The Dance of the Veil: Belly Dancing and the Social Dilemma 

 

Swaying to the beats of a classical oriental melody, Suhair Zaki enchanted the crowds of President Sadat’s dinner party in the garden of AI-Quba Palace in 1974.

 

As the audience gazes at the sways and the shimmies of Zaki’s dance, she makes a sudden jump on the first-row table where President Nixon and First Lady Patricia sat. With Zaki’s soft, graceful movements, the audience, many for the first time, witnessed one of Egypt’s greatest belly dancers.

 

Zaki was labelled by the media as ‘the dancer of the people.’ 

 

She was able to capture the true essence of Egypt’s artistic heritage without overdoing the moves. Her movements were described to be smooth and buoyant, as she floated through the air, trapped in the charm of the beat.   

 

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However, even with well-respected dancers like Zaki, belly dancing held a stigma of shame and defiance of certain Egyptian values and standards.

 

It stood on an easily shaken pedestal and with the influence of the Gulf in the late 1970s, belly dancing fell into an even more unfavourable position. 

 

This led to an overflow of foreigners in the last few decades in the belly dance scene in Egypt.

 

Free of the social burden of abiding by cultural and religious constraints, foreign dancers were able to flourish in their careers more than Egyptians and receive higher pay.. 

 

Despite the abundance of Egyptian dancers, many are stuck in the chaos of unlicensed managers, predatory customers, unbearable working conditions and social shame because of the reputation they build working in the underground market of cabarets and low-key nightclubs.

 

Foreigners are then able to maintain the demand for belly dance consumption in weddings, festivals and movies without breaking the narrative of the ideal Egyptian woman and therefore the ideal Egyptian family. 

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The Dance of Numbers

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Being a celebratory culture by nature, most Egyptians can not stay pinned down to their seat long enough at parties and events.

 

Weddings are one of those exceptional events where it is socially acceptable for a person to keep some of their long-taught ‘values’ and ‘morals’ by the door of the venue. 

 

Women and men dance together to the DJ, live music blasting and a performer, usually a belly dancer, captivates the crowd to the trendiest songs. 

 

During the era of the 80’s buffy veil to the red-lined lips of the 2000s, Egyptian dancers like Fifi Abdou, Dina and Lucy were the sought-after names to flare up a wedding.

 

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However, in the last decade, couples are more focused on a different aesthetic of dancers. Youssef Zayed, a young wedding and event planner, said that most of the dancers that are requested from him are named Johara, Lurdiana and Badra. 

 

“No one asks for Dina anymore … Dina was never requested from me before but she would most likely perform in big celebrity weddings because she has friends in that scene.”

 

While top Egyptian dancers earn an average of EGP 25 thousand in a 40-minute to one-hour performance, foreigners can earn up to almost double the fees which can reach up to EGP 60 thousand.

 

According to Johara’s manager, her average fee can go between EGP 40 to 45 thousand and can go as high as EGP 70 thousand in special seasons like Christmas and New Year's.

 

Johara is considered one of the most famous and sought-after Russian dancers in Egypt based on social media popularity and scene presence with more than 2.6 million followers on Instagram.

 

Lurdiana, Brazilian, is also considered a high-ranking dancer in Egypt with more than 2.6 million followers on Instagram and similar fees to Johara.

 

Egyptian dancers with comparable popularity and familiarity among the Egyptian audience earn significantly less.

 

Dina has more than 1.7 million followers on Instagram while Amie Sultan, one of the new Egyptian faces in the scene, has about 622 thousand followers. Both earn an average of EGP 25 thousand. 

 

But it does not stop at weddings. Clubs and restro-bars invade the underground scene in Egypt.

 

One of the famous clubs in Cairo, 3AM, has only hired foreign dancers since 2021. Others, like Club-21 in the North Coast, have only had two Egyptian dancers out of about 18 performers since 2021. 

 

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The spotlight may have followed many foreign dancers in recent years; however, the Egyptian market does not lack Egyptian dancers, it lacks religious and social acceptance, safe spaces and opportunities.

 

In most cases, this safe space is confined to family homes and private celebrations. 

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The Rhythms of Celebrations

 

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From Henna nights and wedding parties to sports victories and graduation ceremonies, dancing has led the rhythms of every other Egyptian celebration.

 

But belly dancing, in particular, holds a special place in Egyptian culture, especially among women. Whether it is in public or in the privacy of female companionship, it was and still is a form of exploring and expressing femininity and joy.  

 

Watching her cousin play a Nancy Ajram song in one of her childhood family gatherings, Vivianna Rezk stood watching and enthralling her cousin’s every move, from the circular sways of her waist to the sudden drops of her hips.

 

“I was so mesmerized like I was just sitting there watching her and I was like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. That was my moment where I clicked and I was like, yeah, this is it.”

 

Rezk is a Canadian, aspiring belly dancer with Egyptian and Mexican background. Falling in a spiral of nationalities, Rezk has been surrounded by dance her whole life.

 

Dancing, like food, music and language, is one of those cultural ornaments that are not easily ignored or forgotten. 

 

Just like Rezk, many women, in their time, danced and swirled around rooms, temples and ballrooms to the chants of traditional songs and melodic rhythms. 

 

Belly dancing has been spread, popularized, and tailored from North Africa to the Far East. However, modern belly dancing is mostly credited to the arts of the ‘Ghawazi’ and ‘awalim’ of 18th and 19th century Egypt.

 

These two groups of women enchanted the entertainment industry in that era. The ‘awalim’ were a group of respected, educated women of the arts. They sang, recited poetry and composed music for notable and respectable people in society. 

 

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Their performances were mainly in front of women but could be heard by male guests from other rooms or lower apartments in the same court.

 

The ‘ghawazi’ on the other hand were unveiled dancers who performed in the streets, coffee shops and traditional festivals like ‘el-mulid.’ ‘Ghawazi’ were sometimes labelled as prostitutes by many European explorers, dancing in a more bolder style and offering sexual favours for money.

 

 

 

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“It was the ‘Ghawazi’ who were banished to Esna in 1834 to reduce their numbers in Cairo and as part of a broader drive for moral and social reform,” said Pascale Ghazaleh, chair of History department at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

 

Ghazaleh explained that the association of prostitution with ‘ghawazi’ may have been due to the fact that many were in “dire straits after having been deported from Cairo.”

 

Belly dance came to global fame through the eyes of the French explorers calling it ‘la danse du ventre,’ translated to ‘the dance of the stomach.’ 

 

The name first appeared in 1864 in a review of the Orientalist painting The Dance of the Almeh by Jean-Léon Gérôme and from there, the popularization and fascination of the belly dance in the West increased.

 

However, this fascination has placed belly dancing on an erotic and fetishized pedestal, an exotic performance filled with dancing snakes, sheer silk and Ali Baba inspired decor. 

 

“Starting in the mid-19th century, a time that coincided with increased European travel to Egypt, it would seem that Victorian sensibilities affected public attitudes toward the dance.”

 

Over time, belly dancing became closely associated with immorality and vulgarity among Egyptians.

 

“After the British occupied Egypt in 1882, the Egyptian press complained that their [British] presence encouraged activities like alcohol consumption, gambling, and prostitution. This moral stance was part of the nationalist effort to demonstrate that Egyptians could "get their house in order" and rule themselves according to British standards,” said Ghazaleh. 

 

Despite this moral reform, belly dancing kept its roots in Egypt yet struggled to find a way back to the heart of its national heritage and, most importantly, Egyptians themselves. 

 

This root, however, attracted foreigners from all parts of the world to learn and master the art of belly dancing. 

 

Many dancers like Flora, an Argentinian performer and instructor living in Cairo since 2021, found a golden opportunity in Egypt to flourish their career. 

 

“I chose Egypt because this is where belly dancing was born so it is a very big step in the dance career because being between Egyptians we will learn a lot and this will add so much to our technique.”

 

With more than 87.3 thousand followers on Instagram, Flora is one of the known dancers in Egypt who perform in weddings, hennas, and concerts and even worked with Fifi Abdo and Shereen Reda in their Ramadan series in 2022, Shaa’l Aali (Great Job).

 

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When she was just 10 years old, Flora was captivated by a belly dancer on television.

 

“I said to my mom I want to learn from her, and she took me to my first class, and since then, I have not stopped belly dancing.”

 

Many Egyptian dancers dream of such opportunities of fame and fortune, but unlike foreigners, they face walls of social and religious confinement. 

 

Religion and Prostitution 

 

These walls started growing in the late-1970s with the immigration of hundreds of Egyptians to the gulf where a flow of cultural influence and religious beliefs lingered with those who returned back to Egypt.

 

The way religion was interpreted in many Arab countries was heavily influenced by the 1979 Iranian revolution and was the start of a much more conservative way of living.

 

Dr. Helen Rizzo, associate professor of Sociology at AUC, says how this has affected certain cultural practices and the overall lifestyle of many Egyptians. 

 

This exposure increased or even introduced the concept of ‘religious conservatism’ in Egypt where a religious awakening swept the streets, neighborhoods and houses of Egypt, redefining and reshaping the ‘Egyptian values.’

 

Religious conservatism is usually defined as a way to increase the role of religion in public life. It becomes a salvation from the sins promoted by cultures and their traditions. 

 

Women became the symbol of it all, something to be raised on a beacon of faith to represent and assure this new social shift.

 

Women faced new restrictions that limited their previous lifestyle. Books and Islamic talk-shows became preoccupied with women’s revealing clothes, lack of responsibilities within the family, immodesty within society and the divergence of the true modesty that embodied Prophet Mohamed’s wives.

 

“There became a lot more focus on women in terms of how they dressed and how they acted in public … that how they act reflected back on the family,” said Rizzo.

 

With such a drastic change in beliefs, lifestyle and morals, belly dancing, mostly performed by women, was stripped of its old artistic heritage and replaced with a narrative of shame and dishonour.

 

After the influence of this new religious interpretation, culture and religion in Egypt became somewhat intertwined according to Maryam Fouad, adjunct professor in the department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology at AUC. 

 

The concepts of ‘haram’ and ‘wrong’ became interchangeable, altering a lot of what was once perceived as traditions, culture and art.

 

Reflecting on what is stopping her from diving into the professional scene of belly dancing, Rezk explained how it is tough to gain her family’s support.

 

“I've lost family members. My boyfriend is going through some things with his family because they see that I dance and it's stressful and I feel so selfish to keep on dancing and to keep on posting [on social media].”

 

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Shame acts as a major regulator that filters out any action, beliefs, or even words that can trigger the standard Egyptian values and can possibly shun away a person and their family in the dark shadows.

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Because shame creates this social unrest, many blindly believe that dancing is an open gate to prostitution. 

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Belly dancing reserved this umbrella of shame and religious degradation in Egypt mainly due to its association with sex work. 

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Flora, like many others, was aware of the shame cloud that revolves above belly dancing when she came to Egypt.

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“It's hard to live as a belly dancer and foreigner here in Egypt because there is a very bad concept about belly dancers in general, not all Egyptians see this but most of them. Outside Egypt and Arab countries belly dance is art,” she said.

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The fear of women’s sexual independence and wanting to keep that tamed feeds into the concepts of shame and culture, and forms a barrier around female sexuality, explained Meg Morely, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University.

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While doing her fieldwork from September 2021 to August 2022 in Egypt, Morely focused on exploring the belly dancing scene through a social and economic scope. 

Morely worked and met various Egyptian and foreign dancers and began dissecting the social changes that affected the art among people.

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“As you know belly dancers are considered by many people to basically be prostitutes and part of that is cultural ideas about shame and what women should do but part of it is because there have been dancers who were also prostitutes and this is true across cultures,” said Morley.

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Cabarets and the Underground Scene

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Along with the already-existing stereotype of prostitution, certain establishments like cabarets act as a confirmation of this stereotype, forever engraving a visualization of indecency in Egyptian society.

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Cabrates introduced an aura of sexualization and vulgarity through music and certain expectations from the dancers.

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Music usually played in cabrates shifted the movements of the dance from slow, flowy and concentrated sways on classical instruments to fast and exaggerated hips and chest movements on intense beats. 

 

 

Ironically, this style is mostly popularized by Khalji tourists coming from the Gulf to Egypt to fulfill certain fantasies that are not available in their home country.

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Every year, hundreds of tourists coming from the Gulf flock Egypt’s cabarts and discos. 

Videography and photography is usually prohibited in these spaces to protect the privacy of the Khaliji clients.

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“They make Egypt their playground,” said Morely.

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These customers are always on the lookout for something new and different which aids in the alteration of the dance styles and costumes worn on stage. 

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Despite the popularity of foreign dancers in weddings, cinemas and social media, Morley explained how “there is a whole other side of belly dancing that the public does not see because it is not on social media.” 

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Many foreign dancers are aware of this scene and work on avoiding it most of the time.

Despite her fiery passion in what she does, Flora, like many others, understands the risks that working in Egypt may entail. From unethical managers and a shaming society, Flora has to be smart, observant and savvy to avoid any unwanted situations. 

 

She explained that any girl that wishes to come to Egypt, should have enough information about the manger or the company that she will work with and most importantly have references so that they make sure that “nothing bad will happen to them.” 

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This results in Egyptian belly dancers making up the market of the hidden scene in Egypt that is found in cabarets and exclusive hotels.

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“Foreign dancers may not understand the social que or “what is expected from them” in cabarets along with the fact that many cannot speak Arabic so they are not able to engage with the clients as well,” said Morely.

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These engagements do not have to be sexual. It can usually take the form of singing and dancing to the beat of the live band, but some are open to offers of prostitution.

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“A foreign belly dancer can study a popular song and go dance to it on a stage and she knows that sound really well but if they pull out some Khaliji song in the cabaret because that's what the customer asked for maybe she has no idea what to do.”

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Morley further explained that the market is full with Egyptian dancers, maybe not as before, but certainly not as less as one would expect. However, these dancers are stuck in a loophole of classism and degradation. 

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“Classism and the foreigner complex in Egyptian society make it difficult to get started as a belly dancer without starting in places like cabarets.”

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Classism, colorism and foreign complexes encourage a certain aesthetic of dancers, ones that usually embodies European features or exotic Latin charm.

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“People recognize a certain look as belonging to Egyptian dancers and categorize that as low class even if it has involved a lot of effort and money … people are expecting to see more of the Instagram face and the aesthetic that the foreign dancers have.”

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However, many venues and managers refuse to work with dancers who started in cabarets. 

“A lot of people are like, oh no, you are a cabaret dancer, you are low class that is not where we are looking for and they judge you based on where you got your start and it becomes really hard to get beyond that,” said Morely.

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Stuck fighting the stereotypes of the dance scene and challenging the social shame from home, Egyptian belly dancers find themselves performing in either secrecy or under a low profile. 

 

“I think this [shame culture] contributed to the idea that there are no good Egyptian dancers anymore they're basically downstairs in the scene somewhere and they are not able to overcome certain obstacles in order to come out [and] to be famous,” she said. 

 

Many performers chose to keep their popularity at bay to avoid bringing shame and dishonor to their family’s name. Without social media presence, those dancers stay under the radar unable to get out of the cabaret lifestyle and ‘prostitute’ stereotype.

 

During her fieldwork, Morely met with many Egyptian dancers who almost took their first steps of fame but were quickly pulled down by a patriarchal figure in the family. 

 

“I have spoken to dancers who had the opportunity to do video clips and video clips are one step to becoming more famous but their husbands didn't want them to do video clips or to become famous because of the shame because they didn't want it known,” said Morely.

 

Hiding in the underground scene because of shame, culture and lack of opportunities, Egyptian dancers leave a gap in the more respected or admired scene in the market, leaving a deeply embedded cultural heritage comfortably placed in foreigners’ hands. 

 

Stuck in a dilemma of a forbidden passion, Rezk reflected on the state of many Egyptian dancers in Egypt, and indirectly herself. 

 

“There are a lot of talented beautiful amazing Egyptian dancers that are never ever going to be seen, they're never going to be famous, they're never going to be appreciated the way they should be appreciated because of the stigma and the fear.”