Bacon’s thesis identifies a contrast between other migrant dances found in the English urban landscape and Arabic Dance; she recognizes that dances usually migrate within their attributing cultural Diaspora (2003, 104). Bacon’s explanation is “that it’s not simply that Egyptian dancers travelled to England and American dancers to England” and “nor is it as simple as the Orientalist agenda.” On reflection she comments that there is “something more complex in the history”. I would argue that this complexity can be found in the competing narratives of authenticity found in the work of Hilal and Buonaventura, an English Belly Dance tradition described in chapter three. Bacon referenced this English Belly Dance past indirectly, albeit her continual use of the term Arabic Dance throughout her thesis refers directly to the Buonaventura narrative of English Belly Dance origins. I would argue her omission avoided the complex issue of Hilal and
Buonaventura’s active influence during the formation of a coalesced community of practice (see Wenger, 1996), one which directly affected the dancing figured worlds of her own research case studies. This omission also avoided the themes of authenticity which refer to performing another cultural dance form in a different cultural context. Bacon suggests the Middle East Diaspora’s ambivalence towards Belly Dancing in England is a common feature found in England and in Egypt. However, Bacon’s reference to Finnegan’s (1992) methodological approach indicates Bacon’s concern with handling data and the subsequent issues of the identity of the dancers and the dance-object itself (2003, 223).
When introducing her case studies Bacon uses a critical incident of each case study to illustrate the moment when they commit to the formation of a Belly Dance identity. For example, early in Denny’s dancing career (2003, 104) she attends “Belly Dance In,” a Belly Dance showcase of several groups and artists in Convent Garden, London (circa 1990). This critical incident convinces her to commit to Belly Dance classes. During this period in London several practitioners performing would have been Hilal or Buonaventura trained. Effectively Denny would have witnessed this English Belly Dance tradition at the Covent Garden showcase.
Denny’s self perception and her process of becoming a self-identified Belly Dancer emerged from direct contact with Hilal and Buonaventura traditions on display. In England the significant
“change agents” were Hilal and Buonaventura. It is not clear in Bacon’s thesis how this unique English Belly Dance tradition was present.
Bacon draws from a post modern perspective to describe the dislocated status of “Arabic dancing in a global context [which] could be considered to be an activity that is indicative of
contemporary urban life that might assist in questioning how theorists and others frame reality”
(Ibid, 104). Bacon is referring to the explosion of world dance in western culture, specifically her field site of Northampton. Bacon offers a micro-perspective of a group of Belly Dance
enthusiasts, one which draws on the social interactions and the social value of both the
movement and the group activities. My research takes Bacon’s initial ethnographic work further, by expanding the field site and focusing on practitioners who provide Belly Dance training to a wider public across England and abroad. These key figures represent a macro-perspective on the larger English Belly Dancing field site and reality. My assertion is that the figured worlds of these prominent English Belly Dance community members, members who are not peripheral
members but core members of the shared community of practice (see Wenger, 1996), offer a different perspective on how to theorize and frame the reality of contemporary, urban, western activity of Belly Dancing. The perspective they offer is a complex relationship between their figured worlds (micro) and the changing trends and development of the English Belly Dance tradition and identity in performance (macro).
Bacon found informants who “appear to have no real concern for the form as it might appear in Egypt.” My findings suggest there was reason and truth behind this assertion in the mid to late 1990s English Belly Dance community. Evidence validates this finding; it also presents the case for a paradigmatic shift occurring in the community at the turn of the twenty first century, indicating a “cultural turn” towards an Egypt-focal style of Belly Dance training and aesthetic value. With the advent of cheap air flights it was possible for English Belly Dancers to seek alternative and new training opportunities in Egypt. This paradigmatic shift was taking place during Bacon’s fieldwork in the early 2000s, which could explain her omission, and her research rationale to focus on a Northamptonshire based Belly Dance community in order to examine a community dance practice within an urban location, not the transnational and global dimensions of the field site. However, in contrast to Bacon’s research observations and findings, I assert that English Belly Dancers were and continue to be engaged with the politics of identity and place. I argue that from the moment students walk into a Belly Dance class the issues of identity, culture and eventually their own agency is activated. Research indicates that place and identity in respect to the production of Belly Dance performances are a principal concern for both teacher and student during the late twentieth century (Cooper 2005b and McDonald 2010).
The paradoxical situation Bacon refers to as the “unknown” and the creation of a particular image of the exotic East changed significantly when community members travelled more regularly to Egypt. No longer was there an ancient and distant past; English Belly Dancers were encountering a modern and changing Egyptian Belly Dance culture in terms of music and dance styles. Bacon’s notion of an Oriental otherness found in her Northampton case study was, in effect, in the process of disassociating itself from past notions of otherness towards a new concept through encounters with a modern Egypt and culture. Here, Bacon argues that there has to be some social or cultural mechanism by which women need a sense of “self through the embodiment of universalizing concepts of dancing and womanhood” (Ibid, 105), what she terms
“personal myth structure” (Ibid, chapter six, pp 151-182). She suggests that knowledge constructed on irreconcilable binaries of “us and them” in addition to “black and white” are in operation here to define a new identity for women in English urban contexts. Bacon’s point concerning the valuable qualities perceived to be in the otherness, in this case Belly Dance, I would agree has foundation in current English Belly Dance practice. Where my argument differs is in the application of this perception of otherness. Where Bacon searches for a spiritual
application, the figured worlds of the three case studies in this research offer a different application, one that is found in the practitioner’s narrative of authenticity and the eventual construction of an “authentic” performance of Belly Dance.
In reference to Bacon’s notion of “the 'other' found at home, part of us, indistinguishable from 'self’, it is also possible to attend to the dancing of the individual or group rather than the notion of a dance, or dance text” (Ibid, 105). There remains a question concerning the original status of Belly Dance especially when the current English Belly Dance community privileges Egyptian
Belly Dance over other forms of Belly Dance (significantly over American forms of Belly Dance). Bacon proposes:
The link to western concepts of Orientalism and exoticism found in art, Hollywood films and Modern Dance suggest that this dancing is no longer 'other' but has become part of what is recognisable and acceptable in the popular memory. Neither does this dancing cohere to definitions of traditional dance (Buckland, 1983) because of the lack of historical evidence of its existence in England. (Ibid, 105)
By referencing Buonaventura’s historical timeline Bacon traces the existence of Arabic Dancing in England and America before the twentieth century, in which the dance had become part of the dancing landscape. She omits that this narrative of origin contains a bias towards Buonaventura’s constructed narrative of authenticity, one which was invested with her Sicilian/Libyan ancestral past. I argue that Belly Dance, the night club Egyptian version of Raqs el Baladi, can be accurately dated to 1926, located in the Dokki region of Cairo, Egypt (now the site of the Cairo Sheraton) and credited to the female entrepreneur Badia Masabni (see Franken 2003 and Nieuwkerke 1996). Buonaventura, Hilal and other practitioners in the 1970s and 1980s in England, along with the assistance of the “recognizable and acceptable popular memory”
presented in Hollywood films (Shohat, 2001), narrate a neo-colonialist perspective of what constitutes a hegemonic and arguably a contained Middle East in a fantastical dancing image.
The historical evidence of Belly Dance and associated dance forms have a long tradition in England dating back to the late 1920s and 1930s, when Salomania schools in London produced countless Salome impersonators to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils for the nationwide and international vaudeville theatre circuit (Buonaventura, 2001 and Deagon, 2005). The evidence of its existence in England destabilizes Bacon’s assertion that it does not cohere with Buckland’s
definitions of traditional dance (1983). It is possible, however, to ascertain that the cross-cultural argument and status of Belly Dance does have currency (Sellers-Young, 1992 & 2005). Badia Masabni, an actress and entrepreneur, travelled to Paris and other European cities, witnessing theatrical displays and masked balls101 and took from this performance showcase formula elements of the dance, socializing, exotica and other performance acts (see Franken 2003 and Roushdy 2010). The central issue of performing another traditional dance in a different cultural context is problematised by Belly Dance’s cross-cultural foundation back in 1926.
Bacon’s research and the initial contextualization of her case study referred to here reinforce my argument that several narratives of authenticity are operating within her case study and within the wider English Belly Dance community of practice. In reality Bacon’s use of the term Arabic Dance denotes a Buonaventura tradition. The narratives of authenticity concerning Egyptian Belly Dance practice and its impact on the Harem Troupe case study, I argue, are hidden, not unveiled. A detailed examination of the lives of key practitioners in the current English Belly
Dance community offers a researcher in the field a multi-dimensional view of past narratives of authenticity, tradition and emerging traditions. In the process, the figured worlds of English Belly Dancers identify and explain a dynamic and changing practice of Belly Dance, one that is influenced and troubled by Egyptian Belly Dance practice and also by the creative choices and
101 In reference to Buckland’s conference paper [unpublished] at SDHS conference in Surrey (2010). Buckland describes the masked balls found in turn of the twentieth century European society. In particular she references the masked balls in Paris and the use of Orientalist imagery, dancing, entertainment whilst people mingled with different classes of society. Badia Masabni, a wealthy, middle class Egyptian, travelled to Europe. I suspect she encountered the masked balls of Paris. Several descriptions of the performances held at Casino Opera include the use of comedians, dancers, musicians, singers and different displays of exotic cultural performances including Latino dance with veils. All of this suggests an importation of the European masked ball formula incorporated into the Egyptian nightclub environment (see Franken 2003, Nieuwkerk 1996 and Roushdy 2010). In effect, Masabni’s inception of the theatre dance we refer to as Belly Dance is in fact a cross-cultural amalgamation of European social theatre and spectacle with Egyptian social dance and cultural convention. In conversation with Anthony Shay, post Buckland’s paper, Shay commented on my theory confirming the plausibility of the connection made with Masabni’s dance creation and the Parisian masked balls.
proclivities of each emerging English Belly Dance practitioner. This chapter constructs a detailed examination of the figured worlds of current key practitioners in the field to determine the changing urban English Belly Dance landscape, advancing Bacon’s initial research and revealing the complex notion of ownership and identity within an established transnational and
translocated Belly Dance tradition.