News and Links
News:
~Caitlyn can be seen here bellydancing in Kasabian's new music video "Where Did the Love Go"
~Caitlyn discussed bellydance on the BBC's Radio Oxford and the show can be found here. The interview is around two and a half minutes into the show.
~Caitlyn was interviewed by the BBC in December 2008 on cabaret entertainment
~Caitlyn received funding from Oxford University to continue her study of Turkish Roman (Gypsy) dance in Istanbul and traveled there for lessons in Septeber 2008.
~Three portraits of Caitlyn were on display last year at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition in London. The Annual Exhibition is regarded as one of the world’s greatest forums for portrait painting today.
~Most of Caitlyn's performances are at private events
~If you would like to book Caitlyn for a performance at an Oxford venue, she recommends the nightclub Escape (9a High Street, Oxford 01865 246 766) or the Lebanese restaurant Al-Salam (6 Park End St, Oxford 01865 245 710). Most Oxford venues are amenable to dancing but contact Caitlyn if you need more recommendations.
~Caitlyn's article for Gilded Serpent
~An interesting article with some truly fantastic logic on the part of Hamas...and a pithy response from a Lebanese blogger
~BBC article on dance in Egypt
~ Music lyrics, costuming information, information about dance styles and more: Shira
~ The Gilded Serpent is an online magazine about Mideastern dance
~Another good magazine is The Hip Circle
~A history of finger cymbals on the Saroyan site
~Cross-dressing in Middle Eastern dance
~Costume Gallery
~A history of American Tribal Style Bellydance on the Fat Chance Belly Dance site
Musicians and Arabic Music
~Learn about Arabic music at MaqamWorld
~Buy Arabic Music at Maqam.com
~The Music Box: Popular favourites in music books for all instruments from a real UK music shop.
Costuming
Making Your Own Costumes
Making your own costumes can save you a lot of money. I recommend making veils and harem pants as your first items, as these are the easiest.
Books:
~Brown, Barry Owen and Dawn Devine. Costuming from the Hip.
~Brown, Dawn Devine. Embellished Bras: Basic Techniques.
How to decorate a bra to make it part of your dance costume.
~Brown, Dawn Devine. Style File.
40-page booklet describing the different kinds of costumes out there—nightglub, Ghawazee, Roma, etc. Well-illustrated.
Desert Moon Dance
Instructions on sewing garments and embellishing your costume with beads. Includdes a useful glossary of terms such as “caftan” and “bedleh”.
Madame X
Very clear, easy instructions; excellent results. She doesn’t give instructions for embellishment, though; you need to go to Desert Moon Dance for that.
Shira’s Costuming Corner
All sorts of useful information for making your own costumes.
Supplies:
Cost Less Belly Dance Costumes
They also sell supplies for making your own costumes. Mainly coin bra-and-belt sets. The can be a challenge, as you have to find something decent to put under the bra. They don’t actually cost less, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pretty!
Costumes are often sold more cheaply in other countries, but you’ll run into two problems. First, many Mideastern companies that sell mainly gift items do not carry high quality dance products. I recommend buying from UK or US retailers who sell only dance items; the quality is usually better. If you order from the US, you may pay so much in shipping and tariffs that you won’t actually save money. Avoid costumes made in India or Pakistan; the quality is usually low and the look is slightly "off".
Costume Vendors Abroad
If you happen to be in Cairo, go to Mahmoud abd Ghaffar at 73 Gawhar Al-Qayid St. in Khan El Khalili (Cairo+) 589-7443. The store is four storeys. Enough said!
Also in Cairo, try Yasser's smaller costume shop at 2 Sekket Khan el Khalili 02-278-65966. The selection of skirts is small but there are many full costumes and coin belts. To get to Yasser's from Mahmoud's, walk out of Mahmoud's and turn right on the main thoroughfare. Continue alking about one minute until you see a sign for "Oriental Dresses" on your left. Do not go into this shop, but turn down the alley beside it and take your first left. Yasser's is a few doors down on the left.
In Istanbul, try Bazar Ali Baba at Fesciler Cad. No. 119-21 Kapalicarsi (i.e. the Grand Bazaar). (0.212) 527 09 75. The quality is excellent and there is a wide selection of costumes to chose from. The staff are very friendly and helpful. Say that Caitlyn sent you!
Costume Vendors in the UK
Egyptian Shop
I haven’t ordered from them (yet).
Egyptian Dreams
I haven’t ordered from them (yet).
Farida’s Passions
I haven’t ordered from them (yet).
Aladdin’s Cave
Wide selection, good quality. They bring their items to many Mideastern dance events, so if you go to an event such as Fantasia, you can try the items on. Their selection on CDs and videos is unparalleled and their customer service is excellent.
Costume Vendors in the USA
Aliah’s Closet
They have a store in Portland, Oregon. The owner designs some of the clothes herself and has them made in India…wherein lies the problem. The clothes are gorgeous, but the fabrics can be so obviously Indian that people will come up to you at performances and say things like, “My auntie has a sari made of the same fabric!” Kind of awkward when your dance show is supposed to be Middle Eastern. Plenty of non-Indian stuff, though.
Dahlal Internationale
High quality, with an amazing selection of professional costumes. Carries designers such as Madame Abla and Phaeronics. Great selection of CDs, zils, hip scarves. Excellent customer service.
Flying Skirts
American Tribal style costumes. Expensive, but quality. Fabulous dance bras made with real coins (though the real coins don't really imply any "authenticity" as they claim. When was the last time you saw an Arab girl in a coin bra, hmm?).
L. Rose Designs
Custom-made bellydance costumes!
Moondance: Gifts for the Dancing Spirit
Amazing deals on this site! They have an especially enormous selection of skirts. Do be wary of buying a narrow skirt that inhibits your stretching and dancing. Also, take note of their international shipping prices.
Salome’s Tent
They provide fantastic customer service and competitive prices.
Saroyan Mastercrafts
Probably the best zils in the world. They Saroyan Grecian zills have an unusually low, mellow tone, perfect if you or your audience have sensitive ears.
ShimmyShimmy
Big selection, well-organized site. They have goddess-size clothes as well.
Topkapi Designs
For professional Turkish costumes. The models look like rejects from a Miss America pageant, but they do have some pretty costumes.
Turquoise International
Recommended particularly for their finger cymbals. They also have some CDs that can be difficult to find elsewhere.
Wicked Harem
American Tribal clothes and accessories. I especially love their hair decorations.
Tribal Bazaar
Gorgeous, unique, extremely high-quality professional costumes with a tribal feel.
Costume Vendors in Other Countries
Australian Bellydance
Costume Articles
Cairo's Costume Disasters
* = especially recommended
Middle Eastern Dance Books
*Buonaventura, Wendy. Serpent of the Nile.
*Carlton, Donna. Looking for Little Egypt.
(I have an extra copy of this one, which you can have for 10.00)
Djoumana, Khajira. The Tribal Bible: Exploring the Phenomenon that is American Tribal
Style Bellydance. Santa Rosa: BlackSheep BellyDance, 2003.
Hellend, Shawna. “The Belly Dance: Ancient Ritual to Cabaret Performance” in Moving History/Dancing Cultures, ed. Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright. Middleton, Connecticut: 2001. 128-35.
Hobin, Tina. Belly Dance. London and New York: Marion Boyars, 2003.
Karayanni. Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance.
**Van Nieuwkerk Karin. A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
Al-Zayer, Al Hanley, et alii. Middle Eastern Dance.
Redmond, Layne. When the Drummers Were Women.
Richards, Tazz, ed. The Belly Dance Book.
Shay, Anthony, And Sellers-Young, Barabara. Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism and Harem Fantasy. Mazda Publishers, 2005.
Other Relevant Books
Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem.
Buonaventura, Wendy. Something in the Way She Moves: Dancing Women from Salome to Madonna. Cambridge: The Da Capo Book Group, 2003.
Croutier, Alev. Harem.
Massad, Joseph. Desiring Arabs. London: University of Chicago Press (2007).
*Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin Books (1991).
Wagner, Ann. Adversaries of Dance From the Puritans to the Present. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Zines, Magazines
The Gilded Serpent (web magazine)
Endless articles on all subjects.
The Hip Circle: Bellydance Current Affairs (web magazine)
Events, dancer directory, articles
Habibi Magazine
Habibi used to be a smaller, more research-oriented journal. If you want to learn about dance history, consider ordering some of their oldest issues.
Arabesque Magazine
Out of print now, but the old issues are worth tracking down.
Mosaic
Terminology
This
website uses the word "bellydance" only so people googling for a
"bellydancer" or "bellydance classes" can find the site. The correct
term for the dance is "oriental dance". In Arabic, the dance is called
raqs sharqi, which translates to "dance of the east" or "oriental
dance."
"Bellydance"
was coined by Sol Bloom, an American, at the 1890s Wold Fair. The term
was intended to be titillating--"belly" was not a polite word.
Showing/moving one's "belly" was simply not done--recall that women
were still corsetted at this time. So not only was the term created by
an American, it was created to scandalise...and it's not even a correct
description of the dance! There are only two or three dance moves
actually done with the belly; the action is actually in the hips.
So why is the term Eurocentric, if it's translated from Arabic? "Raqs sharqi" is likely a translation of the French "danse orientale". One of the first people to use the term raqs sharqi was Badia Masabni, a nightclub owner in pre-Nasser Egypt. Her club was frequented by the British and by Anglicised Egyptian elites. She needed a term for her dance that distinguished it from lower-class street dancing and from western dance. She chose (or perhaps even coined) a label that made sense to her clientele: "sharqi", i.e. of the East , i.e. east of England.
Why not just call the dance raqs sharqi? First, because there are too many ways to spell it. The Arabic letter "qaf" is loosely equivalent to an English "q" but sometimes gets transliterated as a "k". This causes problems when doing internet searches for the dance. Second, it's an Arabic term, not Turkish. In Turkish, the term for the dance is "oryantal dans", not "raqs sharqi". But both those terms translate to "oriental dance" in English, giving us one term that is easy to spell and refers to both Egyptian and Turkish dance. Huzzah.
Miscellaneous SitesSo why is the term Eurocentric, if it's translated from Arabic? "Raqs sharqi" is likely a translation of the French "danse orientale". One of the first people to use the term raqs sharqi was Badia Masabni, a nightclub owner in pre-Nasser Egypt. Her club was frequented by the British and by Anglicised Egyptian elites. She needed a term for her dance that distinguished it from lower-class street dancing and from western dance. She chose (or perhaps even coined) a label that made sense to her clientele: "sharqi", i.e. of the East , i.e. east of England.
Why not just call the dance raqs sharqi? First, because there are too many ways to spell it. The Arabic letter "qaf" is loosely equivalent to an English "q" but sometimes gets transliterated as a "k". This causes problems when doing internet searches for the dance. Second, it's an Arabic term, not Turkish. In Turkish, the term for the dance is "oryantal dans", not "raqs sharqi". But both those terms translate to "oriental dance" in English, giving us one term that is easy to spell and refers to both Egyptian and Turkish dance. Huzzah.
~World Bellydance
~The Wedding Index--your elegant, fast and free wedding directory
~Smooth Moves, a dance e-zine
~Belly-Dancing.info Promoting the art of bellydancing around the world.
~The Oxford Middle Eastern Dance Society (formerly the Oxford University Middle Eastern Dance Society) can be found at www.omeds.org.uk.
~Planet Egypt is a great place to see dance performances in London
~Professional performer and instructor Sarah
Contact Caitlyn: 07792.967.355 or Caitlyn@OrientalDance.org