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Bellying up to a serious art form

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  • Bellying up to a serious art form

    Bellying up to a serious art form
    By Will Kilburn

    Boston Globe Correspondent
    September 26, 2004

    The scene at the first Boston Belly Dance Awards last Sunday night was
    one of contrasts: part amateur recital, part professional competition;
    celebratory, yet serious. But overall, the event at the Brookline
    Community Center for the Arts in Coolidge Corner was about the medium
    itself, which can seem both fervently traditional and strikingly
    modern.


    ''A lot of people out there think that it's just a pretty girl in a
    costume with no skill, or a stripper, or whatever the media has fed
    them," said Juliette Dagmar, better known as Johara, a local dancer
    and teacher whose company, Snakedance Productions, produced the
    awards. ''But it's an art form that takes years to perfect."

    There are many variations of belly dance.

    ''In Turkish-style belly dance, they tend to borrow from gypsy folk
    dance," Johara says. ''They use finger cymbals, they do the deep back
    bends, they do the deep bends, they do a lot of rail work. It's the
    kind that most Americans are familiar with, because that's what was
    popularized in the '60s. With Arabic-style, the music is Egyptian or
    Lebanese, they don't do much veil, hip work, and shimmies are more the
    feature. In the Arab world, they use a lot of [electronic] keyboard
    now, more than in Turkish-style music. The Lebanese here are playing
    what's popular in Lebanon and Egypt right now; the Armenian-Americans
    that are playing Turkish music are playing really old music, most of
    which was never intended for a belly dancer."

    When belly dance was introduced to the West many years ago, it wasn't
    done well, according to Jeanne Handy of Portland, Maine, one of the
    judges. ''The form was taken out of context, and it was misrepresented
    and misunderstood.And so a lot of times if you ask an Arabic person,
    'Do you belly dance?,' they'll say, 'No.' "

    Handy, who performs and teaches under the stage name Jamileh, added
    that belly dance has fought two battles at once in New England: the
    Puritan suspicion that anything this fun must somehow be immoral, and
    the tendency by some venues to put dancers in the spotlight too soon.

    ''There are some amazing performers out there, and then there are some
    that really aren't ready to be performing yet," she said. ''If you see
    a good belly dance performance, you will leave it intoxicated, but if
    you see a bad one, you will leave it thinking, 'Mmm, I'm not so sure.'
    "

    That's a problem the awards competition, which organizers hope to make
    an annual event, sought to address by placing competitors into two
    divisions. The first, ''Promising Amateurs," featured eight dancers
    relatively new to belly dance. The second, ''New Performers," was
    reserved for six who had been perform ing for between six months and 2
    years. Those with more experience were ineligible to participate.

    After completing her first-round performance in the professional
    round, Samantha Young, an English-as-a-second-language teacher from
    Quincy, wore an expression of giddy relief.

    ''The judges had these sort of deadpan faces," she said. ''I'm used to
    performing at student recitals where I know half the audience because
    I getmy students to go, so it was the first time I performed against
    people that are actually judging me, as opposed to just going 'Good
    job,' which is what usually happens."

    Belly dance performances are held regularly at the Middle East in
    Cambridge, Tangierino in Charlestown, and Layaleena Entertainment's
    clubs in Boston and Cambridge.Will Kilburn can be reached at
    [email protected].
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