Is Oriental Dance Feminist? Cultural transfers between women’s empowerment and the Orientalist imaginary

Abstract

Belly-dancing is one of the things we associate with Egypt and it has become a major tourist attraction. The dance has spread round the world since the late 20th Century. Nevertheless, the dance has been received differently depending on tastes at the time and audiences. Belly-dancing’s origins remain murky but we know that it became popular during colonial times. It became much more widely known during Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ when it was used as an Orientalist fantasy. From the 20th Century to the present, the Egyptian art world has refused to include belly-dancing as an art form. However, that has not stopped it spreading world-wide. Belly-dancing is now taught all over the globe and has even evolved into new disciplines such as ATS and Tribal Fusion. This first contradiction between home and foreign
reception is a crucial one, especially for belly-dancers in the Arab world. Yet another ambiguity arises from the global issue of gender: while dancers consider belly-dancing as a Feminist expression of empowerment and liberation, average audiences in the Western world see the shows as objectifying women. Is belly-dancing a discipline that must be experienced if one is to put Feminism into action? What conditions must be met so that belly-dancing can be seen as something that empowers women? Is the varied reception of belly-dancing a result of different explanations of its origins and a particular imaginary of The East?