement. Filming dancers proved to be a valuable source of
18 A J Dalton is a published fantasy novelist and used to be an EFEL teacher and product designer for the British Council.
material, especially when informants seemed to be more familiar with being filmed than they were with sound recording instruments.
Two workshops from each of the three practitioners have been selected in order to
cross-reference findings and notes taken during both workshops. Initially, when attending workshops I only observed and took notes. This changed to a more participatory involvement in each
selected workshop. For example when observing Anne’s Baladi workshop at MADE (2008) she continually referred to me as an observer. This interfered with both the observation and the flow of the workshop the only option was to participate fully. An extra benefit of this was that it allowed me to access better my kinesthetic intelligence as a dancer, rather than privileging inadequately written explanatory notes and descriptions of the workshop process. By immersing myself in the experience of learning from each practitioner the dance-object and the teaching processes and techniques offered became a primary data source. This posed difficulties when approaching my own workshop material. The solution adopted was to ask for written and verbal feedback from students and hosts (teachers who had invited me to give a workshop) and for selected students in the workshop process to repeat a movement and verbal instruction for me to measure the effectiveness of the taught material and gain insight into how a student processes the material on offer. It was not an entirely satisfactory method and filming my workshops
presented another solution. Still there is no fail safe method of observing your own work in the field (Coffey 1999 and Aull Davies 2008), only innovations on a theme.
One unexpected advantage of selecting Anne White was her extensive archive of collected documents, one that includes newspaper clips, filmed interviews, filmed performances, academic texts concerning earlier Belly Dance research in the field and other resources. Caroline Afifi did not produce an archive in hard copy form, although her regular presence on internet Belly Dance
discussion sites and subsequent posting of material from her previous performance work assisted in the collection of relevant data. My own practice archive, including research texts, published articles and filmed performances, is included as primary source material. Initially interviews and performance work were considered the only data available, but it is clear the internet has
provided new sites for practitioner interaction and these constitute primary data source sites and in some cases discursive sites in which researchers can approach case studies directly (Aull Davies 2008).
A sustained involvement at various levels within the Egyptian and English communities of Belly Dance practice including students, audience members and traders, has provided notes and documents concerning peer review, student observations and commentary of individual case studies and broader community concerns. The material presented from other conversations, interviews and forum-based debates have provided further verification of the primary data and presented new angles of approach. Again collecting data and opinion in reference to my work created suspicion and or flattery. An indirect method employed was to ask trusted colleagues to elicit information on my behalf – again there are specific ethical issues concerning this method – these outweighed the benefits, and because the subject was myself I felt it was a valuable tool and valid method of extracting social perspectives on my Belly Dancing in the community.
Chapter 2: Part 2