Spatial and Temporal Processes Within Improvisational Tribal Style

Home , Arghul, Ego Likeness, Erotic dance, Fools Dance, Fusion dance, Gothic belly dance

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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2007 Embodiment, Performativity and Identity: Spatial and Temporal Processes Embedded within Improvisational Tribal Style Dance Georgia E. Conover

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COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

EMBODIMENT, PERFORMATIVITY AND IDENTITY: SPATIAL AND

TEMPORAL PROCESSES EMBEDDED WITHIN IMPROVISATIONAL TRIBAL

STYLE DANCE

Georgia E. Conover

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2007

The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Georgia E. Conover

defended on November 5, 2007.

______Philip Steinberg Professor Directing Thesis

______Jonathan Leib Committee Member

______Barney Warf Committee Member

Approved:

______Victor Mesev, Chair, Department of Geography

The office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

This work is dedicated to my husband, who spent countless hours playing the roles of sounding board, counselor, editor, and study partner; he could not have predicted that saying “I do” would mean taking part in long discussions about dance and being at my side through countless Tribal Style performances. His support, and his encouragement, made this possible.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Dr. Phil, for believing I could do this, to my friends, for believing in kind words and encouragement, and to my family, for believing in me, I thank you.

iv CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... VII

ABSTRACT...... VIII

INTRODUCTION...... 1 TRIBAL DANCE: A NEW CULTURAL PRACTICE...... 2 CHAPTER CONTENTS...... 3 DISCLOSURES...... 4 INVESTIGATING TRIBAL STYLE DANCE: PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION, INTERVIEWS AND PROCESS-TRACING ...... 7 PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION ...... 7 FIELD RESEARCH ...... 13 VISUAL MATERIAL ...... 18 CULTURE, GEOPOLITICS AND DANCING BODIES ...... 19 CULTURE INTERROGATED ...... 19 GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL HYBRIDITY ...... 23 BODILY DISCOURSES AND IDENTITY IN NATIONALIST POLITICS ...... 30 DANCE AS POLITICAL PRACTICE...... 40 DANCE HISTORIES...... 44 CONCLUSION ...... 57 “ORIENTAL” DANCE: FROM ANCIENT HISTORY TO MODERN DERIVATIONS ...... 58 ANCIENT RITUAL, ORIENTALISM AND MODERN “BELLY DANCE”...... 58 TERMINOLOGY ...... 69 AMERICAN STYLES OF “BELLY DANCE”...... 71 CONCLUSION ...... 103 TRIBAL STYLE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF DE-SEXUALIZED DANCE IDENTITIES ...... 104 GLOBAL FLOWS AND TRIBAL STYLE DANCE ...... 104 TRIBAL STYLE DANCE AND BOUNDARY TRANSGRESSION...... 109 TRIBAL DANCERS AND TRANSGRESSIVE IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION ...... 116 REORDERING CULTURE THROUGH PERFORMANCE ...... 126 CONCLUSION ...... 140 ATS, ITS AND SPACES OF DIFFERENCE...... 141 TRIBAL STYLE AND NON-NORMATIVE DANCING BODIES ...... 141 INTERROGATING TRADITION ...... 146 PROTECTING THE INTEGRITY OF TRIBAL STYLE DANCE ...... 156 CONCLUSION ...... 163 RECONFIGURING AND REPRODUCING POWER...... 164

v LOSS OF CONTEXTUALITY ...... 164 LINKING “BELLY DANCE” AND FEMININITY ...... 174 LINKING “BELLY DANCE” WITH SEXUALITY ...... 180 CONCLUSION ...... 187 CONCLUSIONS ...... 189 FINDINGS...... 190 FURTHER RESEARCH QUESTIONS...... 196 THEORETICAL RELEVANCE ...... 197 APPENDIX A...... 198

APPENDIX B ...... 200

APPENDIX C...... 202

APPENDIX D...... 206

APPENDIX E ...... 208

APPENDIX F ...... 210

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 213

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 221

vi LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) French. Dance of the Almeh. 1863. Oil on wood panel ...... 62

Figure 2. Rachel Brice performing a layback, Tribal Café 2007...... 80

Figure 3. Carolena Nericcio (front), FatChanceBellyDance, Tribal Café 2007 ...... 86

Figure 4. Tribal Style Dancer with Tattoo, Tribal Café 2007...... 86

Figure 5. Faizeh of the troupe "Hiplash", Tribal Café 2007...... 88

Figure 6. Midriff Crises, Improvisational Tribal Style Dance Troupe ...... 95

Figure 7. Midriff Crises Dancer, Tribal Café 2007 ...... 95

Figure 8. Hair Ornaments, Tribal Café 2007 ...... 96

Figure 9. Rachel Brice, Tribal Café 2007...... 100

Figure 10. SuperKate, Tribal Café 2007...... 102

vii ABSTRACT

This thesis examines temporal and spatial process that are reproduced and challenged through the hybrid cultural construction, Tribal Style Dance. It also examines how Tribal Style dancers use two embodied devices, signification and performativity, to challenge naturalized identity constructions of gender and sexuality that are layered onto “belly dancing” bodies. The thesis further argues for the academic significance of interrogations of uneven power relationships embedded in dance practices. The report begins by laying out the methods for engaging in a case study. The qualitative approach is meant to begin research into Tribal Style dance as a project and not just a mélange expression. Field research, participant observation and interviews with a selected case study group facilitate the exploration of Improvisational Tribal Style dance. A review of the available literature situates that troupe into temporal and spatial contexts. The thesis then examines the available literature, beginning with an explanation of culture and how culture can be used to reify hegemonic constructions. Culture is examined as a process, not a structure. Through production and reproduction, culture provides a structure and is the result of social actions. Globalizing processes are next examined, from two angles: one, as creating new vehicles for information and cultural object sharing across boundaries; and two, as being necessarily situated within spatial contexts. Globalization, specifically, is allowing Tribal Style dancers to borrow elements from around the world. With these elements, dancers are able to juxtapose images from the Occident and the Orient, thus blurring lines that have been historically and politically constructed between the two. The borrowings are not random; the resulting hybrid, cultural ensemble then signifies resistance to Western hegemonic constructions. Tribal Style dancers use globally available material to create identities that locally deconstruct Orientalist notions of sexualized “belly dancing” bodies. They also create dancing bodies that do not conform to Western ideals for dancers. In so doing, Tribal Style dance has opened spaces for non-normativity and transgression against the fixity of tradition. This thesis also makes an argument for deep interrogations of dance. The historic, Western mind/body separation has led to a devaluation of dance as a physical,

viii but not rational, expression. Postmodernist inquiries into dance practices reveal this to be a social construction. Dance is examined as a power-laden discourse, one that is explicitly gendered and, in the case of “belly dance,” sexualized.

INTRODUCTION

Meaning and significance are not to be reduced to the textual or the symbolic: they are thoroughly embodied, in gestures, dance, song, voice, noise; the rhythms of life. In these senses, geography makes culture as much as culture makes geography (Anderson et al. 2003:30).

Just as social scientists are rethinking the term ‘traditional’ to interrogate the power relationships embedded in the concept, a group of dancers in the United States is developing a new dance which celebrates folk traditions that were negotiated all along the historic travels of the Rom through Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Spain (Djoumahna 2003c; Nericcio 2004a). Contrary to outward appearances, this is not a case of oppositional ontologies. These dancers, calling their art Tribal Style belly dance, are not engaging in the now contested practice of reaching into other cultures and across time periods to study “others” from a God’s-eye point of view; their intent does not reflect the challenged anthropologic model of impartially and unemotionally recording traditional “folk” heritages in order to preserve them. They do not attempt to replicate what they deem to be traditional Middle Eastern or “Gypsy” dance steps. Their dance is unabashedly about borrowing bits from Oriental movement vocabularies, dress and iconography and fitting the selections into a Western context and onto a Western body (Djoumahna 2003b; Locke 2003; Nericcio 2004a; Stants 2006). Kajira Djoumahna’s encyclopedic tome about American Tribal Style (ATS) dance explains how the dance combines the pioneering spirit of the West with traditions of the East: I feel that in some ways, those of us who are working with this dance form are not only important new pioneers in dance, but ancient ways cognoscenti who are bringing the value and aesthetics of old world traditions to contemporary people in a manner that we can use, assimilate and appreciate—in a manner we can truly understand and make our own (Djoumahna 2003c:269).

The borrowers revel in the freedom of not having to be culturally accurate even while finding an outlet for researching and performing dance movements that have a history much longer than that of the United States.

Tribal Dance: a New Cultural Practice

The dance is intentionally power-laden and culturally “inaccurate.” It challenges the imaginative Western geographies built onto “belly dancing” bodies. Tribal Style dancers do their work in a third-space between the normalized, cultural spaces of the West and the spaces inhabited, and meanings placed onto, minority dancing bodies. Within this third-space, Tribal Style dancers merge and thus undo the duality: the Western “us” versus the Oriental “them.” The resulting hybrid-identity is an almost unintelligible cyborg body with seemingly random appendages from the East and West, but as arbitrary as the hybrid body may seem, the appendages are not articulated at random. The dancer, whose very choices are spatially embedded in Western social practices, constructs them. Further the dance, no matter how innovative, still conforms to the Western perception of an exotic, non-normative body, thus again not breaking completely free from a power-laden, cultural discourse. So Tribal Style operates within a built, non-normative space to challenge the normative dancing body. The goal of this thesis is to root out issues of power embedded in the cultural practice of Tribal Style Dance. This begins with a study of the intent of some of the dancers themselves. Because, as in most issues of identity politics and performativity, intent is interdependent with context, this thesis studies the tribal dancing body as enmeshed in spatial, cultural practices of the United States. Studying this hybrid-identity and the third space Tribal Style dance inhabits ultimately provides a more satisfying understanding of identity formation and of how culture is constructed and challenged through a Tribal dancer’s body. This research interrogates Tribal Style dance identities as they are embedded within the reciprocal forces of globalization and localization. At root in my line of inquiry is a desire to expose the underrepresentation of dance in terms of space. Studying one specific performative process of identity and culture formation, the Improvisational Tribal Style, dancing body as not only moving through space but also as a producer of space, allowed me to connect dance to broader social discourse. This thesis does not, however, take the next step to determine if and what meaning is conveyed to non-dancers

watching a tribal dance performance. This would be a good follow up question to determine how effectively the new phenomenon of tribal dance can transform social practices and bodily discourses on any scale but, alas, is too far reaching for the goal of this thesis. Because tribal dance is relatively new and unknown to the larger dance community, I have been unable to locate any complex, theoretical research specifically about it. This project then could become a launching point for anyone willing to do further analysis of the Tribal Style Dance phenomenon.

Chapter Contents

Chapter One details the methods and the need for a qualitative approach. It explains how the case study group was selected, the field research process and the construction of the interviews. It also explains process-tracing, a method borrowed from historical research that was used to help situate the findings in time and space. Chapter Two is a review of pertinent literature. It examines how power structures are naturalized through reified cultural practices and how globalization and models of flow rather than fixity are challenging modernist assumptions about culture. The chapter then examines dance as a subject of deep inquiry, noting the limited amount of theory and social research on the subject and making an argument for postmodernist inquiries into dance practices. The chapter concludes with a history of some social and performance dances to illustrate the power structures embedded within dance practices. Chapter Three chronicles Oriental dance in the Middle East and in the United States, beginning with pelvic-based dancing in ancient, matriarchal societies and ending with the nightclub scene in the 1970’s United States. The discussion explores the imaginative geographies built onto “belly dancing” bodies in the West and just how far perception departs from reality. The chapter also discusses briefly the historical and spatial circumstances leading up to the creation of Tribal Style dance and the contested terminology used for describing Oriental dance forms. Cabaret, American Tribal Style, Improvisational Tribal Style and Fusion style dances are explained and compared. Chapter Four explores the multi-scalar processes that link communities of dancers together, first discussing some of the globalizing technologies that are not only helping to

promulgate the dance form but are also allowing dancers from around the world to communicate and establish trends. The chapter then situates Tribal Style dance within nationalist discourses on sexuality and the Orient. By scrutinizing Orientalism, and the degradation and sexualization of the Arab Other, it is possible to understand how the dance of this other has been constructed in the United States and the significance of efforts of Tribal Style dancers to undo those constructions. Chapter Five advances the discussion of us/them boundary transgression. Tribal Style dance, in putting a lens on sexualized constructions, has created spaces for non- normative bodies. The chapter also discusses how the transgression of sexualized constructions, and the resulting creation of spaces of difference, has actually transfigured Tribal Style dance into a project of resisting tradition and cultural hegemony. To conclude the chapter, some bodies and spaces of resistance are provided through an examination of the case study group. Chapter Six examines how Tribal Style dance not only resists cultural hegemony and normativity, but how it also reproduces them. Because this was not the focus of the research project, the examination is brief and inconclusive. The chapter does, however, open paths for new discussions about dance and global borrowings. It further makes the argument for understanding flows in terms of context: the context of the borrower, the lender, and the transfer of power in the borrowing. Chapter Seven reviews the main findings of the research. It also makes an argument for studying cyborg dance creations. Cultural ensembles are increasingly recognized for their transgressive, and de-centering potential. Such examinations, and the body of theory on flows, can be greatly advanced by studying hegemonic practices, boundary construction and boundary transgression through dance practices.

Disclosures

My interest in Tribal Style dance stems from my interest in folk dances of various kinds. During the past decade of studying dances originating from various parts of the world such as New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Spain and elsewhere, I have been repeatedly asked intriguing questions by American non-dancers,

or by dancers studying “traditional” Western forms, regarding the nature and relevance of these foreign dances. Frequently, the inquiries are sexual in nature or serve to downgrade the status of the dance forms or even to question the very relevance of dance itself. It is also common to find myself rationalizing my interest in dance and, specifically non- Western dance. These experiences have left me wanting to understand the social and spatial processes that lead to such questions. Originally I thought about focusing my research on a dance form of which I have a generous amount of experience. But then I was introduced to Tribal Style dance. It fascinated me that this form is purely Western but is based on many of the forms that I have studied for so long. Yet is it almost unrecognizable in the context of those other forms. Then I read and heard stories from Tribal dancers about wanting to find a dance form that allows them to study Oriental movements but in a way that is not laden with Western stereotypes and expectations. So I wondered if that desire is farther-reaching than anyone realizes and perhaps even one catalyst for the quick growth of tribal dance particularly in “belly dance” circles. Could Tribal Style dance be a way to engage in some form of identity politics, some sort of resistance to a dominating culture that degrades dance and particularly Oriental dance? Such wondering has led me to my ultimate research question. Is that, or any other such desire, translated into the presentation of the dance itself? Do Tribal Style dancers purposefully inhabit a Thirdspace? It is important to note that prior to this undertaking, I had made acquaintances, and even friends, with ATS dancers, attended several workshops taught by several ATS and one Tribal Style dancer, attended many weeks worth of ATS classes, and watched about a dozen ATS performances. But rather than bias the research, this history was beneficial. First, my exposure was to ATS and not the wider Tribal Style community, allowing me to interrogate Improvisational Tribal Style dance without the preconceived notions I might have had about ATS. Second, my experiences gave me unimpeded access to a new dance community; it allowed me to take classes, to participate in dance parties and to readily gain the confidence of my study group. Third and far more than anticipated, that history gave me a background to distinguish the ‘traditional’ from the modern interpretation and the distinctions between sometimes subtly different

movements. My personal history also conditioned me to be sensitive to the messages that can be intentionally and unintentionally conveyed through a dancer’s body.

INVESTIGATING TRIBAL STYLE DANCE: PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION,

INTERVIEWS AND PROCESS-TRACING

The fashionable identification of qualitative methods with an analysis of how people ‘see things’ ignores the importance of how people ‘do things’ (Smith 2001:30).

I chose to approach Tribal Style dance as a performance art that is as much a theoretical project as it is a dance form. I decided to investigate situated knowledges, challenges to dominant power structures from the bottom up, and complicated, lived experiences. Participant Observation

My approach, regarding culture as a complex set of processes rather than a superorganic thing, suggested that the experience of individual dancers was primary to my research. Thus qualitative rather than quantitative methods provided appropriate vehicles for such an examination (Smith 2001; Shurmer-Smith 2002b). Also, because tribal dance is a new art and has yet to be studied academically, it made sense to select an approach that seeks to uncover concepts rather than to study fixed variables. Finally, where words leave gaps, actions have informative value. The actions people take again and again to create an identity amount to a “living demonstration” of identity (Smith 2001:35) that must be viewed and discussed rather than quantified and tabulated. What tribal dancers say about their dance is important, but they are performers, making statements with what they do. Observing what they do meant spending time with tribal dancers at practices and performances, noting their movements, costumes, adornments, music choices, the origins of the selected elements, and observing how those elements were represented and changed depending upon the spaces within which the dancers were performing. It also meant determining the level of consciousness and intent involved in the borrowings and performances. Selecting a Study Group Using that rationale, I chose to get inside the practices and meetings of a Tribal group. I relied upon the fact that I am a performer myself—an “insider” if you will—to

gain access to dancers and materials and to make the tribal dancers I met more comfortable inviting me into their practice and performance spaces. Through the blogs and pages of dance colleagues, I found links to communities of local Tribal Style dancers on sites such as www.tribe.net and www.myspace.com. Also, by attending dance shows that I read about on the sites and learned about through questioning fellow dancers, I was able to meet several tribal dancers and to see some of their performances. Through such connections—taking a snowballing approach—I was able to seek out one tribal dancer who was able to act as a gatekeeper and to assist me in gaining access to her troupe. I approached Connie1 initially, having had contact with her through dance events. She suggested that I contact Hipnotic’s director, Deirdre. I unexpectedly ran into Deirdre while attending a street fair. She was surveying the venue where Hipnotic was expected to perform that night. Because it was a public space and she was preoccupied with her own task, our conversation was brief. In just a few sentences I explained my intention to study Tribal Style dancers and the manner by which they construct identity. She barely listened to my explanation before responding favorably and promising to share my request with the entire troupe. Deirdre discussed the basics of my research with her fellow dancers at a meeting to which I was not invited. The group voted to allow me to meet with them at their next practice. We met 15 minutes early to give me time to explain the project further and to distribute consent forms (Appendix B). Everyone listened to my presentation, read through the forms quietly, and asked no questions. Everyone signed both the consent and photography forms. I agreed to photocopy them and bring copies of the signed form to the next practice so each could retain one for her records. At that initial meeting, I also asked each dancer to complete a short survey (Appendix C). This survey was only loosely tabulated, and was not used to exclude participants or to group them into categories. Rather it was designed to familiarize myself with the individual troupe members and to explore individual circumstances that may influence observed outcomes. From the surveys, participants were given a code, in lieu of their name, and a short profile was developed. Each dancer then was given a file

folder, labeled with a code, in which to put the profile and any other observations, transcripts, and the like for later analysis. The members were not only eager to let me be involved, they required very little explanation, and were quick to sign all of my consent forms. The most difficult task was arranging meeting times. This gave me the impression that the study group members were happy to see academic scholarship on Tribal Style dance. Granted, my interpretation may be partly based on my own experience with dancers in the past: active members of the dance community have typically been well versed about the existence of any published materials about Oriental dance. Whenever a new book is released, dancers tell one another on Internet list serves, write reviews in dance magazines, and alert one another as to where those works can be obtained. Consequently, dancers know what does and does not exist. Very little published material is focused on the Tribal Style dance form, and of that, none is academic in focus. No one joked or made comments suggesting that they could not understand why I would take on this subject; nor did they make any self-deprecating comments about the value of it. Contrarily, the dancers all reacted to my proposal in a manner that suggested they view Tribal Style dance as highly relevant, even if the wider world of academia is not aware of its existence. My Study Group: Hipnotic Because this project relied upon qualitative methods and depth over breadth, members of the selected troupe were to be illustrative examples rather than randomly sampled candidates (Valentine 2001; George 2005). To be illustrative in this case required that participants engage in a particular style of dance. I planned to focus my main research on ATS dancers for practical reasons. ATS is cohesive, making it easier to recognize and discuss. What I discovered, however, is that ATS is a very specific form. In recent years, a popular trend has been a divergence from that form toward more fusion styles, which retain some of the same theoretical justifications and choreographic characteristics as ATS but which are much more fluid in their interpretation. I found a

1 The location of the field research is not specifically referenced by name and the names of the dancers and the troupe have been changed to protect confidentiality.

study group that uses ATS as its base but is more representative of the fluidity within the wider Tribal Style movement. “Qualitative research does not aim to be statistically representative, and so unlike quantitative studies, it will be the depth and richness of your encounters, rather than the

number of people who participate in the study that matter” (Valentine 2001:46). Participants were not selected individually, nor was the number determined in order to meet some sort of quota, rather dancers were included because they belonged to the Improvisational Tribal Style troupe that was willing to grant me extensive access and that was located in a proximity that allowed for my active participation and observation. Children were not included in the study and the participants were all female. I have yet to see children perform in the midst of an adult, tribal troupe and male tribal dancers are extremely rare (a situation, in and of itself, worthy of study). Other variables, such as income, were not considered when selecting candidates since my goal was not to situate people into financial or other categories but to study them because they chose to perform within a marginal space as part of the case study troupe. The study group selected, Hipnotic, had seven members ranging in age from their mid-twenties to their late forties. All were employed and held a college degree or some form of specialized training. All were United States natives; none had any Middle Eastern heritage. Ashley is a Caucasian woman, married and in her mid-twenties. At the time of the field research, she had just finished her Master’s degree in Education and soon began teaching Middle School art classes. She did not claim any religious affiliation and considered herself to be quiet, analytical and smart. Her dance background was limited to three years of Oriental dance training, most of that Tribal Style. She had multiple body piercings but otherwise no markings of alterity, although she expressed nonchalance about normative music and clothing. Bailee is a Caucasian woman who was in her late forties. She had a bachelor’s degree plus some additional education and a relatively high profile career as an advertising executive for a large cable company. She grew up Catholic and listed that as her religion, although she did not attend regular church service. She described herself as having a non-normative personality, having been a part of the punk scene as a teen and

still having a marked preference for fringe movements. Bailee had parents who did ballroom dancing. Hence she grew up dancing. She spent several years taking ballet and tap as a child but also learned, and later taught, country western dancing. She studied cabaret dance for three years after she was dragged to a class by a friend before switching to Tribal Style dance, which she had been studying for three years. Connie was in her late twenties. At the beginning of the field research period, she was in her last semester as a Ph.D. student. She later graduated and earned a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship to do research. She listed her religion as Jewish, but non- practicing, and labeled herself as analytical, creative and, most tellingly, “weird.” She had a marked preference for alternative music and clothing and is well versed in the Gothic subculture. Connie tended to dress in predominantly black clothing and kept her hair short and spiked, often with streaks of color. She said she was bi-sexual, although she lived with, and later married, her male partner. Her dance background was mostly Oriental dance. She studied a few months of modern and hip-hop dancing, cabaret dance for five years and Tribal Style for three and a half, although her preference was easily Tribal. She was also a fire performer: Connie “spun” fire, using fire-soaked material attached to chains, and danced with other such fire implements. Deirdre was a married, Caucasian mother of two in her mid thirties, although she admitted to being bi-sexual. She worked part-time as a medical assistant in a naturopathic clinic and as a dance promoter, finding new gigs for the troupe and managing the scheduling of cabaret and tribal dancers for specific venues. She worked part-time in order to be able to stay home with her young children. Once her youngest child started school, Deirdre considered returning to working fulltime as a medical assistant. She grew up with an alternative lifestyle, once even living communally with several family members and friends on a ranch in California. She resided in an apartment complex next door to relatives and friends who formed a mutual support network. She listed her religious practice as “earth based, non-specific” and said she has little contact with people outside the alternative community in her hometown. Erin was in her mid-thirties and labeled herself a “mutt,” referring to her German, Irish, English, Cherokee, and Osage heritages. She was married with two children and was a schoolteacher. Her musical and aesthetic preference was Gothic; she wore

predominantly dark clothing with long, black hair and streaks of color—usually blue or red. Her religion was neo-pagan and she attended rituals and celebrations, even designing a ritual of her own. She called herself laid back, sarcastic and occasionally “bitchy”. Interestingly, she was both a Tribal Style and a cabaret dancer, being a member of two separate troupes. She grew up dancing, studying tap, jazz, ballet and acrobatics as a child and taking a modern dance class in college, before spending six years studying cabaret dance and three studying Tribal Style as an adult. Faye was in her early thirties and worked as a social worker specializing in mediation. She had a bachelor’s degree and spent time in China as part of the Peace Corps. She was married at the start of the field research period, listed no religious preference and called her ethnicity Anglo-Hispanic. Her tastes seemed more mainstream than the previously listed troupe members and she had no unusual piercings or body modifications. Her dance training was almost solely Oriental. She once took three months of ballroom dance training before joining a Tribal Style class to support her friend. She later studied cabaret dance for three years before joining Hipnotic, although she admitted that she felt no affinity with cabaret style, much preferring the inclusiveness of Tribal Style dance. Genevieve was a dental hygienist in her early thirties. She was Caucasian and married to a firefighter. She listed her religion as Catholic and described herself as friendly, outgoing and fun loving. Her musical preference was heavy metal and she was heavily tattooed and pierced. She had no previous dance training but decided to become an Oriental dancer after seeing cabaret dancers perform on a day cruise. She studied cabaret dance for two-and-a-half years before joining Hipnotic. Genevieve admitted that she loves the more “traditional”, classical styled music of Southwest Asia and North Africa and would like to add more color to the Hipnotic costuming.

Field Research

Dancers spend time not only performing, but also practicing, planning and taking classes. It was important to structure a field research plan that could encompass all of these aspects of troupe membership. For this reason, fieldwork was multi-faceted and participatory. Participant Observation Because I have argued against the modernist approach of positioning oneself as emotionally distant from the group under observation, I felt obligated to follow Thrift’s advice. As cited in Smith, he suggests that “what is required is not participant observation in the traditional sense, but observant participation” (Smith 2001:35). Thus, I enrolled and paid for all available tribal dances classes and workshops within a reasonable driving distance. I did not use these classes to gather data on participants— since that is the reason for my participant group—but rather to learn the dance movements and conventions from self-proclaimed instructors. Because I expected the students to vary throughout the course of my research, I decided to notify the instructor but not fellow students about the project. A “Tribal Basics” class did begin shortly into my field research, taught by Haven. I first informed Haven about my intention via email. She responded within a matter of hours with a short reply, “yes.” She asked no questions and later voiced her appreciation that I was undertaking an academic study. I met Haven in person when she taught a one- day workshop a short time later. Arriving early to make time to introduce myself, I walked up to her vending table. She greeted me with a large smile and welcomed me warmly. At that point, I presented and explained the written consent form to her. She took it, signed it without hesitation, and returned it to me a short time later. She did tell the class that I was doing a research project, however no one asked any follow up questions, instead everyone simply accepted my presence with smiles and welcomes. One other incident reinforced the general anticipation of my doing academic work on Tribal Style dance. I attended a three-day conference in San Bernardino, California. The conference included workshops taught by Carolena Nericcio, the founder of Tribal Style dance, Rachel Brice, a woman who is largely responsible for the current Tribal

Fusion trend, as well as several other prominent dancers. Hundreds of ATS, Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dancers from around the country participated. One participant flew in from Russia to take workshops. I took most of my photos at the conference and handed out photo release forms to all of the prominent dancers. Not one took the time to do more than a cursory read of my release forms. Only one asked for a copy of the signed release form. Also, no dancer hesitated to give me permission to use her photo in my research. Furthermore, Frederique David, a famous dancer in the world of Tribal Style dance, expressed excitement about the project and asked me to keep her updated on my progress and to let her read the final thesis. Observations of workshops, classes and of meetings with my study participants were kept in a field notebook that was updated as soon as possible after every encounter. For clarity and ease of sorting, those notes were typed up later. At that time, any notes made about individual dancers had codes substituted for names and identifying information. Field notes were also given codes to identify whether they were taken during (or after): 1) a practice session, 2) some other back region, 3) a performance, 4) the interview, or 5) another location. The transcribed notes were also indexed (using a line by line numbering system in addition to a combination of letters to indicate the documents from which they derived). In addition to noting a dancer’s comments about her dance form, costumes, and general outlook on life, field notes included information about the venues where the troupe or individual dancers were invited to perform, which venues were accepted, and which venues they solicited for performances. I also noted which dancers performed at each venue, the composition of the audience and the space in which the dancers acted. Drawing from Giddens (1993) and his careful distinction between the intentionality of performances in back regions versus in regions with various degrees of public exposure and monitoring, I indicated the degree of public access to the space and degree to which the venue conformed to notions of normativity. I also noted the costuming and adornment choices, music selection and movement vocabularies the dancers used and if, and how, they were changed to reproduce or transform notions of normativity and exoticism within the different spaces. Finally, I specifically noted the semi-permanent alterations such as henna and temporary tattoos, and permanent alterations such as tattoos

and piercings. I later asked the dancers if the alterations were done for dance or non- dance purposes, and observed how those adornments were presented in a range of normative and non-normative dance settings as well as in non-performance settings. Through the data gathering process, field notes were typed up and coded. Each meeting with a dancer or the troupe was given individual treatment. Those typed notes were then numbered line-by-line, with each line given an identification code to link it back to its original source and location within that source (Crang 1997). Participant Interviews Observant participation, to use Thrift’s phrase, was integral to this project but triangulation—using more than one method—was used to increase the project’s validity and to allow me to examine in more depth what appears to be complex, human behavior (Valentine 1997; 2001; Shurmer-Smith 2002b). I chose two other methods to complement my field observations: interviews and process-tracing. Making observant participation the main method acknowledged some faults with interviews. They are impersonal, constrained by factors such as time or location and limited to the information that the participant chooses to share. However they still had a place in this project. Since one constructs identities through dance in ways that are both conscious and unconscious, noting the differences between what people do and what they say was an important facet of my chosen methodology. Interviews also allowed participants to explain their individual circumstances, to give their own interpretations and experiences and to have some power over the data that was generated (Valentine 1997; Smith 2001; Valentine 2001). On a more practical note, interviews provided a lot of information in a relatively short timeframe. Through the course of the observant participation, I conducted seven interviews, one with each member of the study group. All interviews were conducted in the dancer’s homes to allow confidentiality to be maintained and to keep distractions at a minimum. The consent forms signed by the dancers at our initial meeting contained allowances for tape recording. I chose to record the interviews so I could replay the material for accuracy and listen for vocal cues such as pauses, hesitations and sarcasm (Crang 1997; Jackson 2001; Smith 2001). Each recording was logged as soon as possible after the interview’s conclusion to allow the greatest recall of the situation and of how my own

actions may have influenced the subject’s responses (Crang 1997). Interview transcriptions then were numbered. Each line contained my personal notes, along with the number and the dancer’s code, thus allowing the material to be linked back to its original source. The transcripts, along with any initial notes, were then placed in that subject’s folder. Data Analysis Because qualitative research relies on richness and depth of data, the amount of time spent doing research was partially determined by the variety of responses and observations obtained, and partially by personal time constraints. All data were gathered over a three-month period. I spent several weeks observing Hipnotic before scheduling interviews. All interviews were completed over a three week period. Upon completion of the field research, I sorted the typed material into themes and patterns. I began by reviewing the material, one line at a time, attempting to uncover meanings and making mental notes to the side (Crang 1997; Jackson 2001; Hannam 2002). I also kept note cards, one for each theme that emerged (Crang 1997). Being someone who prefers note cards to computer databases, I used an old but effective method for sorting the material. I copied it, cut it up, and sorted it into piles (Crang 1997). My note cards with the “theoretical memos” were clipped to the appropriate piles so the memos could be sourced back to the original material. The first sorting was based upon what has been called “emic” or “in vivo” coding. That means grouping the cards based upon the terms used by the participants themselves (Jackson 2001; Hannam 2002). All notes were included in a grouping. Interview and field notes were sorted separately. Before sorting the interviews, I referred to my notes about non-verbal behaviors and, when necessary, listened to the tape recordings in order to catch inflections and irony. I then sorted the data a second time into “etic” or “analytic” codes. These are theoretical categories based on my own ideas and interpretations (Crang 1997; Jackson 2001). This was the research stage that clearly shifted power from the observed to the observer. I did this knowing it is necessary to tease out the structures that are part of the process of creating third space. To lend integrity to the process, I attempted to make notes of my thinking and to consider my own situatedness. As this second sorting

occurred, I made note cards on the themes and attached them to theoretical notes derived from my literature review (Crang 1997). Subsequent sortings were actually sub-sortings. Rather than re-sort all of the material, I attempted to divide each pile into smaller, “discursive repertoires” that further characterized the data (Jackson 2001). Again, I made note cards for and used my literature review to match emerging discursive repertoires with existing theory. Throughout the sortings, I compared and contrasted the categories, the explanations of the categories and the materials contained within each (Jackson 2001). I specifically sought out similarities and differences. This step was conducted to help determine if different readings of the material are necessary, to sort out conflicts in the data and to clarify instances when clear explanations are not possible (Jackson 2001). Process-Tracing Because this project focused on a dance phenomenon that has not been academically studied, one more level of validity was added, what George and Bennett call process-tracing (George 2005). Process tracing uses second source data to verify and clarify conclusions drawn in the primary research and to provide some context (Clark 1997). This additional step allowed me to compare my process-tracing findings to discursive repertoires developed earlier in time, in order to determine if the historical documentation weakens, strengthens, or even establishes some explanation for my findings. I decided to use Clark’s definition for second source data as material that is collected by someone else and that is available to the public (Clark 1997). Specifically, my second source material was printed interviews and chapters in the book The Tribal Bible, ATS and Tribal style articles written in dance magazines, Tribal dance videos that contain historical information, and dancer and troupe web pages. The fact that dancers generate this material does not diminish its relevance. Rather it is the opposite. This material gives the dancer’s own historical explanations for the evolution of Tribal Style dance. Reading their accounts of their own history was intended to reveal something about the message they are trying to articulate to one another and if that message is one the study group performatively reinforces.

The texts were read after the initial data analysis was completed and written. Sections of the material that related to the categories established through the analysis of the primary data were copied, given identification codes based on page number and source, and sorted into piles. To track my own situatedness, I made notes, on separate note cards, as to recurrent themes that were selected. Finally, the piles and notes were summarized in a short summary.

Visual Material

This report includes photographs that were not analyzed per se. Instead they were included as visual examples for others reading this research. Tribal Style dance, obviously, is a visual and aural medium and it is important for people who have not attended a Tribal Style dance performance to be able to experience it. Photographs were taken at various dance events and practices and feature dancers not necessarily included in the study. With consent, images have been identified by troupe and/or stage name.

CULTURE, GEOPOLITICS AND DANCING BODIES

Even in the realm of pure abstraction, ideology, and representation, there is a pervasive and pertinent, if often hidden, spatial dimension (Soja 1996:46).

Culture Interrogated

Culture is a vast topic encompassing identity formation and embodiment, politics, power, and a long list of other social practices. As such, difficulties arise in the very attempt to define the term “culture.” No simple definition can go far enough to explain the layers of meaning and power embedded in the word. Thus any discussion about culture is difficult and fraught with complex theoretical concepts. Culture and Fixity At its most simple configuration, ‘culture’ is commonly used to describe a society’s cultural objects (Cloke et al. 1991). Dance, literature, theater, music…these are products of a particular society. Culture is also a term used to describe a historical hierarchy of societal objects within that bounded space. In Western society, Pavarotti is elevated to high-art while music icon, Britney Spears, is considered pop art. Julliard, where students can learn ballet or modern dance, is considered an institution of classical—cultured—learning whereas a local studio teaching hip-hop or break-dancing is classified as a space for lower class, street culture. The hierarchy not only exists within mediums like dance, music and literature, but also between mediums. For example, a classical music performance is generally privileged over a folk dance production. The audience for the former is likely to be larger, more elite and willing to pay higher prices for admission, while the later caters to niche preferences and is more likely to be free or inexpensive entertainment that is part of a larger a cultural event. Identifying culture by its objects makes culture, itself, a fixed and bounded thing that can be categorized and defined and nested within a stagnant social hierarchy that simply “is.” So some categories of culture can be given “permanent” prominence over others. Culture, then, when referring to objects, is often used in this power-laden sense and can distinguish the objects of the elite—the high arts—by contrasting them with the products of a less refined socio-economic class. This thinking,

which burgeoned in the nineteenth century, makes culture not just an object but also a powerful—and seemingly natural—tool for marking class distinctions within Western society. Broadening out from that usage, the term culture can then be used as an essentialist description of a society, collapsing diverse religious, artistic, social, and other historical and spatial practices into an all-encompassing style of life for a group of people. In this essentializing usage, culture is a “symbolic means by which to sort people out from one another and form an idea of what it is to be a person” (Geertz 1983:65); it provides an umbrella structure that gives identity to an entire group of “diverse” peoples. This sense relies upon the notion that identities, like cultures, are patterns fixed in time and space and holds that these fixed structures define a totality of people, determine their preferences in terms of cultural objects, and govern their actions. In this usage, culture seems “natural;” it has the appearance of something that is given to a population and, consequently, remains stable. Like the culture as object usage, this essentialist usage too has a variety of power and meaning rich layers and the “natural” fixity of cultural boundaries means underlying power relations remain stable and hidden (Said 1978; Bhabha 1994; Mitchell 2000b; Appadurai 2003; Clifford 2003). This essentialist usage relies upon the “us” and “other” binary and has been dialectically tied to space, especially national boundaries. Those who do not belong to “our” national culture belong to an “other” culture (Bhabha 1994; Pieterse 1995; Appadurai 2003; Clifford 2003; Pieterse 2004). Because space is seen as fixed, and identities have been tied to those spaces, people from other homelands are inherently different from “us”. Space, then, completely defines an “Other”. It is a structure from which the Other cannot escape. One’s body, identity, cultural preferences, morality and actions are determined by the spaces in which one lives. As with the hierarchy of cultural objects, nationally bounded cultures too can be dialectically stratified. Because of the boundedness and “stability” of national boundaries, the cultural distinction that is used to essentialize people’s identities is likewise fixed into a stratification of nations that appears to simply exist beyond anyone’s control. This construction uses culture to divide people along political lines. The group of bounded “Others” is juxtaposed to the comparison group, i.e. the enlightened and

advanced “us,” and judged accordingly. In this way, culture becomes a tool for creating naturalized political and cultural borders between an inferior “other” and the superior “us.” Thus cultural essentialism promotes ‘natural’—to use Soja’s terminology— polarities; “hegemonic power universalizes and contains difference in real and imagined spaces and places” (Soja 1996:87). Such geographies compartmentalize people and places and create centers and peripheries of power. The West becomes the center of modernity and knowledge while other nations become contingent. Culture, in this sense, has special significance. Through cultural objects—images, texts and representations—in addition to discourses and language, those who live in other nations are portrayed as inferior to the West. Culture, as a spatial discourse, hence becomes a tool whereby “Others” are devalued and dominated. In geographic terms, essentializing cultural practices create spaces of difference, spaces that serve to keep imperialist power structures in place (Said 1978; Bhabha 1994; Soja 1996; Appadurai 2003). Culture: a Changing Epistemology For many decades, cultural essentialism was a common methodological foundation for social scientists. Within the field of anthropology, to give one example, researchers thought of themselves as cultural preservationists, out to record and to preserve foreign folk heritages. Such an approach advanced the researcher into a position of privilege as the researcher was assumed to possess the skills and training—which the “Other” lacks—to interpret and document the activities of that “Other”. The researcher also had an assumed obligation to preserve “traditions” on behalf of that “Other”. This methodology put the researcher into the position of power with the ability to travel to a different culture, to record his experiences from a “neutral,” God’s eye point-of-view and to leave with an unbiased and accurate account of a folk group’s essentialized way of life. In the 1970’s, anthropologist Clifford Geertz made an argument for studying culture “From the Native’s Point of View” (Geertz 1983). In his seminal essay, Geertz argued that the astute researcher gains familiarity with another’s culture through a spectrum of experiences. At one end of that spectrum are experience-distant observations: unemotional, detached, “scientific” observations. Experience-distant observations are the foundation for the conventional, modernist, anthropologic methods

discussed above. But Geertz described the other end of the spectrum as well: experience- near observations. These emotional and personal observations contradict the model of the purely ‘scientifically’ neutral, clinically sanitized, observer. Here Geertz not only admitted to the emotions within his research, he advocated an emotional approach with others. Experiences that are emotionally “near” allow the researcher to understand a culture from the point of view of the native, Geertz argued, and in order to be a complete record of a cultural tradition, anthropologic studies must be conducted along a spectrum ranging from near to distant experiences. Geertz’s early spectrum approach still assumed culture and identity as fixed spatial constructs and rested on the now contested idea of the binary “us” versus “them,” but it signaled the beginning of a change toward a new research model based upon culture as relational, recognizing how culture is constructed as an “ordered system of meanings and symbols, in terms of which social interaction take place” (Geertz 1983:65). Cultural essentialism proved a valuable tool for imperialism, as colonizing countries could rationalize taking political and economic control away from people who were deemed culturally inferior. But deep social and political transformations in the years after World War Two highlighted the interconnectedness of people’s lives and the rest of the world. In the following decades, people struggled to grasp meaning as they became aware of the increasingly more diverse political, economic, and social climate within which they lived (Shurmer-Smith 2002a). People were daily exposed to the emerging human world of ‘flexibility, diversity and differentiation’: a world where (to give a simple illustration) a women’s worker co-operative making tools for disabled people can co-exist in the same cul-de-sac as a warehouse full of computer games, a social-work office, a row of allotments, a ten-pin bowling club, a mosque and a kiss-o- gram agency (Cloke et al. 1991:179).

The new, post-war, fluctuating reality made it increasingly difficult for scholars to subscribe to their old epistemology, just as it challenged individuals who were striving for localized continuity and coherence as they practiced culture. Scholars, like Geertz, began to recognize that their methodology was based upon theories produced by affluent, Western, white, heterosexual males, and did not account for difference and change (Shurmer-Smith 2002c; Landzelius 2004; Scott 2004). Geertz was part of this cultural turn.

Elements of modernity are resulting from and continuing to help drive globalization. Technological developments are allowing bodies to travel more often and farther distances than ever before possible. Additionally travel is no longer necessary for people to have contact with ‘others’. Tools of spatial augmentation such as films, television programs, and the Internet expose people to foreign cultures, identities, ideas, and places (Scott 2004; Huq 2006). Internationalizing market relations and global politics are creating knowledge networks that cross what were once stabilized, national boundaries (Giddens 1991). All of these processes are components of the heightened global awareness that is making cosmopolitanism, once considered the province of the elite, a condition of contemporary life (Pieterse 2004; Scott 2004).

Globalization and Cultural Hybridity

Postmodernist thinking reinvigorated discussions about space as social scientists were forced to examine the cultural situated-ness of their own methodical, and essentializing, search for order (Cloke et al. 1991; Soja 1996; Mitchell 2000b; Sklar 2001). Culture, as it was tied to space, had often been used to create binary understandings of identity and difference. Since culture could no longer be seen as a totalizing and controlling thing, the West could no longer been seen as the geographical center of world history. Postmodernists recognized that cultural geographies of center and periphery were constructed by the West and used to reify a stratified world order in which the West dominated and whereby all others were contrasted. Decentering the West meant recognizing a new world order. Globalization It is appropriate at this point to discuss the term “globalization” briefly, as the meaning is relational. Different fields use different structures to define globalization; economic, historic, cultural and political approaches all require radically different conceptualizations of globalization and have competing time frames for its existence. Geography, in this view, is not connected to any single, determinist structure. Rather, a spatial approach frees one to think of globalization not as a concerted project, but as a multi-dimensional and nebulous process or—more precisely—as a series of historical,

cultural, economic and political processes (Pieterse 2004). These myriad multi- dimensional processes both result from and culminate in a “compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (Pieterse 2004:17) Based on this premise, globalization is used in this paper to indicate three processes: the compression of time and space; the growing awareness of “others”; and the amplification of cultural object sharing, which are jointly leading to a blurring of earlier center and periphery distinctions. It is important to note that ideas about globalization and the importance of space have evolved. At the end of the twentieth century, globalization was frequently thought of as a force that would make national, bounded territories irrelevant. Transnational corporations, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, these are all examples of entities that exist across national boundaries. It was thought that such organizations were the model for what would become a true, homogenized world culture and economy. This theory did not, in reality, undo the West and Other binaries. Rather it rested on the imperialist assumption that globalization would really be a Westernization of the world and that Western culture would obliterate, or at least restructure, the cultures of Others (Said 1978; Clifford 1988; Giddens 1991; Pieterse 1995; 2004). It was also thought that the resulting globalized culture would eliminate essentialized categories and bring people into a “diverse” yet harmonious whole. Scholars now increasingly recognize that geographies cannot be constructed upon imperialist notions. Western constructions cannot be inconsequentially applied to non- Western cultures, nor can the world be viewed as solely relational to the West. Space, society and culture must be seen as “an intrinsic and relational dimension of identity and difference, and a concept that focuses our critical attention on the uneven and unequal production and circulation of meaning” (Clayton 2004: 450-451). Global flows provide an easy example. Multi-directional borrowings unravel imperialist, center-periphery assumptions and blur the distinction between “internal” and “external,” us and them. Flows do not only occur from colonized to colonizer; the colonized have not remained passive receivers in this relationship (Appadurai et al. 1991; Barker 2003). Consequently flows can presume a transnational blending that is not driven by the West. Raí music is one example. As early as the 1920’s, Algerian and French artists worked

together to create new sounds that gained popularity in Asia and Europe and eventually the United States. In 1999, Raí artist Cheb Mami, for example, recorded a duet with Peter Gabriel, consequently becoming popular in the West (Huq 2006). Raí music does not reproduce any one cultural “tradition” but rather creates a hybridized sound that appeals to indigenous populations, diasporic communities, and to majority, Western racial groups identifying with nationalities not their own. Hybridized cultural forms, like Raí, in destabilizing the boundedness of cultures, also problematize the idea of historic parameters. Cultures cannot be studied as fluid across space, but fixed in time. Globalization may be a speeding up the creation of hybrid forms, but is not the reason for them; they have always existed. Cultural ensembles have to be studied as forming through a continuous series—one that has gone on historically and will continue into the future—of articulations and disarticulations within and across borders. By methodologically giving fluidity to all cultural constructions, hybridity theories can easily founder in chaos. Viewing all culture as hybrid, and all cultural bodies as able to link or de-link with anything at any moment in time or space reduces issues of power to context. Hybridity theory, then, can become nebulous and chaotic, hardly worth scrutinizing in order to understand wider social processes. That is, unless one again considers that critical dimension: space. Space: Contextualizing History and Society It has become clearer that globalization cannot mean an erasing of societal boundaries. Globalization, instead, must be reframed to examine cultural sharing, but within the confines of space (Clifford 2003). Examinations of spatial confines nested within multi-scalar processes can explain a great deal about the social ordering of the world. As such, it is important to view globalization as a process of blending across boundaries. It is a process that is less coherent than imperialism. It is not directed by bounded, imperialist cultures (Pieterse 2004) but, to use Foucault, cited in Soja, it still “takes the form of relations among sites” (Soja 1996:156). To further understand the spatial processes at work here and the importance of fluidity over time and space, it is useful to examine Giddens’ structuration theory. Giddens drew from Hagerstrand’s time-geography to develop structuration theory

because time-geography recognized structure, not as a thing, but as a process (thus not fixed) culminating from people’s daily activities and interactions across time and space. Giddens advanced structuration theory to address issues of space and power and to investigate areas of opportunity, rather than just the constraints arising from structural limitations on one’s movements and activities. The key concerns of structuration theory are three fold: the body’s position in time-space, the nature of the interaction between bodies, and the connection between that interaction and the “absent” influences that give context to that interaction. In other words, structuration theory requires not only an awareness of how micro-processes constitute macro-processes but also how macro- processes are deeply enmeshed in micro-processes (Giddens 1985). Studying micro and macro processes as mutually constitutive means studying the processes whereby humans become agents of social structure and social structures result from human actions. So, structuration means acknowledging that ordinary, human actions both produce and reproduce society at the same time (Giddens 1993). Appadurai (2003) explains the two-tiered process with an explicit focus on space. He defines social structure as the actions people take within their cultural framework. It is the actual network comprised of these social relations; it is the spatially embedded, ordered system that frames a person’s thoughts, feelings and actions and it is the social structure that is the manifestation of people’s physical response to that system Spaces have properties that impact social interactions, making space not only a shaped force but a shaping force as each individual spends her life learning social skills in order to function within her society and, by functioning, replicates what she has learned (Giddens 1985; Mitchell 2000b; Appadurai 2003). That means space and spatial hierarchies are constructed through repeat performances. A chair is understood to be a chair through its repeated use as such by those sitting on it. A child learns to use a chair by watching others perform the action of sitting. The action of sitting in a chair, then, gives relevance to the chair as a space for sitting. By engaging in and acting upon such ordinary, daily thought processes within ordinary, everyday spaces, one unintentionally reproduces governing structures—here that chairs, and not floors, are for sitting—within one’s society (Thrift 2004). Ordinary actions have extraordinarily unintended, spatial consequences in that they shape social

rules at the same time that they result from social norms embedded in place (Giddens 1985; Soja 1996; Appadurai 2003; Thrift 2004). The dual tier approach is critical because it acknowledges that culture is a formation process, which continues into the future and is based on, but not locked into, historical conditions (Bhabha 1994; Mitchell 2000b; Pieterse 2004). This is an important concept in terms of power. The past, of course, is part of the present but one cannot look to the past as a singular explanation for culture. One must look to the present—and to current spatial relationships—to explain which elements of the past are reproduced into the contemporary cultural tradition and which elements will be carried into the future. So the processes of production and reproduction work within power laden historical/spatial contexts. And indeed, certain forms and antagonisms persist over long periods. Yet the enduring power of structuring forces such as Christianity, capitalism, or traditional kinship, can’t be understood except as they work through specific cultural ensembles and political blocs. And they are never guaranteed, but actively sustained and potentially contested (Clifford 2003:90).

Note that power can be constructive. It is what enables humans to create social groups (Foucault 1978). It is what, for example, enabled Carolena Nericcio to create ATS. But power can also be destructive. Power is the potential for and the exercise of “domination,” and “the ability to control outcomes” that “depend upon the agency of others” (Giddens 1993:118). Those in power have the ability to control human activity; those in power also have a great capacity to influence situatedness, which in turn influences the production of culture. What are considered social norms may actually be outcomes influenced by the activities of those in power. Consequently reproduced social norms like “tradition” can unintentionally serve to help the powerful retain power. Globalization, in that it is providing an unprecedented scale of cultural mixing, is allowing people to pull elements from other cultural “traditions” to form new “cultural ensembles.” Articulated elements “make a cultural body, which is also a process of disconnection, through actively sustained antagonisms. Articulations and disarticulations are constant processes in the making and remaking of cultures” (Clifford 2003: 45). Cultural articulations may seem random on their surface, however they are anything but

random. Cultural and spatial forces, and historical hierarchies of power, underlie the construction of new cultural ensembles. The Nation and Thirdspace Even national claims to “cultural diversity” are problematic. Diversity can be grouped into the same category as multiculturalism and cultural exchange; such terms serve to naturalize idealistic notions of unique individuals living harmoniously together within a bounded, essentializing culture. It is in this way that concepts like diversity serve to flatten out identities. Globalizing processes have exposed the idealized construction of national diversity. The nation is no longer the sign of modernity under which cultural differences are homogenized in the ‘horizontal’ view of society. The nation reveals, in its ambivalent and vacillating representation, an ethnography of its own claim to being the norm of social contemporaneity (Bhabha 1994:149).

Globalization has meant having to recognize that difference exists within bounded, national units (Bhabha 1994). The United States, as study group member Bailee puts it, “is a fusion society. We are living in a big fusion bucket.” Attempts to essentialize that fusion bucket into a singular, homogenous culture, necessarily privilege some over others. Homogenizing and sustaining structures, like national cultures, do influence people’s daily lives, and people do act to reproduce those structures or the structures would not exist. However those structures are not “fixed”. They can be changed. Here is where structuration theory really has significance. Structures and agents have a causal but not a direct connection. While one does influence another, neither variable is entirely dependent upon the other. Consequently, ordinary spatial practices may recreate the ordered system, or they may challenge it (Appadurai et al. 1991). Following this concept, Appadurai makes the argument that the method for understanding cultural construction is to study periods when the two variables—culture and social structure—are in conflict because such “moments of disruption and, in general, occasions of conflict provide lenses into the key principals of the social and cultural order” (Appadurai 2003:2). Following Lefebvre, Soja comes to the same conclusion with a directly spatial argument. He identifies the structures that are created through

everyday, human, spatial activity as “Firstspace.” Firstspace is “the process of producing the material form of social spatiality” (Soja 1996) and can be perceived and studied quantitatively. Soja distinguishes Firstspace from “Secondspace”, the space of hegemonic structures. Neither First- nor Secondspace operates independently. “Each illusion often nourishes the other” (Soja 1996:64). Nourishment or starvation of the system happens in Thirdspace, a space of representation. This is the space of real, lived experiences. It encompasses all other space. It ties the symbols and categories of imagined space, the power-laden structures of Secondspace, and the spatial practices of Firstspace. But Soja is careful to explain that Thirdspace is not a third grouping. It does not create a tri-ism (as opposed to a dualism). It is a theoretical attempt to expand knowledge beyond the confines of modernist methodology in a way that is ontologically sound. “The critical thirding-as-othering is the first and most important step in transforming the categorical and closed logic of either/or to the dialectically open logic of both/and also” (Soja 1996:60). Bhabha too recognizes this third-space as the real location of culture. He says it is here that various people collide and differences must be negotiated. Looking at these “in- between spaces” shifts focus from pre-defined categories such as race, class, or sexual orientation, to border areas where the categories interact, collaboratively or not. The problem of cultural interaction emerges only at the significatory boundaries of cultures, where meanings and values are (mis)read or signs are misappropriated. Culture only emerges as a problem, or a problematic at the point at which there is a loss of meaning in the contestation and articulation of everyday life, between classes, genders, races and nations (Bhabha 1994:34).

So this Thirdspace is where hybrid ensembles are formed. It is the space where difference—not diversity—resides. It is the borderland where the normative is challenged; it is also the borderland where “us” and “them” models are unraveled. Those who do not fit into the hegemonic structures of Secondspace reside in this Thirdspace. They inhabit the borderlands between cultural boundaries, creating their own unique identities that do not conform to notions of spatial fixity, tradition and the past. Returning to the discussion of the nation, and identity as a national construct, it is now possible to examine how Thirdspace allows one to resist flattened identities. Citizens are part of a homogenized national culture that is produced and reproduced

through spatially embedded social process. Those for whom this national culture is not representative reside in Thirdspace. Through their actions in this Thirdspace they can challenge that national culture as being non-representative, thereby exposing the hidden dimension of power which serves to elevate some over others (Bhabha 1994; Soja 1996). Hybrid ensembles, formed within this Thirdspace, expose the power imbalances within nations and between nations. By deconstructing the reifying structures that preserve fixed, social boundaries, Thirdspace ensembles also deconstruct the boundaries that divide people based on space. To understand these points further, it is important to examine identity as it specifically relates to space.

Bodily Discourses and Identity in Nationalist Politics

Thirdspaces provide fertile ground for resistance studies and they provide theoretical explanation for agency in identity construction. It is through postmodernist constructs such as ensembles and Thirdspaces that scholars have begun interrogating identities as fluid and contextual rather than fixed and spatial. To understand this process, it is important to further interrogate some historical power-imbalances that involved the placing of identities onto bodies. The project of layering fixed national and cultural identities onto lower socio-economic classes and onto the bodies of others was an integral part of the Western imperialist project. Identity Construction and Fixity While 19th century Europeans and Americans are commonly dismissed as prudish about sex and the body, Western society experienced an explosion of dialogues about the physical being (Foucault 1978; Terry and Urla 1995). Scientists, for example, began projects of measuring and documenting bodily characteristics, and searching for links between a body’s physicality and one’s personality. “Others” and those living on the fringes of society were considered deviant and scientists sought to locate the source of that deviancy in the composition of the body (Swedlund and Urla 1995; Terry and Urla 1995). Doctors and scientists used their measurements to determine the composition of a “normal” body, thereby giving a baseline from which to compare abnormal, and lesser, bodies.

Science, with its rational and unemotional quest for knowledge, naturalized connections between bodily “deformity” and deviancy. “Efforts to measure the ears of criminals, the clitorises of prostitutes, and the facial contours of ‘perverts’ fueled a feverish desire to classify forms of deviance, to locate them in biology, and thus to police them in the larger social body” (Terry and Urla 1995:1). Approaching the body as born, not made, gave epistemological justification to grouping bodies into categories of essentially, like beings. Those who did not have the appropriate body could not help their deviance and, because of the limitations of their physical bodies, would never be able to achieve normalcy. Scientific rationality, then, not only excused but also lent naturalness and fixity to social and cultural hierarchies. The lower classes could not help their inferiority because they could not escape their bodily trappings. The elite, however, not only had normal bodies, they could control those bodies and did so purposefully to demonstrate their superiority. Using mannerisms, dress, postures, and the like, the bourgeois could “perform” their status. Sexuality, as it was ascribed to primitiveness, had to be excessively controlled to performatively distinguish the refined upper classes from the commoners. “Henceforth social differentiation would be affirmed, not by the ‘sexual’ quality of the body, but by the intensity of its repression” (Foucault 1978:129). Such repression has led to the modern image of the Victorian prude, but it is important to remember that Victorian sexuality, and the control of it, was about power and social distinction, not about the dirtiness of sex. Rather than limit sexuality, such dialectics of power created categories and hierarchies of sexuality. The sexuality of “Others” was primitive and open for investigation. The sexuality of the upper classes was controlled and conducted in private (Foucault 1978). Upper class, Victorian women went to great lengths to control their bodies. They hid body parts under layers of clothing. They wore corsets that, over time, could reshape their torsos (and cause incredible damage to major organs). They refrained from exercise or physical exertion that could over tax their frail bodies (Buonaventura 2004). Upper class men, in contrast, created for themselves a “positive body” which, in practice, reinforced masculinity as the condition of being stoically above nature and above the need for identity constructions based upon physicality (Wolff 1997). Bourgeois men

were thus described for their minds, while bodies were used to classify everyone else. By its very definition, rationality, then, excluded and degraded females. The classically masculine body was rational because it was not consumed by bodily—or feminine— functions or desires (Foucault 1978; Terry and Urla 1995; Wolff 1997). Females, because of their gender, were inscribed with bodily traits and emotionality; they were considered irrational, and even prone to hysteria (Wolff 1997). Through this process, sexuality became enmeshed with gender; sex (female, male) became a neutral/positivist term and gender became a power-laden social construct (Foucault 1978; Wolff 1997; Butler 1999; Wolf 2002). The West extended dialogues about the embodiment of deviance and about essentialized identity categories into nationalist politics. Bodies of foreign “Others” too could be scientifically qualified by their primitive, uncontrolled sexuality and their racial inferiority, thereby further justifying their need for rational, Western intervention and control. Furthering the imperialist cause, the bodies were also put on display in Western venues created explicitly to exhibit the odd and the curious in an acceptable, rationally scientific way; an approach still familiar today in venues like “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” (Salem 1995; Pitts-Taylor 2003). In this manner—through spectacle—the “bourgeoisie used various entertainment venues to explore race, body and sexuality” (Salem 1995:40) and to further colonialist aims. As it were, the grotesque bodies featured in freak show exhibits, fairs and variety shows and measured for various scientific studies were often those of people—like “Middle Easterners”—under colonial rule. Several points are relevant here. The ruling classes created seemingly natural, and thus, fixed identity categories into which people were placed. Masculine traits such as reason and rationality were privileged over feminine traits such as emotionality and bodily connectedness. Feminine traits were inscribed onto the bodies of women and on the bodies of primitive “Others”. All but the male elite were confined to the limitations of their bodies; only the elite had the superior capability of using rationality to master their bodies. So bodily codes were placed onto bodies by a nationalist, patriarchal society. Most people, because of the “deviance” in their bodies, could not participate in bourgeois society. Their gender, race, disability or other such bodily characteristic

automatically determined their fixed place within an ordered, nationalist society and hierarchy of nations (Wolff 1997; Wolf 2002). Performance as a Theoretical Device Inherent in this process was the idea of self-policing. By adhering to normative codes, by adopting and engaging in seemingly mundane, performative options, people could police their own behavior and thus preserve their social status. For example, a rigid, upright posture and abstinence from physical exertion were performances used to outwardly signify a lady’s elevated status in stratified Victorian society; they also formed a mechanism of self-policing whereby women controlled their own bodies and thus reinforced the notion that their bodies, and their sexuality, were in need of control (Foucault 1978; Pitts-Taylor 2003; Buonaventura 2004). In the 1960’s and 1970’s, feminists in the United States attempted to expose the self-policing that allowed for the continuation of patriarchal, national constructs about gendered traits and the female body. “It is through the body that women collude in their own oppression” (Wolff 1997:87). Following such discourses, beauty ideals became suspect. Feminists decried hygiene, grooming and dressing practices that perpetuated cultural constructions of beauty. Soon, any sort of body modification, from shaving and make-up to cosmetic surgery was linked to a loss of control of one’s body, to female oppression, and at the most extreme, to victimization (Wolf 2002; Pitts-Taylor 2003). However, a flaw was soon discovered in this reasoning. Even the untouched, “natural” body is still a constructed body. Unshaved armpits have different meanings on the bodies of men than on women. So even in its “natural” state, no body is natural. All bodies are marked, constructed, and modified within context of society and power (Bell and Valentine 1995; Terry and Urla 1995; Butler 1999; Pitts-Taylor 2003). This thinking, at the same time that it limits her, epistemologically frees the person from constraints of her body. Her identity is “fixed” onto her body by sustained antagonisms, but her identity is not a fixed thing. Thus subjectivity and identity are distinctive. Subjectivity is what it means to be a person. It is the totality of lived experiences. Identity, in contrast, is how we perceive ourselves within society and how others see us.

This is important on many levels. First, one can perform identity how one chooses. So identity is not about “being,” it is about “becoming.” It is part of that past- present continuum of life. “From this perspective, the self isn’t and can’t be “discovered” through reading its body practices, but rather gains meaning within and through such practices” (Pitts-Taylor 2003:84). Our world does not exist; it is continuously practiced through time and across space. So in order to exist, gendered identities like the “natural” body, along with other normative social constructs, must be performed again and again (Foucault 1978; Bell and Valentine 1995; Butler 1999; Dewsbery 2000; Rose and Gregson 2000). Those who have the power to preserve that which they define as “good” will act to reproduce those norms (Mitchell 2000a). Those who are categorized as non- normative people, according to Soja, have two performative choices: to accept and make the best of their lack of power, or they have the power to somehow resist. Tribal Style dancers, for example, choose to reject normative discourses using bodily performances. Second, it is important to distinguish between action and intended action. Both have social production and reproduction capabilities but intended action, by its definition, requires reflexivity and is based on the notion that audience matters. “Nothing is more central to, and distinctive of, human life than the reflexive monitoring of behavior, which is expected by all ‘competent’ members of society of others” (Giddens 1993:120). Every competent member of society is expected to interpret her behavior based on social norms, and it is against those social norms that others will judge her interpretation and behavior (Foucault 1978; Giddens 1993; Nash 2000). It is in this way that categories like gender become temporarily stable social constructions, called discursive practices (Foucault 1978). Third is that identity is always spatial. It must be performed and interpreted in context (Bell and Valentine 1995; Thrift and Pile 1995b; Soja 1996; Mitchell 2000b; Thrift 2004). “These choices are inherently spatial responses, individual and collective reactions to the ordered workings of power in perceived, conceived and lived spaces” (Soja 1996:87). So identity, like culture, is embedded in space. One cannot escape the structure of one’s society but one can chose to reproduce it or to challenge it. Identity discourses, like those of culture, are often tied to national boundaries. A national identity is created and maintained by those in power and is challenged

performatively by those for whom the identity is not representative, in other words, those without power (Thrift and Pile 1995b; Mitchell 2000b). In one role, citizens are national subjects of a national, pedagogical culture that is negotiated within various scales. They reside in an area of tension between the totalizing, (national) societal structures and the “unequal interests” of the social actor (Bhabha 1994). National identities, which could be seen as a tool for uniting divergent people, are deconstructed as serving the interest of those in power. It is important to note here that early resistance theories focused on minorities as critical players in Thirdspace. New theories, in contrast, highlight the non- minority who can also create ‘new world order’ in third-space by creating “symbolic hybrid identities” or “hybrid hyphenations” (Bhabha 1994) with elements from around the globe. These hybrid hyphenations are having an ever more powerful effect on behavior and cultural constructions (Giddens 1993; Scott 2004). The fourth point is that “the reflexivity of the self extends to the body, where the body is part of an action system rather than merely a passive object” (Giddens 1991:77) The body is controlled and used to signify the self to the world (Giddens 1991; Pitts- Taylor 2003). One cannot categorize one body as more or less subversive than another based on the actors’ intent; just because one says he or she is more subversive, that does not mean it is so. Degrees of subversion depend upon signification and resignification. So the performance is tied to the space of the performance and the meaning it embodies within context of that space (Pitts-Taylor 2003). Hairy armpits and visible tattoos on women, for example, suggest a purposeful transgressiveness in the United States because they are not the norm. Globalization and Hybrid Identities According to Giddens, the level of global connectedness “introduced by high modernity is so extensive that, for the first time in human history ‘self’ and ‘society’ are interrelated in a global milieu” (Giddens 1991:32). While I do not agree that modernity marks the first time people have negotiated identity and society within more globally reaching configurations—early ballet, for example, borrowed from Persia at the same time that is was very much a project of European identity construction—his point about the extensive degree of time-space compression is well taken. Globalizing processes are

giving people access to more resources than ever before for constructing identity (Giddens 1991; Nederveen Pieterse 1995; 2004). Just as temporal and spatial processes contextualize all borrowings, hybridity too is conceived and received differently in different contexts. For example, those who see hybridity as a negative wish to preserve current cultural structures (Nederveen Pieterse 1995; 2004). Tribal Style dancers, in contrast, see hybridity as necessary for creating identities that do not preserve the status quo. Everyone constructs and embodies identity differently because it is done within one’s own hegemonic, cultural regimes (Bell and Valentine 1995; Pitts-Taylor 2003). “In America, we are very individualistic. This is kind of our mentality. I am going to do what I am going to do and if you don’t like it, screw you. I have that mentality obviously,” says Faye. The ability to choose identity characteristics at a multi-scalar level gives one freedom from nationalistic structures and identity constructions and allows one to have more resources for creating transgressive identities. Donna Haraway (1991) makes the point with regard to academic, feminist models that scholars need new terminology for dealing with such hybridized, multi-vocal identity constructions. She turns to the term “cyborg.” A cyborg, in the traditional science fiction/medical sense, is a being that is part mechanical and part human. It is a figure that transgresses boundaries of the flesh. Haraway attempts to reclaim the word cyborg to represent a figure that—with political intent—transgresses social and political boundaries, not just fleshly ones. “So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work” (Haraway 1991:154). Clifford’s current approach to culture denies the concept of authentic or inauthentic culture and reinforces the idea that culture, tradition and identity are not things to be studied but power-relationships to be to be explored. The approach further highlights the borderlands between categories. Drawing on Haraway’s cyborg myth, Clifford borrows the word ‘cyborg’ to recognize the cultural body—the result of layers of history and spatial processes—that is not analogous to any ‘organic body’ with any ‘normal’ or expected shape. Accounts of globalization as a condition of modernity neglect issues of context. Thus they tend not to recognize issues of power (Nederveen

Pieterse 1995; 2004). In contrast, power is implicit in Haraway’s cyborg creation. Cyborgs do not reproduce hegemony; they reconfigure it. Consequently hybrid identity configurations—cyborgs—are the basis for this research project. Non-Representational Performances Previously I discussed intentional performances. Constructed identities and bodily performances can be both intentional and unintentional. Because this thesis focuses on transgressiveness, the discussion centers on intentional performances, however it would be negligent not to raise awareness about emerging discourses on pre- reflexive performance. Thrift argues that resistance studies have focused too heavily on textual analysis of the body, with the result that “there is still a gulf between theory and much of the work on everyday usages of the body, self, person, identity and subject found in anthropology, sociology and historical studies” (Thrift and Pile 1995a:371). The restrictions of representational ontologies neglect the non-contemplative and sensuous bodily understandings of our everyday world, he argues, and consequently the spaces of geographical narratives have become indifferent, having little real impact on identity formation and performances. Embodiment and performativity studies provide avenues for addressing those concerns (Thrift and Pile 1995b; 1995a; Smith 2001; Thrift 2004). Thrift wishes to elevate bodily performances over texts. Texts, he argues, are singular, purposeful, verbal expressions whereas performances are multi-textual. Texts use language to interpret and construct the world but performances comprise a multi- sensual world of being. It is a matter of belonging in the world—understanding the world as a very condition of our being—and creating the world through our living, versus representing the world through narratives. So Thrift argues for studying the body, not for its representations, but for how we “know” the world through our bodies (Nash 2000; Thrift 2004). His non-representational theory seeks to address not just the encoding of the body, but the daily interplay of people through their bodies, stressing their crossings and interconnectedness. This interplay means studying not just the messages that are sent, but those that are received and the intercontexuality of that pre-reflexive sharing. Many scholars are appreciative of Thrift’s non-representational theory because it injects the conscious need for sensitivity to pre-discursive bodily practices. The theory also examines the results and emotions that pre-reflexive movements inspire, with the

goal of developing “a new theoretical vocabulary of performance” (Nash 2000:654). These elements are integral to understanding Tribal Style dance more fully. Thrift, however, succumbs to some of the reified structures that postmodernists have sought to expose as unnatural. Nash notes a tension in Thrift’s work between the conscious performed body—that acts within a range of normative and non-normative codes—and the naturalized, unconscious, performed body that unknowingly replicates cultural power structures. She argues that Thrift elevates the prediscursive, and in so doing contradicts investigations of “intersections between representations, discourses, material things spaces and practices—the intertwined and interacting social and material world” (Nash 2000:661). Here dance affords an intriguing example. Thrift cites dance as a good example of movement as a practice but not as a representation; dance as a “concentrated” example of non-logo centric bodily expressiveness that allows one to escape from reflexivity. Even as he uses dance to exemplify his attempt to move geography into studying the fleshiness and non-representational way our bodies exist and understand the world— liberating scholars from the need for textual analysis to deconstruct power—dance scholars are finally moving toward a textual analysis of the body through dance. “Along with the new language of performativity, the vocabulary of dance is being enlisted in order to rethink ideas of subjectivity, embodiment and social identities” (Nash 2000:653). Wolff and Kempt, as cited by Nash, decry Thrift’s non-representational theory as nothing more than an optimistic update on that old practice of separating the mind from the body. Positivist thinking, and the categorical elevation of the mind—and unemotional rationality—over the body, according to feminist scholar, Janet Wolff (1997), is the reason for the only recent recognition of the contextuality of dance. The mind/body distinction has led to the devaluation of all bodily endeavors, but particularly of dance.2 This is evidenced, for example, when dance is compared to less bodily connected, and more respected arts such as literature and painting. The devaluation of dance has led

2 Dance remains under-studied in academia, and although it has traditionally had limited mass appeal, it is gaining in popularity. Recent television shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars along with movies such as Mad Hot Ballroom and Step Up demonstrate a recent popularization of dance.

dance scholars to focus their efforts on rich history or kinesthetic descriptions but to overlook the deeper social and historical processes embedded within dance practices. Advocating the pre-discursiveness of dance is a position entrenched in power relationships, as losing oneself in movement—losing oneself in pure “being”—has been historically and dialectically equated with a state of naturalness. Likening dance to a state of pure “being” reiterates the discourses embedded within the “natural,” unmodified feminist body, and discourses that represent dance as feminine, irrational, ephemeral movement (Nash 2000). It also furthers essentializing practices bound to dance. “The idea of dance as a ‘universal language’ is still too common” (Kaeppler 1978:117). As if to reinforce her point, while reading materials on Oriental dance, I found a scholarly series written in 2004, with a forward by a professor of kinesiology who calls dance a “universal language” that is above race or linguistics (Alzayer 2004:6). Such characterizations are predicated on such notions that one can understand dance, particularly the dance of another, a priori. “The image of the dancer dancing to a world elsewhere and beyond the reach of words and power does not easily provide a model for effective political strategy nor a useful cultural politics” (Nash 2000:657). Following Nash and Kaeppler, this paper interrogates Tribal Style Dance for its reflexivity and for its prediscursiveness. Tribal Style dancers purposefully use their bodies as vehicles of disruption within their own social contexts. They reflexively combine a range of normative and non-normative bodily codes and, in so doing, challenge hegemonic constructions of normative dance. So basing a research project on Tribal Style dance necessitates including embodiment discourses that study reflexively resistant acts embedded in globalizing processes but that occur within a national framework of power relationships. “That is what cultural politics is all about: strategizing in the realm of practice and meaning to create new worlds, new histories, new ways to live. Or conversely, strategizing to preserve the old” (Mitchell 2000a:161).

Dance as Political Practice

Every culture has some form of dance, whether it is considered high art, folk culture or something in between. Studying it as a textual performance and for its performativity, studying dancescapes3 allows researchers to address issues regarding the embodiment of identity, politics and culture within cultures (Valentine 2001). Because postmodernism seeks to investigate the power relations embedded in seemingly natural practices, a postmodern study of dancescapes has the great potential to expose hidden layers of meaning. Now, in an attempt to dispel any lingering notions of dance as content-light, I direct this discussion to the worthiness of dance in academic scholarship. Ballet is “Ethnic”: Interrogating Dance in Context Well ahead of her time and ahead of the rise of postmodernism, anthropologist Joanne Kealiinohomoku wrote a controversial and “radical” article that deconstructed ballet as a political practice, embedded in place. In it she labeled ballet an ethnic form of dance, and in so doing, was one of the first to recognize dance as a spatial practice and to move it into the realm of theory. The paper, written in 1969, was a difficult one for contemporary dancers and dance scholars who used the term “ethnic dance” to essentialize something that belonged to a non-white “Other.” The reaction was further relevant considering the contemporary Western discourses linking the “Other” with primitivism. For example, Kealiinohomoku (1969) cited writings of dance scholars who described primitive dance as something concentrated in the pelvis—hinting at sexuality. Others portrayed primitive dance as repetitious and without emotion. Some described men and women dancing separately until the dance turned into some sort of orgiastic ritual. In all of these descriptions was the prevailing message that non-white dance is primitive, natural, and sexualized while Western dance, in contrast, takes skill and is

3 The idea of “dancescapes” comes from Gil Valentine, who used the terms “soundscapes” and “musicscapes” to explain geographers growing interest in the social construction of sound and music. I argue that the interest in sound and musicscapes should extend to dancescapes. Valentine’s reference is taken from (1995) Creating Transgressive Space: The Music of kd lang, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. V.20, 474-485.

something beautiful, artistic, and refined. “With the rejection of the so-called primitive characteristics for the white man, it is common to essentialize these characteristics to groups existing among African tribes, Indians of North and South America, and Pacific people. These are the same people who are labeled by the authors as ethnic” (Kealiinohomoku 1969:34). Thus ethnic, in popular usage, translated to primitive and when applied to ballet, had implications that infuriated dance scholars. Kealiinohomoku explained that using the term “ethnic dance” to characterize ballet was meant “to convey the idea that all forms of dance reflect the cultural traditions within which they developed” (Kealiinohomoku 1969). Underlying her argument is the notion that space matters. Remember, her argument pre-dates the widespread anthropologic dismissal of culture as an essentializing tool. So she was one of the first to demand that dance and, by extension, culture must be contextualized but it cannot be grouped into “monolithic wholes.” The term “Native American dance” to give an example specific to dance studies, has no meaning since different Native American groups have different styles; each Native American group has a different dance particular to its place. Visit a popular nightclub in Cairo and you will observe that the performer moves vastly differently from the folk dancer in Morocco even though both may be called Middle Eastern dancers. The hip sways and flowing hand motions of the modern Hawaiian hula are different from the athletic demonstrations of power and athleticism that often dominate male dances of the Maori, even though both forms are labeled “Polynesian.” Postmodernists have begun to unravel the essentialist discourses in contemporary Western culture but many such discourses remain cemented to dance practices. For example, the book Bellydance, published in 2004, contains the following passage: Bellydancing originated thousands of years ago as a fertility rite—the circular hip movements celebrating the birth process through mimicry. Similar movements can be seen in other dances that evolved from birth-rites and celebrations of sexuality and fertility such as Hawaiian hula, Polynesian dance, African dance, Brazilian samba and Latin lambada. Often associated with religious rites and celebrations, the primal elements of both divinity and sexuality are central to the evolution of these forms of dance (Sharif 2004:35).

All ancient dances were associated in some way with fertility and ritual (Garfinkel 2003). That does not mean that ancient steps, in modern contexts, are sexual. Consider that pelvic tilts are used in African, Oriental, jazz and modern dances. Yet they are considered sexual in the first two, but not the latter two. It is a Western construction that sexuality is still associated with dances of formerly colonized “others”. Consider, too, the prevailing notion that “white men can’t dance,” which exists alongside the pervasive assumption that men of African American descent—and other “primitive” heritages—have innate rhythm. Again, a passage by Sharif demonstrates such a broad, essentializing statement: “In the Middle East, many women are naturally wonderful dancers” (Sharif 2004:2). Essentialized thinking is inherent in the notion that people of different nationalities naturally move differently or that sexuality and “otherness” has something to do with their natural dance ability. In addition dance, because it is a physical (as opposed to a “rational”) art, has long been associated in the United States with femininity. In this context, it is not surprising that femininity is coded onto male, dancing bodies nor is it surprising that heterosexual men largely shun dance as a career or even as a skill set available to them. This gendered dance coding, built and maintained through structure and agency, underlies the assumption that professional, male dancers must be gay. While the numbers are relatively small, scholars across the social science disciplines are beginning to recognize the power relationships naturalized in dance and are advocating dance as a subject worthy of deep academic inquiry. Authors are devoting some attention to dance in books discussing postmodern issues like movement studies (Cresswell 2006) or new cultural approaches to geography (Thrift 2004) and some have published articles and whole volumes calling for more rigorous studies of dance (Giurchescu 1991; Bryson 1997; Bull 1997; Desmond 1997; Kaeppler 2000; Buonaventura 2004) in order to further understandings of social identities and how they are "signaled, formed and negotiated” (Desmond 1997:29). Defining Dance Most people understand the word “dance,” and are able to broadly identify it when they see it but actually defining dance is more difficult that it would seem. Yet the project of defining it is important to interrogating it. One could argue that approaching

dance as “movement” allows for an interrogation of contextuality and power. Movement, according to Cresswell, is “socially produced motion” (Cresswell 2006:3). It can be measured, it can be represented and it is embodied. That means movement is understood and it is recreated through the body, giving it significance and meaning. Movement happens not only across time and space but is also contextualized by time and space (Cresswell 2006). Dance can be discussed within this understanding as "socially structured human movement," but the definition is still too broad to understand the full complexity of dance. It seems patently obvious that one would not categorize the martial arts or sports as dance. But jogging and Karate, like dance, are structured movements that have contextual meaning. So, in order to exclude non-dance movements, dance must be defined as something more than structured movement. That means dance is codified movement. Dance is a creative process that, despite its creativity, is limited by context; it must be performed with the intent that is will be interpreted as dance. So the audience matters to an incredible degree. A dancer's experience dictates how he or she will dance and how those movements will embody meaning for anyone watching…making it a spatial medium (Bryson 1997; Desmond 1997). Dance, itself, is “an example of the geographic use of the body” (Somdahl-Sands 2006:4). To elaborate, even an audience that is open to foreign dance forms will not be able to understand the cultural references or nuances embodied in that foreign dance performance. To give two examples, people of some cultures do not distinguish dance from the sacred or even from everyday life. In contrast, it is a Western construct to view dance as a performance art (Kaeppler 1978). Defining dance as “culturally codified movement” acknowledges that dance, whether it is taught formally or informally varies widely across time and space; some measure of innate ability may be important for a dancer, but the cultural lens through which dance is consumed and performed dictates how that innate ability will be embodied and understood (Kaeppler 1978; Giurchescu 1991; Bryson 1997; Bull 1997; Kaeppler 2000; Nash 2000). Understanding that cultural lens, and how dances are interpreted through it, can allow insight into the cultural order within which dance is embedded, and which some dances seek to disrupt.

Dance and Global Flows As discussed earlier, globalization is leading scholars away from social constructions of fixity and into constructions of flow (Cresswell 2006). That means dealing with complicated issues of borrowings and power and recognizing that “it would be false to assume that all forms of cultural appropriation are alike” (Corbett 2000:170). Dance scholars are beginning to take up similar discussions. Desmond (1997), for example, argues that history and migration, and the inter-workings of the two, should be key components of any deep inquiry into dance. Uncovering the changes that occur across time and space serves to "uncover shifting ideologies attached to bodily discourse" and allows one to examine underlying stereotypes and issues of cultural domination and hybridization. Desmond believes this is especially critical in that the stereotypes associated with dance are often so naturalized as to be transparent. Because postmodernism seeks to investigate the power relations embedded in seemingly natural practices, a geographically sensitive, postmodern study of the stereotypes with regards to dance and dance hybrids can expose hidden layers of power and meaning. It is in this way that dance is part of the humanities, social sciences, and geography. Rather than have a history of its own, dance history is enmeshed in the complicated processes of social production and reproduction. Questions about who can dance, in what contexts, how they dance, how dance is perceived and so forth can expose dance for what it is, a cultural object constructed within spatial and temporal power relationships. To further the argument that dance is a spatial practice needing academic examination, I will now move from a discussion of theory to some specific dance examples. These highlight power relationships naturalized through dance practices in the United States and provide some of the historical and spatial circumstances within which Tribal Style dance emerged.

Dance Histories

From its origins, dance has been linked to hierarchies of power. To understand the naturalized power relationships in dance practices, it is first important to understand

how religion and ancient matriarchal/patriarchal political battles led to a devaluation of dance that continues to this day. Ancient Dance, Sexuality and Ritual Little is known about the origins of dance, but what is clear is that dance has long been more than a prediscursive practice. Using prehistoric drawings, archeologists are able to determine that dance was a powerful tool even of ancient peoples. In periods before schools and writing, community rituals, symbolized by dance, were the basic mechanisms for conveying education and knowledge to the adult members of the community and from one generation to the next. The lengthy duration of dance depiction as a dominant artistic motif, together with its dispersion across broad geographical expanses (from west Pakistan to the Danube basin), testifies to the efficiency of the dancing motif as one of the most powerful symbols in the evolution of human societies (Garfinkel 2003:3).

The blending of female iconography with dance further suggests to archeologists a tie between pre-Christian and Islamic religious worship, from the time of the Upper Paleolithic age about 40,000 years ago (Sharif 2004). Because childbirth was thought to be magical, women were respected and even revered (Alzayer 2004). The female body was consequently exalted over the male body and woman’s fertility was inextricably linked to ritual and worship (Cass 1993; Buonaventura 2004). Older women held positions of power and young, attractive men were kept to “service” the divine womb (Wolff 1997). The woman’s body was so elevated that castration, a “feminization” of the male body, was a form of ritual sacrifice practiced voluntarily by men. Dance, being connected directly to the body and female sexuality, was interwoven with life and religious ceremony (Buonaventura 1989; Cass 1993). Over a long period of time, patriarchal religions wrested control and sought to end all vestiges of the competing, female-dominated religions. Buonaventura makes the argument that it is at this point in history that the mind/body separation has its roots. Because ancient spirituality was bound up with female fertility, and in order to convert people to the radically new belief system based on male dominance, religious leaders had to sever the ties between the body and the mind. They had to dialectically undo the power of the womb and the female body (Buonaventura 1989; Alzayer 2004; Buonaventura 2004).

The mind/body separation became, “ a central axiom of Christianity. Fasting, self-castigation and deprivation of all kinds were practiced to subdue the demands of the body and attain a state of pure spirituality” (Buonaventura 1989:37). As a consequence, the role of dance in Christian ritual celebration was severed.4 “Since the advent of the patriarchal religions of Christianity and Islam, women’s dance has been viewed with a mixture of fascination and contempt” (Alzayer 2004:7). Interestingly, rather than see a complete stamping out of dance within Christian societies, dance shifted from a form of worship to a type of social activity. Through the centuries, the pious maintained a separation between dance and worship but popular culture kept dance practices alive and even elevated some dances to the category of art (Anderson 1974; Cass 1993; Alzayer 2004). Dance Flows to the United States In Europe, dance—although often viewed with suspicion by the church—became part of a proper education. Europeans setting up colonies in America carried their ambivalence toward dance with them to the New World. In what was to become the American South, which was settled with economic (versus religious) motivations, dance was taught to the upper classes all along and was considered to be a proper part of social entertaining. A truly educated person needed to show comportment and to be competent and at ease on the dance floor. Dance in the South was viewed, then, as a method for bringing people, who lived far away from one another, together. It was also a way for the upper classes to put on display their refined manners and their ability to spend money on dance instruction (Marks 1957). Dance history in the Northeast was more turbulent. Colonists in the Northeast viewed dance as a way to teach grace and deportment; dance events were even supported and sometimes hosted by the church. Even the Puritans thought dancing was proper, so long as it was done as specified in the Bible (Marks 1957), however Christians from various denominations eventually formed an anti-dance lobby using the argument that dance leads into temptation (in other words, sex) and that the frivolous ‘nature’ of dance is in sharp contrast to the seriousness of religion (Buonaventura 2004).

4 Some religious practices do incorporate forms of ritual and trance dance, however these practices are not

This example, rather than refute my claim to ambivalence, enhances it. In reality, most of the concerns about dance were not about the movements but about the circumstances—mixed gender dances, the extravagance of the balls, and dance lessons held on “lecture” day. Even the Northern colleges, which were primarily founded and run by religious institutions and which forbade dance courses, held commencement balls and allowed students to attend private dance lessons on the side. By the mid-1700’s, as economics began to replace religion as the ideological foundation for Northern society, religious factions continued to decry dance as extravagant, but dance and dancing instructors grew further in popularity (Marks 1957). While the lower classes danced jigs and reels and did skirt dances and high kicks, moves that were brought across the ocean by English and Irish immigrants, the upper classes hired dancing masters to teach “proper” dances and held tightly controlled dancing assemblies reminiscent of those in France and England (Buonaventura 1989; Cass 1993). In these instances, dance was held as a way to forge boundaries distinguishing proper society from the lower class immigrants. By the late 1800’s, the education system in the Northeast was no longer the province of religious institutions. Instead the state had control and could establish curriculum and even create compulsory classes. As the theater and arts were gaining popularity across the country, along with a renewed interest in physical education, people successfully put pressure on universities to add dance classes and dance departments (Marks 1957). African American dancing in the United States For any history of social dancing in the United States to be complete, African American contributions must be included. West and East Africans did not subscribe to the mind/body separation that pervaded thinking across Europe and North America. So when captured and transported to the New World as slaves, Africans brought with them the songs and dances that were part of their daily and spiritual lives. The same churches that looked the other way with regard to dances of the landed gentry were quick to essentialize and dismiss dancing among slaves. The churches fostered the viewpoint that

widespread.

slave dancing, particularly to their “jungle rhythms” and in their “primitive” manner, was natural to these pagan, uncivilized beings. Regardless, the landed gentry had economic motives that superseded the church’s desires and continued to allow the slaves to mingle and to dance and sing. It was an easy tool for boosting morale. Dancing was also seen as promoting good health, an important attribute for someone expected to do hard labor (Medearis and Medearis 1997; Buonaventura 2004). The Spanish and French were more permissive than the English, so their slaves made fewer adaptations to their dances and songs. “This is the reason why more of the African cultural heritage in the Americas can be seen today in the states formerly dominated by the French and Spanish, such as Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina” (Medearis and Medearis 1997:15). Based upon the varying degrees of permissiveness, slaves altered their dances to make them more acceptable to English slave owners by incorporating the white dances they witnessed in plantation ballrooms. In many cases, the fusings were as much about transgression as acculturation. Black slaves often used white dance steps to mimic the formality and stiffness of white culture. The resulting mix of gentrified white dancing and African movements and rhythms began the fusion that would dramatically change dance across all of America (Medearis and Medearis 1997). After the slaves were emancipated in 1865, juke joints arose throughout the South. These were social halls where African Americans could gather to dance, drink and gamble. It was in the juke joints that the most popular black dances were created and performed and from whence disenchanted, white youth became enamored with and began to borrow sounds and movements. Ironically many of the borrowed dances—like the cakewalk—were the ones created to make fun of slave owners (Medearis and Medearis 1997; Buonaventura 2004). In fact, the cakewalk was the first black fusion dance to cross over into white culture (Cloke et al. 1991; Medearis and Medearis 1997; Buonaventura 2004). Theater performers witnessed the crossover trend and began to cash in on its popularity by imitating the black dances they had seen the African Americans do, even darkening their faces with burnt cork. These “black-face” performances did more than entertain white audiences. They re-created the cultural power imbalance. They portrayed

African Americans “as lazy, ignorant, and totally dependent upon the kindness of white people for their survival” (Medearis and Medearis 1997:20). As power-laden as the performances were, African American performers recognized the popularity of these minstrel shows and themselves took on some of the black-face personas (Medearis and Medearis 1997; Winter 2001). At a time when jobs for African Americans were scarce, the black-face roles meant employment; they also became a platform by which African Americans were able to also cross-over into white culture, eventually break from the stereotyped, black-face character and finally to present ‘real’ African American dancing and music (Cass 1993; Medearis and Medearis 1997). As blacks, in search of work, moved out of the South into cities of the Northeast during what has been called the Great Migration (1916-1930), many settled in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Between 1921 and 1933, in a period that has become known as the Harlem Renaissance, the neighborhood’s big ballrooms like the Savoy and the Alhambra became the new setting for black socializing and infamous nightclubs, like the Cotton Club, opened to cater to black tastes. Popular social dances such as the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Shag, and the Suzi-Q were created and the dancing sensation, the Charleston—based on steps traced back to Trinidad and Ghana— originated in these clubs (Medearis and Medearis 1997). As in the South, “white people came to these performances expecting to be entertained with exotic dance routines and acrobatics requiring superior athletic skills. African Americans were stereotyped as naturally gifted dancers because of the so-called jungle rhythms inherited from their African ancestors” (Medearis and Medearis 1997:30). The white people took dances back to the white neighborhoods and dance halls with lasting results. It was based on these new hybrids witnessed in the black dance halls, for example, that young, white people stopped dancing as couples and began to dance as individuals, a phenomenon that is very much apart of social dance culture today (Buonaventura 2004). The popularity of social dancing meant instructors were in great demand. As black dances moved into the white dance halls, instructors taught the “new” moves and departed from the ballroom steps transported from England. At the same time, elitist and religious “self-appointed guardians of morality” grew in numbers and began, once again, equating dancing and dance halls with gateways to immorality (Buonaventura 2004:185).

The moral guardians were, of course, opposed to the mixing of white and black dances (Cresswell 2006), saying African American moves would “niggerize” white culture. This obviously derogatory term was used to infer that white morals would become more primitive, and overly sexualized (Buonaventura 2004). In 1920, a meeting was held in New York’s Grafton Gallery so instructors could standardize, and thus clean up, the steps that “should” be taught in ballroom dance classes. While this was a blatant attempt to exclude “inappropriate” African America steps, organizers acknowledged that they could not wipe out the most popular dances, like the Charleston. So rather than wage what would have been a losing battle, the “moral guardians” sanitized the steps by rarifying them…making them more ‘white’ if you will (Cresswell 2006). Ballroom dances such as the Foxtrot and the two-step merged European couple dancing with African-based movements and, with rarification, gained enough acceptability to make it into the standard ballroom lexicon. The steps were also popular enough to be featured in Hollywood films (Medearis and Medearis 1997; Reynolds and Mccormick 2003; Buonaventura 2004). Tap and jazz are two African American forms that have managed to obtain a relatively high status as American theatrical dance. Both forms are traced back to the slave days in the U.S. South. Slaves regularly danced to drums and horns. These instruments served a second, more subversive purpose. They could be used to pass messages to one another about escape plans or pending mutinies. Landowners discovered this practice and, in 1740, passed laws banning the use of drums and horns by slaves (Winter 2001; Buonaventura 2004). But, rather than eliminate drum rhythms altogether, slaves improvised using available materials such as bone clappers or pieces of scrap iron, or by clapping and stomping. This clamping and stomping continued on in the juke joints and moved into the ballrooms in Harlem, where it to mixed with white dance. Generally speaking, what they did consisted of two types of movements: “jazz” steps— full body movements that were a mix of early folk material, the dances of minstrelry, and personal invention that followed no set pattern; and “flash” steps—applause-getting invention “air” steps with expansive leg action. Taps could be added to either (though they were not essential), and during the 1920’s the jazz dancer’s standard vocabulary included a wide assortment of basic tap steps (Reynolds and Mccormick 2003:684).

The black performer, Bojangles, is credited with bringing jazz and tap steps to the attention of the masses, expanding it beyond African Americans and white youth. Bojangles’ technical skills and performance abilities wowed white and black audiences alike and landed him roles in Broadway plays and movies. He eventually teamed up with and taught child movie star Shirley Temple, the two performing together in many films. But, as always, cultural flows are embedded with power relationships and Bojangles is a case in point. White conservatives actively spoke against his crossing of racial boundaries, white liberals frequently cited Bojangles’ work as helping to bridge differences between the two communities, and members of the black community often criticized him for playing characters that were passive servants to white people (Reynolds and Mccormick 2003). It was several decades later, in the 1970’s, before blacks were able to open their own dance schools and attitudes began to change about the separation between black and white dancing styles. Today more black dancers are getting parts in ballet and modern dance productions—though in limited numbers—and black owned companies have gained acclaim in the highest social circles. Even though black people have made advances into white society, and African American dance steps have made their way into more privileged culture, black dancers do still find it difficult to be completely welcome in the refined, white world of ballet or of modern dance (Cobb Dennard 2007). African based dances are widely perceived as not requiring highly trained dancers—just natural, primitive ability. Indeed, the argument that blacks are natural dancers has been used against them because classical training could “destroy their originality and gifts of improvisation” (Medearis and Medearis 1997:50). Blacks have also been said to have the wrong body type to capture the grace and sophistication required of ballet dancers or the stylizations of modern dance (Medearis and Medearis 1997). So despite the cross- pollination occurring between black and white cultures, cultural norms still keep black people from fully engaging in white dance society. The tension exists because of the Western distinction between social and classical dancing. Its existence reveals the social ordering of cultural objects. Black dances are primarily social, or street, dances. Disco, break dancing and hip-hop are just three prominent examples of “street” dances that have made their way into popular

entertainment (Medearis and Medearis 1997). Even jazz and tap, which have been elevated to performance art, do not hold the same status as white performance dancing. Ballet however, the essence of white gentrification, has come to dominate all other forms in the United States. Ironically, ballet has noble beginnings and a history ripe with sex and scandal. Ballet and Performed Bodies Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts as a grandiose spectacle. It was a tool whereby noblemen could affect exaggerated postures and movements and thus parade their elevated manners and attire. Renaissance Italy was not a unified nation, but rather a conglomeration of independent city-states ruled by squabbling royal families. The families maintained lavish courts and held opulent events to impress their neighbors and to publicly demonstrate their prestige by trying to out do one another (Anderson 1974). Thus dance became a demonstration of artificial carriage and grace which lower classes, consumed with daily living, were unable to attain. By the 1500’s, art and manners were linked and dancing masters became vogue, not to teach dance steps only, but to teach all manner of deportment and etiquette (Anderson 1974; Buonaventura 2004). Dance thus became a critical social skill; ineptitude or a missed step on the dance floor could lead to a loss of social standing (Buonaventura 2004). As such, ballet was not a dance for only a trained, few athletes but rather a spectacle for a trained, few noblemen, very schooled in the arts of physical deportment. While Italians founded ballet, the French, in cultural competition with the Italians, adopted the dance form and added elements making ballet more recognizable to today’s audiences. Those additions lend more insight into ballet as a political project. For example, the French nobility introduced a duck-footed stance. Because the average person walked and stood with her toes pointed forward, the noble person would turn his or her toes outward. This turned-out stance, while ludicrous sounding, was adopted into and remains easily identifiable as the basis of ballet foot positioning (Anderson 1974). It is important to note that this turned-out stance did prove practical: it facilitates leg lifts and sideways movements and allows for smoother direction changes; however dancers do extensive damage to their hip joints in order to achieve this ability (Buonaventura 2004).

The French also formalized the dance. For decades, the Italian courts did not separate theatrical and social dance. Even the word for the performance art, “ballet,” originates from the Italian verb “billare,” meaning in general “to dance.” By the 1600’s, the Italian royal families began to fund professional academies to keep their “traditional” arts alive. The French royals, not to be outdone, began hosting even more lavish court theatricals that increasingly called for ballet parts demanding skill sets beyond the average, trained nobleman. To surpass the Italian dance capabilities, professional dancers were hired for those roles, eventually taking the dance from a theatrically spectacular, social performance by men into a staged performance by professional dancers. Over time and across Europe, female dancers became the majority. This does not indicate an empowerment of women. Quite the contrary, female dancers took on more roles as ballet performances shifted from a showcase of elite manners, to a parade of female bodies before high-class, male voyeurs. By the 1800’s, male audiences filled performance halls to ogle ballerinas’ legs in an acceptable, high-class venue. Dancers were hired based primarily on their looks and were costumed to the best advantage of showing off their bodies to a society where naked displays of the body were “forbidden.” The tutu, which is a classic icon of the glorified, female ballerina, was designed—in its floor length version—to titillate upper class audiences by giving them glimpses of dancers’ ankles. The Pope even decreed that ballet dancers must wear blue tights to make it obvious their legs were covered (Anderson 1974; Buonaventura 2004). Not only were professional women degraded for their dancing, they were vulgarized for their healthy, athletic builds. A European noblewoman was expected to be frail, weak and non-masculine. She could participate in social dancing but her abilities were limited by her “frailties.” So any woman who paraded herself in such a manner as to be purposefully oogled by male audiences was considered shameful, and simply not feminine enough, no matter how elevated and refined the dance form (Buonaventura 2004). Consequently female dancers, while appreciated and desired, could not fully enter privileged society. However, for poor women, becoming a ballerina meant a degree of freedom along with access to a moneyed world. Many became the prized courtesans of the elite and powerful. Ballerinas became, in essence, high-class escorts and it became fashionable for wealthy men to parade the latest star ballerinas on their arms.

As ballet was formalized and revolutionized into a largely female, theatrical performance, another element was added that still causes significant injury and pain for female ballerinas today: dancing on point. Some productions used hidden wires to help female dancers achieve what was viewed as an otherworldly, ethereal quality not seen in “lesser” forms of dance or among common folk. Eventually, this “elevated” position was achieved by having female ballerinas dance on the tops of their toes with men— demonstrative of woman’s reliance on the male despite his lesser role as a dancer— supporting them. Modern toe shoes contain layers of padding and support but dancing on toe is destructive to women’s feet. Broken bones, split skin, corns, calluses, bleeding and deformity all result from dancing on point (Buonaventura 2004). Yet, this convention, originating as a way for female dancers to embody social status and spirituality for elite audiences, remains an integral part of ballet today. Ballet did travel to the United States, where it was relegated to cheap theater and ballet dancers were hired to be low class entertainers with limited skill. This situation was sustained by the American surge in nationalism and the consequent disdain for European culture (Anderson 1974; Kane 2001). Thus, prior to the 1920’s, it was difficult for ballet schools to establish themselves in the United States. Post World War II, several ballet companies opened in America with a style different from European and Russian dancers. This appealed to the American desire for national distinction and ballet finally grew in popularity and respectability in the United States (Anderson 1974; Kane 2001). In the 1960’s, ballet received another boost from an unlikely source, the federal government. Government officials had, for the most part, avoided funding the arts, citing the rationale that they are not critical to life, that they are for the entertainment of the privileged rather than the masses, and that, in a capitalist society, the arts should pay for themselves and that funding would mean inserting government influence into the art world. Such rationales evaporated as the United States emerged from World War II to become the wealthiest nation in the world. Funding the arts became a way to build nationalism amongst artists and to flout the country’s wealth to others (Kane 2001). As the cold war hardened into a permanent reality, politicians, following the example of the Soviet Union, began to view the arts as weapons of propaganda. They reasoned that if the finest American performing groups appeared behind the Iron Curtain and also in the less industrially developed nations of Latin America and Africa, their presence would

demonstrate that even a powerful capitalist nation like the U.S. could take time out from making money and policing the world to nurture the finer things in life (Kane 2001:49).

In the mid 20th century, the Soviet Union had made a project of elevating and training ballerinas. At the time of the Cold War, Soviet ballerinas emerged as some of the finest in the world. So it is hardly surprising that the U.S. government chose to give large amounts of arts funding to American ballet companies. In so doing, the government helped to secure ballet’s high status in the Western world of dance (Kane 2001). Much of ballet’s historical links to bodily and political discourses have become so naturalized they are frequently disregarded or even forgotten. “Ballet stands like a colossus bestriding the world of dance. It has dominated Western dance for years with its assertions of cultural superiority and its claim that no other dance can be so expressive” (Buonaventura 2004:232). Ballet has the veneer of “movement languages that can (and have been) adopted ‘universally’” (Kaeppler 1978: 117). Still today, ballerinas react with skepticism, and sometimes anger, when told of ballet’s origins as a folk dance, albeit of the powerful, Italian elite (Cobb Dennard 2007). So ballet, the colossus of the Western dance world, serves as a potent example of a self-proclaimed, structured, “cultured,” movement system that in reality has a history of naturalizing the differences between a superior us and inferior other. Modern Dance Ballet began as a performative device for separating the elite from the lower classes. African dance was changed to make it “suitable” for white classes, thus reifying the distinction between an “us” and an essentialized other. In both of these examples, dance was a performative device for drawing boundaries between people. Dance, however, can also be used to transgress social boundaries, as in the project of Tribal Style dance. Remarkably, Tribal Style has origins very similar to another dance form that has managed to gain almost “classical” status in the United States. Another highly prized dance form (Buonaventura 2004) in the United States, modern dance, came about as a challenge to hegemonic cultural practices. This was the time when female performers, mostly ballerinas and cabaret dancers, were still “assumed to inhabit the same underworld as criminals and whores” (Buonaventura 2004:14). Modern dancers, who saw their work as art, shunned the low class theaters and dance halls that were the

provinces of American performers and ballerinas, and instead danced at strikers’ benefits and rallies, thus building political allegiance with the working class and the oppressed. As the depression intensified, and nationalist feelings inspired further resentment toward aristocratic Europe, the working class shunned ballets and began paying more attention to modern dancers (Anderson 1974; Reynolds and Mccormick 2003). To further distinguish themselves from ballerinas, modern dancers created a new movement vocabulary. It was earthy, grounded, ungraceful, and asymmetric. It was about artistic expression and creativity rather than formal steps. It was a way to “show a distinctive form of expression that spoke both for and of America” (Marks 1957). In its distinctiveness and willingness to explore new territories, it appealed to the American mentality of independence and discovery. Interestingly, in their attempt to move beyond European dance aesthetics and British classicism, early modern dancers succumbed to a burgeoning Orientalism by looking for inspiration to an exotic, “Oriental” other. Oriental dance has a long history in the United States and, much as they have done with African American dances, Americans have long integrated movements from Oriental dances. The Orient too must be recognized as a construction that situates North Africa and Southwest Asia as geographically contingent and culturally inferior to the West (Said 1978). The relationship between the West and the “Orient”—as a Western construct—and Western and Oriental dance will be considered in greater detail in the next chapter, but for now it bears noting that that modern dancers, although inspired by popular ideas about the exotic, Oriental other typically did not study with Oriental dancers nor travel extensively through Southwest Asia nor attempt to re-create “traditional” dances. Instead they created their own fantasy versions of “Oriental” dances based on what they had read or seen in pictures and paintings or learned from talking with people from Asia. The result was a very Westernized dance, heavy on artistic interpretation and creativity, and on Orientalist imagery (Buonaventura 1989). The first modern dancers did not name themselves nor did they create a new dance form spontaneously. Instead, theirs was a political project founded on creativity rather than authenticity. The original modern dancers were individual artists making it up as they went along; this ontology influenced the later generations to follow.

Consequently students of the original modern dancers went on to develop their own styles and companies. Even today, modern dance is difficult to classify as a genre of dance. Few of the original, Orientalist elements are apparent, but creativity, asymmetry, and groundedness continue to characterize this dance form, which has spread throughout the Western world and managed to gain a social distinction that nearly rivals ballet (Anderson 1974; Buonaventura 2004). “The classicists (ballerinas) and the moderns were bitter enemies at first, yet they shared the same desire for artistic excellence and, in time, they came to regard each other with respect” (Anderson 1974:93).

Conclusion

Examples of naturalized power abound in dance but remain, for the most part, unexamined. The Western distinction between mind and body practices has done a great disservice to the entire academic community in that it has reified power structures embedded in dance at the same time that postmodern scholars have attempted to examine and expose reified power structures in other areas. All dance is political. All dance is contextual. All dances can be interrogated for issues of power. As such, true dance interrogations have the vast potential to add to the body of knowledge about society building.

“ORIENTAL” DANCE: FROM ANCIENT HISTORY TO MODERN DERIVATIONS

Dance performances are sites where space, history, and society come together tangibly—as an individual’s sensing body is viewed as a moving corporeal entity that is then encoded with gender, race, class, ability etc. Indeed it is this intersection of elements that is vital to understanding the power of dance (Somdahl-Sands 2006: 4).

To this point, I have focused primarily on dances in the West, but an investigation of power issues bound up in dance practices would be incomplete without a discussion of dance in the Middle East and dance flows between the Middle East and the West. However, because Middle Eastern dance is integral to any investigation of American Tribal Dance, I have chosen to consider it separately. I recognize one, glaring flaw within this section. As Kealiinohomoku (1969) pointed out, it is not possible to essentialize dances because they vary between countries and between social groupings. I am fully cognizant and supportive of her stance, but for purposes of this project, it is necessary to look at the discourse of “Middle Eastern Dance” and some general historical and spatial events leading to the development of what has come to be known as “belly dance”. When I refer to Middle Eastern dance, I refer primarily to dancers from Egypt, Turkey, and Lebanon. These three countries dominate in terms of fancy, nightclub style, dance performances. Other Middle Eastern and North African countries, such as Tunisia, Morocco, Iran (Persia), and Kuwait have pelvic and torso based steps, but the steps are more folkloric in their presentation.

Ancient Ritual, Orientalism and Modern “Belly Dance”

Dance, as a social practice, has its origins in ancient ritual; however Oriental dance can make some fairly substantial relevance claims. Ancient matriarchal, religious icons include postures similar to some modern Oriental dance steps and add relevance to the claim that Middle Eastern dance is thousands of years old (Buonaventura 1989; Alzayer 2004; Sharif 2004). It is also for this reason—and, of course, due to cultural essentializing—that Middle Eastern dance histories often cite the dance’s origins in fertility and ritual. Middle Eastern dance may have not been distinguished from sexuality

and religion at its beginnings, but it too became relegated to social entertainment with the advent of patriarchal religion (Buonaventura 2004). Modern, American constructs of the Oriental dancer dissolve this social reality. Imaginative geographies predominate contemporary constructions of the Orient, its women and its dancers. The Middle East, as a whole, is chastised for the restrictions some countries have on their female populations, yet those same female populations are eroticized and fantasized and their arts sexualized. It is a contradiction that seems nonsensical but can be interrogated through an examination of Oriental dance, both as it exists in the spaces of the Middle East and as an identity construct in the West. Dance as a Social Construct in the Middle East Due to different religious and social practices, dance did not become a performance art in the Middle East as it did in the United States and Europe. Dance is not taught in schools (Dinicu no date). Still, even in the most conservative of Middle Eastern countries, boys and girls grow up dancing (Sharif 2004; Dinicu, no date). As they have done for centuries, boys learn from following other men and girls learn from their mothers and other female family members. Boys and girls dance during informal gatherings, usually separated by gender. Everyone is encouraged to dance, even those who can only master a few steps, and social dance, conducted in private settings with single gender participation, is considered acceptable and even desirable (Alzayer 2004). What makes the situation difficult for many Westerners to comprehend, is that dance has long been considered a necessary part of any celebration. Dance performers not only liven up the party, they are believed to bring good fortune to those in attendance (Buonaventura 1989). Because it is socially unacceptable and contrary to Islamic law for proper women to perform in front of men (Alzayer 2004 ; Sharif 2004; Dinicu no date), a profitable business has sprung up for women willing to adopt a lower social status by performing for pay in front of mixed gender or male audiences. The poor, foreigners and other minorities who already reside in lower social strata have been able to earn a comfortable living by entertaining at weddings, house parties, birthdays and other private and public celebrations, even though the proper women in attendance may be equally if not more competent than the hired performer. “The public dancer may be the daughter of

a poor but musical family, entertaining at local weddings, though never invited as a guest. Because of her profession, she remains a citizen of low social status” (Sharif 2004:1) Because female performers can make substantial profits and have often been the main income source for their families, they have had more freedom to move about at will, and because they have not adopted the role of respectable society member, they have been able to behave how they choose. In addition, they have been able to marry and have families without being told what to do by family members (Buonaventura 1989; 2004).6 So, in taking a less-respectable place in society, they have actually achieved degrees of freedom unattainable to proper women who are sheltered at home. Orientalism and “Belly Dance” The societal constructs of Middle Eastern dance and the female body are integral to comprehending just how the image of the Middle Eastern dancer has been so transformed in the United States. Pelvic-based dances of the Middle East have, for more than a century, been equated with sexuality in the West even though, as demonstrated above, it is not the pelvic “nature” of the dance but rather the spaces within which the dance is performed that matter in Islamic-Arab cultures. The sexualization of Middle Eastern dance is largely attributed to the first accounts many Westerners read of pelvic based dancing, which were written by Orientalist-minded, Western travel writers. 19th century travelers came from a country in which the pendulum had swung from the riotous bawdy of Georgian times to the covert sexual obsession which characterized Queen Victoria’s reign. Preoccupied by that which was forbidden (though none the less readily available) in their own country, many observers saw in Arabic dance only its thrilling eroticism (Buonaventura 1989).

Those traveling also had pre-established notions of what they would find in their travels. Their interpretations, and the requests they made of the public women, fit with those notions. Not only were the colonies, including those in the Middle East, viewed as in need of civilizing influences, they were viewed as places of adventure, where male fantasies about sexual freedom, “individualism, and aristocratic power” could be realized. The primitives were constructed as closer to nature and thus more authentic than the residents of the modernized, civilized West. The nostalgia about authenticity did not forge more progressive thinking; rather it further created a romanticized world waiting to be explored and dominated (Said 1978; Sharif 2004). “Even as colonized cultures were

being destroyed with increasing brutality, Europeans and white Americans romanticized them as closer to nature, more communal, and more sexually pleasured—notions of the “primitive” that continue to persist in the Western imagination” (Pitts-Taylor 2003:122). It is also important to note that most of the travel writers were men, meaning they had no access to respectable women and families. Their accounts, then, focused on the street performers and not on the real, everyday lives of women. Also many of those dancing in public, with whom white travelers could gain access, made a living through prostitution. So commentators on “Oriental” dance not only sought out their fantasies, they frequently had their fantasies realized by prostitutes and performers who may have been catering to their Orientalist expectations and tastes in exchange for money (Morocco 1985; Buonaventura 1989). Travel accounts, beginning in the late 18th and lasting through the 19th Century, testifying to the individual and sexual freedoms engendered by living closer to nature quickly became popular in the West, creating a demand for more information about the mysterious Orient, its dancers and its harems.5 Artists sought to capitalize on this popular fervor but, of course, the same issues hampered the artists who sought models for their paintings as the writers who sought access to the world of women (Figure 1). Islamic practice barred the reproduction of a woman’s likeness and forbade women from exposing themselves, especially to men who were not relatives. So, again, any woman who would pose for an artist was a public performer and/or a prostitute and not representative of respectable society (Buonaventura 1989).

5 Harem literally means “forbidden”. It refers to the female living quarters. Because it was forbidden to men who were not close relatives, it was a space of female freedom. The romanticized notion of the harem as a sexual domain is a recurring Orientalist motif.

Figure 1. Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) French. Dance of the Almeh. 1863. Oil on wood panel. 19 3/4 x 32 inches (50.2 x 81.3 cm); The Dayton Art Institute. Gift of Robert Badebhop, 1951.15

Imaginative images and travel accounts further fueled the Western craze for all things “Oriental.” Soon writers and artists who had not actually traveled to the Orient created works based on what they had read and seen elsewhere. Painters actually paid Caucasian models to dress, sometimes with breasts and arms exposed, and pose in fantastical ways (Buonaventura 1989; Alzayer 2004). Thus the Oriental fantasy grew and even more dramatically departed from the reality. It was in this climate that the first Arab dancers were brought to Paris and the United States, in the mid to late 1800’s, to perform at expos and fairs. Lori Ann Salem (1995), for her Ph.D. dissertation, investigated some of the historic spatial bodily stereotypes as they relate to modern sensibilities about Middle Eastern Dance. To determine American perceptions over time, Salem grouped available entertainment images, along with reviews and reactions, into four periods: the mid to late nineteenth century, the turn of the century, the post 1920’s, and the late twentieth century. Salem began her search for images from the later half of the nineteenth century, at the time of these expositions and the widespread construction and display of otherness in public venues. The grotesque Arab bodies and their wanton, dissipated sexualities…presented a coded explanation--a pictorial narrative--of the decline of Arab civilization. That is how, they argued, that Western civilization earned its advanced, dominant status through its vigor

and self-control, while the Arabs' depravity, gluttony and physical disrepair led to their decline (Salem 1995:102).

It was in this climate that a Western fair promoter, Sol Bloom, financed the importation of male and female Oriental dancers to the United States for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago (Carlton 1995; Alzayer 2004; Dinicu no date). In many of the fair’s Arab pavilions, the dancers and “villagers” represented were more Orientalized than authentic. The Egyptian village, in contrast, was where Sol Bloom brought his real Oriental dancers. At first, attendance sagged and written reviews were mixed. The Lady Board of Managers, for example, claimed to be scandalized by the “ethnic” dancers on the Midway Plaisance (Buonaventura 1989; Carlton 1995). Some speculate that the performances were reported as disappointing simply because they did not measure up to the Orientalist images to which the public had previously been exposed. The women featured in the Orientalist paintings, of course, were models who conformed to the artists’ expectations and western aesthetics, and the writers had characterized Oriental women “by their mystery, languor and veiled beauty. The mere mortals who came West with their musicians in search of work did not dress in the flowing costumes of Orientalist painting” (Buonaventura 1989:105), and they had heavier body types and more exotic looks than was appreciated in the West. One other popular explanation for the scandal and mixed reviews was that the corseted women of the Victorian era were “shocked” by the loose garments of the dancers. Not only did the dancers not wear corsets, they moved in ways not possible in proper, corseted attire. Many of the women also danced barefoot and wore necklines that were lower than those considered appropriate by Victorian standards. By today’s standards, the Oriental dancers were very modestly clothed. But in the existing climate of sexual control and obsession, even the glimpse of an uncovered ankle was considered shocking (Buonaventura 1989; Carlton 1995). Of course, these accounts may have been intentional in order to promote the pavilions to Victorians who were both scandalized and drawn to the erotic. Bloom, who had financed the dancers and thus had a financial stake in their success, may have been the mastermind behind the reports. It is known that he called a press conference to

showcase his dancers his female dancers. The troupe normally had male and female dancers and performed to male musicians who had traveled with them from the Middle East. Bloom left the men behind and at the press conference sat himself down at the piano to improvise a tune for the dancers. The tune, which was a Western version of Oriental music, is still recognized today and used to reference the erotic Orient (Carlton 1995; Alzayer 2004). To hear what is still sometimes referred to as the “Hoochy Coochy” song (Carroll), click the speaker icon . Bloom also coined the phrase “belly dance” to intentionally shock audiences. It was considered vulgar to even mention a body part, let alone such an intimate one. Bloom’s shock tactics worked. His “belly dance” moniker, a purposeful misinterpretation of the French danse du ventre, and his eroticizing of the Egyptian dancers, intentionally scandalized Victorian sensibilities and revived lagging attendance as people crowded in to witness these wanton, foreign bodies for themselves (Morocco 1985; Alzayer 2004). More than two million people visited “Cairo Street” and the Egyptian pavilion (Alzayer 2004). Bloom’s publicity stunts attracted audiences, furthered the Orientalist craze, and more solidly connected sexuality with “belly dance”. More than twenty years later, entertainment images still consistently portrayed the same lowly view of Arab bodies and burlesque shows were full of dancers performing their sexualized versions of what they saw portrayed on the Chicago Midway (Buonaventura 1989; Carlton 1995). Salem explains that lower class performers and entertainers regularly mocked the superior identity of the bourgeois; they were also purposefully vulgar and sought to expose what they saw as sexual hypocrisy. Between 1900 and 1920, these working class entertainers seized on the Arab images used to “academically” study sexual identities and consciously removed any educational vestige. The result, for example, were two dances—the cooch and the “Vision of Salome”—that still today connect Arab bodily movements with raw sexuality (Salem 1995). From this period also comes the notorious “Dance of the Seven Veils”. It is theorized that this dance comes out of the mythology of Ishtar, an ancient Goddess who descended into the underworld to rescue her husband. Along her journey, she had to pass through seven gates, shedding an attribute at each one. The dance turned what was the story of an

empowered, female Goddess into an erotic dance in which a woman slowly removes seven veils wrapped around her body, until she is left standing in the nude (Sharif 2004). Modern Oriental Dance After the fair, some of the Oriental dancers brought to America stayed to perform. As they mixed with American dancers, they saw the fake reproductions and articulated pieces into their own performances. For example, they began working with small companies of musicians playing Middle Eastern and Western instruments. They added spins and went up on their toes. They started doing more torso and arm work (Alzayer 2004). Some even began performing in high-heeled shoes. They added the use of the “veil” when they saw that the Western version of Middle Eastern dance often meant a dancing drifting about, swishing a length of fabric and doing very little by way of hip or abdominal movement (Djoumahna 2003a; Buonaventura 2004). In the early 1900’s, enterprising Middle Easterners opened fancy nightclubs in Egypt and Lebanon. The glamorous cabarets, based in large hotels and other European style venues, provided shows for colonial audiences and were part of a burgeoning business catering to Orientalist explorations (Bell and Valentine 1995; Sultan). Many of the Oriental dancers who were touring the United States eventually returned to Beirut and Cairo where they could make large sums of money dancing in these fancy nightclubs. They brought with them their hybridized movements and costumes with them incorporating these now “classic” icons of belly dance. The dancers imported the “belly dance” name, the veil, the high-heels, the arm and torso work, the spins and the movement across the floor. They also adopted the two- piece, midriff baring costume that was based on images coming out of Hollywood, California. Earlier performers wore many layers of clothing but chose to instead adopt these glamorous and daring costumes (Buonaventura 1989; 2004). It is now difficult to find a Middle Eastern native who does not believe the cabaret costume to be authentic to the Middle East. The costume, and the other Western elements, have become so affixed to modern performances that their origins, as imports to the Orient are mostly forgotten. Unexpectedly the shows became widely popular among locals and the top Oriental dancers became superstars. The most famous performed in 5-star hotels and

landed roles on TV and in film—making them even more wealthy and famous. Like the dance, these women also became national icons (Sharif 2004). Back in the United States, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Middle Eastern nightclubs and restaurants flourished in the U.S to cater to diasporic communities, this time offering more “authentic” Oriental performances. The clubs hired musicians from various Middle Eastern nationalities to provide live music for dancers. Because the bands were blended, the music was not representative of any one country. The dancing was the same. The dancers were not from the Middle East, but they learned from Middle Easterners from various nationalities. Cabaret dancers, then, were not known as Egyptian or Lebanese or Turkish or Greek because what they were doing was an amalgam of all of these (Djoumahna 2003a). It important to note what was presented socially as “belly dance” was resurging in popularity in the United States. It was presented more “authentically’ but it had not lost its link to sexuality. According to Salem, the Arab images produced in the 1960’s belly dance cabarets represented a more male- centered view of the new codes of sexual liberalism. For men, the American cabaret belly dancer represented something of a sexual fantasy: he could watch her sexually expressive dancing and she demanded nothing in return (Salem 1995:245).

Dancers took several routes to counter this objectification. Many sought to offer “family” oriented performances in venues with wider, Western audiences. They traveled to the Middle East in order to teach themselves so they could better teach others. They also opened “belly dance” schools and brought in dancers from the Middle East. Over time, some of these teachers gained prominence and notoriety for becoming “experts” on specific forms of Middle Eastern dance (Djoumahna 2003c; Sharif 2004 no date; Dinicu). Their efforts raised the profile of the dance form in the United States, and are directly responsible for the widespread availability of Oriental dance classes in the United States. In their efforts to represent the dance as accurately as possible, they began the project of bounding Middle Eastern dance in the United States into its “traditional” forms. Feminists, too, seized onto “belly dancing” and attempted to recast it as a means of ritualizing and celebrating of the “natural,” female body. They linked the dance to fertility and feminine spirituality (Salem 1995).

Despite such attempts, spatial dialectics about the body and identity have firmly created a link between Oriental bodies and primitive uncontrolled vulgarity. Imperialist geographies created an Occident that stood in contrast to the West. The Orient, then, was constructed as the West’s perpetual and “inferior” other. Cultural artifacts of Orientalism such as romanticized travel accounts, eroticized paintings and sexualized dances served to reify the dominance of the West (Said 1978). While globalization is undoing imperialist models, Western cultural understandings cannot be separated from the imperial past. “Belly dance” provides a case in point. In contemporary society, Arab entertainment images have lost their shock value. Mentioning a body part or moving one’s torso is no longer considered scandalous. “Arab” images, however, remain laden with imaginative geographies constructed by the imperialist west. It is a purposeful and power-laden construction that a sexualized identity is imposed onto those who “orientalize” their bodies by engaging in Middle- Eastern inspired dances. Every member of Hipnotic told stories about having to confront culturally constructed links between belly dance and stripping. Genevieve’s experience was especially personal in that it involved her father. She had invited her father to see one of her performances while he was in town visiting. His response was that he likes to watch belly dancers but that he didn’t want to watch his own daughter belly dance. Faye says she always knows what is coming when, “they get that look on their face…then it is like, I have to explain that I am not a stripper, you know. They are like, oh really? Like they know something more about me. Like I just took my shirt off or something for them.” All of the members of Hipnotic adamantly argued against being called exotic dancers. But all of them say, even when discarding sexualized references, people still assume a link between sexuality and “belly dance”. That is why most of the dancers in Hipnotic prefer to limit who knows what about their dance. Faye describes her approach thusly: “I wouldn’t say that I am hiding it. I wouldn’t hide it. I just may try to avoid having that conversation by saying I dance for fun, or whatever. I don’t storm into the world and say that I am a belly dancer.” When asked where the dancers are the least likely to talk about their dance, four said work. This is hardly surprising considering work spaces are considered spaces of

rationality, distinct from other more bodily constructed spaces. Connie says she will tell some coworkers after she gets to know them and is able to determine how accepting they will be. “It depends on the coworker. And that’s not because I am ashamed with it…everyone comes with a bunch of prejudices. Some people I know can let go of them and some people are always going to be looking at your breasts even more.” Even Bailee, who described herself as open about her dancing, is reserved at work. She is a salesperson who works with clients. “In my work situation, I don’t go around telling people that. It comes up. Most of my clients know I am a belly dancer; not all of them do. Most people that I come in contact professionally don’t want to know. It kind of scares them.” Ashley is a new schoolteacher who finished up her internship while I was doing my field research. She told a few of her colleagues about her dancing, but the vast majority of them have no idea. “I didn’t mention it to people that I didn’t really like because I just didn’t want to talk about it with them. You know, I didn’t want them to know that about me I guess.” Genevieve is a dental hygienist. She has told her family and most of her friends. Her co-workers also know, although she did not tell them all when she first started working at her clinic. “As far as my patients that I am working on, if I do say something about it, I’ll say I am in a dance group and if they ask, I will tell them, but I don’t, you know, have a neon sign saying “be brave, be bold, be a belly dancer in my (dental) room.” During my field research, Faye finished her Ph.D. in a natural science and won a prestigious fellowship to do post doctoral research at a respected research facility. She is well published and respected within her field. Her appearance is non-normative. She wears her hair short and spiky with bleached streaks. Sometime she adds streaks of color like blue or red. She also favors the Gothic look and wears primarily dark clothing and heavy, black shoes. Yet, for most of her academic life, she hid her private life as a “belly dancer” from her colleagues, feeling that it would be misinterpreted and she would have to deflect ideas about her being a stripper. Her hidden dancing body was revealed when a reporter learned that she danced professionally. He took advantage of that rarity. Not only was a woman making significant findings in a male dominated field, but she was also a “belly dancer”. Thus he published an on-line article about the “belly dancing” scientist, which ended up being widely read by her colleagues. The article was respectful

of her dance and played up her accomplishments as a researcher. Still Faye says she is thankful she was in her last year as a graduate student and had already built up a reputation within the field, because she still feels like she was publicly “outed.” She has referred to this story many times as a symbol of her discomfort with the academic world knowing her “secret.” Ashley also used the lingo of being outed, which, of course, is usually meant to indicate a homosexual person’s sexuality being made public without his or her consent. Using the terminology usually associated with non-normative sexuality shows the level of discomfort and secrecy many dancers feel about this dance form and its perceived ties to sex. These stores are telling as to just how critical gendered and imperialist discourses have been in the Western construction of the “belly dancing” body. Power-laden hierarchies are further exposed when “belly dance” is compared to so-called “cultured” dances like ballet. Recall that historically ballet has been just as eroticized as Oriental dance. Yet, despite its voyeuristic history, a ballet dancer, wearing nothing more than a leotard and tights, can lift her leg to the ceiling, expose her crotch to the audience and be praised for her skill. A Middle Eastern dancer exposes her stomach and shakes her hips and is considered sexy or available (Buonaventura 2004).

Terminology

The hierarchy of seemingly fixed social objects places ballet at the top and “belly dance”—the dance of an inferior and sexualized other—at the bottom. It is this hierarchy that Tribal Style dancers wish to upset. Before going further, it is important to discuss terminology and to describe in detail some “Oriental” dance forms in order to acquaint the reader with the sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle variations that distinguish Tribal Styles and Middle Eastern forms. Foreign Language Terms Because Western terminology for the dance developed along side Orientalism, its use is problematized. Hence some dancers prefer to use Arabic or Turkish names. Because people in Southwest Asia have not historically distinguished social and

performance dance, the nomenclature is not specific to the performance art, although it can be colloquially used as such. In Turkey, the word for Oriental dance is Rakkassa, literally meaning “dancer”. In Arabic, the word is Raqs Sharqi, which means “dance of the East” (Sharif 2004). Both of those terms can refer to the dance as it is has been changed from its folk form to be presented for performance (2003). This paper uses Raqs Sharqi in that context and to situate the dance in Southwest Asia and North Africa. Oriental is a Western term used by both Asian nationals and Westerners to refer to dancers from various countries of Southeast Asia and North Africa (2003; Dinicu, no date). This term is confusing and problematic; different nations have different meanings for the Orient. Furthermore the boundaries of the Orient were determined by Western countries—as an expression of Western normative positionality. This term was adopted to create a binary, to describe that which is not Occidental. It is, however, generally accepted in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, so it is used (with full understanding of its problematized construction) in this paper to refer to classic and folk dances from Southwest Asia and North Africa. Western Terms “Belly dance” is a more common reference. It is used in English speaking countries by both indigenous and Middle Eastern diasporic populations. The term is readily understood but hotly debated among dancers. The term is widely used because it is recognizable and easily marketable. Some dancers also wish to reclaim the term, as a way to claim the sexualized “belly dancing” body as their own as opposed to something constructed by others for their gaze. Many dancers, however, find the term offensive since it was originally coined to intentionally eroticize an “other” (Dinicu no date). Because this research exposes essentializing and “othering” practices, it would be inappropriate to casually use the term here. When it is used, the term “belly dance” is in quotations and meant to draw attention to its power-laden construction. It is also used in quotes from dancers and when referring to quotes from dancers. Note that Tribal Style dancers freely use the term to describe their dance. Interestingly, not one Tribal Style dancer expressed a desire to reclaim the term; rather dancers—supported by the available literature—explained that Tribal Style cannot be called Raqs Sharqi, Rakkassa, Oriental or Middle Eastern because it is American. “Belly dance”, because it is an American

term, is applied then to this dance form that was also created in America. Finally, they say, calling their dance Tribal without adding “belly dance” is unclear. Non-dancers then confuse Tribal Style with Native American dances (Djoumahna 2003b). Some other terms commonly referenced by dancers and used in this paper are folkloric, cabaret and Tribal Style. Folkloric refers to dances done by ordinary people in ordinary situations, in other words, not for performance (Djoumahna 2003c). These are participatory dances; they are meant to be enjoyed through participation, not watching. Folkloric is often used to signify status. It belongs to the masses rather than to the elite. Cabaret is Raqs Sharqi or Rakkassa; it is the theatricalized folkloric dance that has been elevated to the status of classical dance in the Middle East. The name comes from the fancy hotel nightclubs built in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey in the early 1900’s. Due to changing social circumstances, fewer performers are doing cabaret and fewer places are offering performances however it is still considered an iconographic dance in some Middle Eastern countries. Cabaret is not a term used in the Middle East and like other western terms, cabaret, is contested, however it is this construction to which Tribal Dance is regularly contrasted and consequently it is used frequently in this paper. References to Tribal Style are meant to indicate American Tribal Style and the variations that have followed from that form. A more in depth distinction follows, but some of the derivations are Improvisational Tribal Style, Raqs Gothique, Triburlesque and Tribal Fusion. ATS is a bounded form but its derivations are not. The names change and new names arise as the form continues to morph and new forms are created. It is now time to investigate three of the dominant forms of “belly dance” as they exist currently in the United States.

American Styles of “Belly Dance”

Oriental dance in the United States takes many forms. American dancers specialize in various types of Middle Eastern dances, from ritual dance connected to specific tribes to regional social dances to national performance arts. This thesis does not delve into the varieties of Oriental dances available for performance and study. However in order to understand how one particular cyborg form is engaging in a culture war

(Mitchell 2000b), it is necessary to focus the discussion on four forms in particular: Cabaret, American Tribal Style, Improvisational Tribal Style, and Tribal Fusion. For the first three, an in-depth portrayal must consider music, costuming, and movement vocabulary. Cabaret In the Middle East, dancers do not have names for the steps they do, nor are there teachers and schools for teaching “traditional” dances (Sharif 2004; Dinicu no date). People learn through imitation. The dance, then, is not codified in any way in the spaces of its origins. In the United States, different teachers have developed nomenclature and methods for teaching cabaret and folkloric dances but those formats are by no means universal. So the degree of formality depends upon the personal preference of the instructor. Thus what one teacher calls a hip figure eight may be called something completely different by another. Depending upon their instructors, cabaret dancers may do different movements, use different muscle groups to drive those movements, have different names for similar movements, have different ideas about interpreting movement, approach performance technique differently, and so on. Periodically a well-known instructor will attempt to standardize the dance or to offer certification programs. People may attend these programs, but not one has succeeded in creating a single cabaret “language.” Those attempting such standardization argue that introducing formality will raise credibility. If dancers must learn set movements and be able to demonstrate competence in order to be certified, the overall quality of performers will improve. The move to create a formalized language is, indeed, fought by many in the cabaret community. Interestingly, and counter intuitively, this resistance does not seem to indicate a Western impulse to view Middle Eastern dance as “natural” and “primitive” and hence incompatible with standardization and formal accreditation. The dancers leading the resistance have traveled extensively in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa and have formed familial-like bonds with people living there. They have also studied the dances as they are performed and learned in different spaces. Oriental dance is not one, but many dances from many different countries and social groups. Collapsing the dances into one format essentializes differences between people and places.

Furthermore the resistance to standardization seems to indicate a certain respect for the dynamism of the Middle Eastern cultures from which the dance arose. The dance is based on folk dancing that has not been qualified in its originating cultures. Any attempt to standardize it amounts to a dramatic Westernization of the dance. Many cabaret dancers have sought to keep this status quo, using the argument that it is presumptuous of Westerners to create categories for a dance that originates and is practiced differently elsewhere. By keeping the non-standardization of the dance, one keeps the non-Western contextuality of it. Movements Because the dance is not seen as bounded in the Middle East, no two Middle Eastern dancers are alike, and they all borrow from dancers from other countries. That said, some cohesive qualities are commonly recognized. These generalizations are not meant to describe the many varied folk dances from Southwest Asia and North Africa, but rather the cabaret dances coming from those areas. Turkish cabaret, for example, is considered to be faster, with “lighter” movements. Turkish dancers tend to favor hip lifts to hip drops and their costumes tend to be more revealing. Egyptian dancers are characterized as dancing more slowly. Their center of gravity is generally lower, more of the dance is interpreted in the hips, and Raqs Sharqi dancers use hip drops instead of lifts. Lebanese dancers are more interpretative and energetic. Their costumes are more modern and may include pants and very high heels. Greece, which developed many of its cultural objects while under Turkish rule and thus has modern, cabaret dancing, tends to follow the Turkish style. Dancers do not, however, use Turkish music and may chose selections that include Greek instruments. The may also incorporate side steps and hops that come from Greek, folkloric dances (Sharif 2004). So cabaret dance does vary from one country to the next. Its commonality is the torso-driven movement base. Unlike the limb splaying, wide-stanced styling of most American dances performed on stage, cabaret dance is not based upon ethereal leaps, or rigid up right postures. Instead it is about grounded and controlled, sometimes sharp, sometimes rounded movements that flow into one another. Cabaret movements originate in the hips, shoulders and the torso, and sometimes in the arms. The trunk, therefore, drives the movements, not the legs and feet.

Cabaret dancers keep their feet close to one another. Except in rare instances, even steps that are intended to propel the dancer across the floor are kept small. Because the hips act like a pendulum—moving in different directions around the feet—the closer together the feet, the more exaggerated the hip work. Feet tend to face forward or slightly outward, similar to how people naturally walk or stand. Knees are slightly bent and kept forward to give the hips a wider range of motion. Twisting of the knee, which can be dangerous and over the long-term, can cause damage, is kept to a minimum. So twisting is isolated to the hips and torso. Cabaret performers tend to dance on their toes. This follows the cabaret forms developed in 1920’s Egypt and Lebanon. This also makes it easier to rotate on the ball of the foot and to execute the turns and movements across space. Furthermore, a pointed toe, in the West, is considered more aesthetically pleasing. It elevates the entire body and makes the legs appear longer; giving the same look as wearing high heels. The head is used in cabaret dance. It is not uncommon for a cabaret dancer to snap her head down or up to accent a strong beat, or to let her torso and head rock side to side so that her hair swishes across her shoulders. Cabaret dancers too will include hair tosses that are a combination of forward torso and head leans. With these movements the shoulders usually rock with the torso. The upper torso/head sways can then be to the front, side or at a forward 45-degree angle. The movement of the hair, which happens as a consequence of the leaning and is not specifically the focus of the movement, becomes part of the overall look of the dance. Consequently, many cabaret dancers choose to grow out their hair and to wear it long in order to highlight the movements. Cabaret dancers either dance solos or group choreographies. If cabaret dancers are dancing improvisationally at the same time, they are either not dancing as a unit, or they are complimenting what one another does. Improvisational, group dancing is rare to almost non-existent in cabaret dancing. This has as much to do with the music as it does with ‘tradition.’ Music “Traditional” Arabic, Turkish and Greek music has multiple tempo changes and even taqsim sections, which have no rhythm at all. Double click the speaker icon

(Taqsim 1998). Cabaret movements are meant to be an interpretation of the music (Sharif 2004; Nericcio 2007). Cabaret dancers are not taught a uniform look so much as they are taught steps and then instructed to combine those steps, arm movements and postures to fit the music. Also, cabaret dancers generally are taught to express a range of emotions using facial expressions, lifting and falling motions in the chest and arms, and hand gestures. They smile, make eye contact with the audience and may even close their eyes, as if lost in the music and emotion of the dance. When the music speeds up, the dancer speeds up. When the tempo changes, the dancer alters her movements. Long notes are best interpreted with flowing moves, while sharp, staccato notes suit quick moves and accents. Generally, solo instruments are easily read for their singular emotive qualities. The dancer often demonstrates them in a stationary position, using the corresponding part of her body to interpret the ‘feel’ of the sound. Yet when many instruments are played together, their fullness suggests broader sweeps of movement, like traveling steps and turns (Sharif 2004:18).

The dancer’s role is to embody the music so that someone watching could plug her ears and still be able to sense what is happening aurally. The variable construction of the music—double click the icon for an example (Abdo 1975)–and the interpretive aspect of the dance do not lend themselves to troupe improvisation. It would be extremely difficult for a group of dancers to follow a leader who changes tempo mid step, alters her leading foot for some musical phrases, juxtaposes slow, languid movements with fast, sharp direction changes or suddenly tosses her hair to emphasis a down beat in the music. The dancer may accompany the music with small cymbals worn on the thumb and middle fingers. The zills, or sagat, are struck together to either match or compliment the rhythms. They are widely used in the Middle East and have remained a part of cabaret dances performed in the West (Sharif 2004). Costuming The “standard” cabaret costume is a sequined and/or beaded dress; or a skirt and sequined/beaded bra and belt, sometimes with addition of a vest. She may also choose to wear an underskirt and/or voluminous pants underneath. The cabaret costume may, depending upon the dancer’s preference, include arm gauntlets and a sheer net that can be

worn under the costuming to provide additional coverage and support around the mid- section. Jewelry is minimal and complementary. The color palette, because it is meant to draw attention, is usually shiny and bright. The entire aesthetic is one that Hipnotic dancer, Faye, describes as “more spirited and light.” American Tribal Style Dance Imagine that you are attending a community festival, or a Renaissance Faire or having dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant. The reedy calls of the clarinet-like mizmar capture you attention as they buzz through the air. Several women in earth-toned skirts and exotic clothing cry out a series of yips and ululations, play a simple rhythm with their zills, and take and then quickly circle the stage. An uneven and syncopated, Eastern drum rhythm joins the mizmar’s shrill wail, and the circle breaks. The women form an arc across the sides and back of the performance space. Although this is an improvisational performance, the women move as one. Together they—like a chorus— flow through a series of simple, yet very skillfully controlled movements that are signaled by the dancer who happens into the lead position. While this background chorus continues at is own slow pace, three women make their way forward in sync. Staying grouped together, they move through their own intricately danced version of follow-the-leader. One dancer takes control using subtle cues to indicate to her fellow dancers what step or sequence comes next. When she is ready, she relinquishes her leadership role by forcing the other two women into a tight circle. Around they go until another willing dancer stops in the lead position and signals the next set of movements. As the drums beat and the mizmar wails on, the trio fades back into the chorus and another three, or sometimes four, women emerge downstage to continue this dance. Prior to any performance, the dancers spend hours perfecting their cues, working out individual timing, and rehearsing the sequences. The result is a seamless performance that appears to be completely choreographed. It is unlikely audience members realize that what they are watching is entirely improvisational. What they are watching does not look like its predecessor but it actually originates from cabaret. As the name suggests, American Tribal Style or ATS, is a blending of American and Oriental dances into a specific format with relatively stable

costume, performance, and movement norms. The name is meant to specifically reference the “tribal” or communal structure of the dance form. This will be discussed in more depth later, but it is important to note the use of the word “tribal” versus a less power-laden term such as group, team or troupe. This naming convention has relevance to the overall Tribal Style project and lingering Orientalism in ATS. ATS began as a general category of fusion “belly dance” but has come to mean a more specified genre of its own. “ATS”, then, is easily defined as the performance style synthesized by “FatChanceBellyDance” founder Carolina Nericcio. Nericcio did not set out to create ATS; she just created a style specific to her group and her dance venues, and then marketed her troupe well. As she gained confidence as a teacher, she held workshops and performances, created instructional videos and sold music, costumes, and jewelry. She also wrote books and distributed other written materials (Locke 2003). Movements Nericcio’s teacher did not choreograph or count; her students moved artistically with the music. ATS dance is improvisation but meant to be performed by a group so Nericcio formalized the dance by adding counts and by establishing a leading foot (Nericcio no date; Stants 2006). The cueing system arose from necessity because the group’s main gig was in a narrow restaurant where choreographies were difficult to execute; dancers had to dodge wait staff and customers while trying not to miss a step (Ali 2004). By creating a precise movement vocabulary and a follow-the-leader system, dancers had the flexibility to accommodate the physical limitations of their dance space while maintaining their precision and synchronization, something for which Nericcio’s dancers are still known (Frascella 2003). Nericcio has an extensive background in physiology and anatomy and developed the movement vocabulary with this basis. She reduced each movement to its basic components, figured out which muscle groups were involved, the best way to execute the movement, and additional variables such as where to look during turns in order to properly spot6, which part of the body can be seen by the other dancers to facilitate

6 To spot means to key in on a specific location; the dancer then returns her eyes to that spot each turn to reduce dizziness. Spotting gives the dancer the look of whipping her head around at a different speed than her body.

cueing, and so on. Some of these components were added over time to facilitate how her students moved and to include their suggestions (Djoumahna 2003c). The movements may include details such as wrist circles that move in a specific direction when the arm is in a specific place or arm motions that match a specific hip movement and step. In this way, tribal combinations are more prescriptive—more structured—than cabaret steps even though they are derivative. When creating her combinations, Nericcio borrowed steps from Egypt, and North Africa, with stylistic influences from Spain and India (Nericcio 2004a). “In tribal bellydance (sic) the rhythmic patterns of the music prompt hip lifts, simple steps and earthy, grounded shimmy walks. The lower body does most of the movement, while the upper body remains fairly poised and stationary” (Sharif 2004). The movement is grounded because the feet are kept flat on the floor and the weight is stabilized low in the hip region, below the belly button. Also unlike cabaret dance, which engages the entire, flowing body, ATS focuses on isolations and a separation between the upper and lower body. ATS dancers may even center themselves—that is incorporate a deliberate shifting of the weight to the basic, centered position—in between the execution of slow, decentering dance moves. Slow movements do not need to be cued, nor do they need to be quite so uniform since they are easier to follow. Fast movements, however, have to be rigorously cued and executed to facilitate following. Cueing happens, with some exceptions, on the musical count of one or five. These types of cues are frequently accomplished using slight turns of the body or with the hands. Moving the palm to face another direction, flipping the wrist, doing a hand floreo—a wrist and hand circle taken directly from flamenco dance— these combined with certain arm placements can serve as signals. The gestures are subtle and can get even subtler the longer a troupe works together. They happen quickly and are not copied by the following dancers. Other cues, such as ones requiring the arms to shift their placement or for the lead dancer to change the direction she is facing are executed over a series of counts to allow the other troupe members to copy the cue and to move smoothly into the next combination. The fast, hand cues coupled with the slow, languid cueing—even for fast movements—disguises the cues and segues between combinations.

Because the dancers must be able to visually cue one another and to dance in a group format, the movements are repetitive, done to specific counts and tend not to be abrupt. This gives the dance a uniform and a languid “look” that is different from cabaret styling. And because the cues are so often in the hands and arms, ATS arm work is distinctive from cabaret. Arms must be held in very specific ways so that the lead dancer doesn’t mistakenly give an incorrect cue to the following dancers. For example, in the class I attended, the instructor gave nine specific arm positions. Each dancer has only the nine basic positions to move through so that the following dancers can determine, at a glance what the arms are doing and be able to follow smoothly. These positions do come out of cabaret dance but a cabaret dancer’s arms tend to be more fluid and flowing, rather than held in a single position for the duration of a move. Tribal arms, too, may take several counts to move into a position. Cabaret arm work may be slow and deliberate also, but not in the same way as in tribal dance. Tribal dances are very specific about the directions palms should face, how far back elbows are pointed, exactly how high the arms should be…very specific and structured. Cabaret is more concentrated on total body movements with arm placement as one facet. So cabaret arms may be uniform but not prescriptive and quite so deliberate. Tribal arms, too, are frequently held higher than shoulder level, and a little more angularly than with cabaret arm work. Tribal dancers stand with a more lifted ribcage than cabaret dancers (Djoumahna 2003c) and do not include head and hair work, with one notable exception. They execute a move adopted from cabaret dance called a layback—a deep backward lean, with knees bent and the upper torso arched back—in which the hair swings behind the dancer (Figure 2). Otherwise, headwork means deliberately turning their faces to look in certain directions during certain moves, but the look is more flamenco, with the neck elongated and the chin up. The hair does not sway, flip or float with the movement. The torso, rather than being let loose to accomplish a sway, is held tightly and kept controlled throughout the movement. The shoulders blades keep tension as the shoulders are held rotated back and down so that the shoulder blades pull together. The effect is a “harsher”, more controlled look.

Figure 2. Rachel Brice performing a layback, Tribal Café 2007

Formations are important structures for ATS dancers. Cues can signal a new movement or they can serve to move the entire group into a new formation. The basic formation is the clock. The troupe stands in a circle with each dancer facing a slight left angle from the audience, toward the 11 o’clock position, in order to facilitate lines of sight between the dancers. The clock moves to the right with all steps beginning on the right foot. ATS dancers use a right lead only. This makes the troupe much more uniform and allows easier cueing. A dancer need only know what step comes next, without worrying about which side of the body to use in order to execute that movement identically to the leader. Cabaret dancers have no rule for leading. Most moves do originate on the right, simply because most dancers are stronger on their right than their left. It is the cabaret dancer’s choosing, then, which side leads, not only from song to song, but also from step to step. The inward clock is the same shape, however the dancers turn inward so they are facing each other. The transition happens when the leader cues a movement that requires the dancers to turn around themselves. The lead dancer can make a full turn, or she can stop half way when she is facing in, signaling the other dancers to stop their turn when they too are facing the center of the circle. The lead dancer can then signal another movement to be done in place, she can force the dancers to move around the circle, or she

can wait to see if another dancer will take the lead. The inward clock ends when someone executes another movement requiring dancers to circle themselves. The dancer in the front of the clock can stop the move in the face forward position in order to assume the lead. The crescent, described earlier, is also commonly used. In the crescent, also called the horseshoe, or the chorus, all dancers angle themselves slightly to the left. The lead dancer seldom moves her feet or takes any steps, so it is her choosing if she leads with the right or left arm. Left lead, though, is more difficult to see in this formation since the leader’s body blocks her left arm from clear view. The crescent is along the back of the stage to facilitate breakaway groups that can do their own improvised movements downstage. These are just a few of the many formations used by ATS dancers. All are based on sight lines; the dancers must be able to see one another and be seen by the audience. The formations are not uncommon for troupes from all different genres of dance because of the practical need for audience visibility. Consequently cabaret troupes may use some of the same formations as Tribal Style dancers however, in cabaret, the formations are not proscribed. It is up to the troupe to choose the formations that best meets its aesthetic. Skilled ATS dance groups can shift formations as frequently and smoothly as they shift between combinations. The constant change creates a dynamism that further obscures the improvisational character of the dance. It also caters to a Western aesthetic preference whereby formations and use of space have equal importance to movement of the body. Middle Eastern dance is sometime done in small spaces, and can be done without the dancers moving around in space at all. It was not until the early 1920’s and the borrowing of Western steps that Raqs Sharqi performers really moved around their dance spaces at all. As a consequence, Middle Eastern audiences have less of an expectation that dancers will fill a space or move through formations. Nor do they expect rapid shifting between steps and formations. I have performed for many Egyptian families, during their family celebrations and at restaurants, and have attended parties with people from other Middle Eastern countries. They value the movement of the body, the execution of the dance and the interpretation the music more highly than they do a dancer or troupe’s formations and use of space. Western audiences, for whom the

movement base is unfamiliar, and for whom the concept of filling space is cultural, seem to appreciate the added dynamic of formation changes. As Nericcio standardized dance steps and combinations, she created specific names for her very specific movements. The nomenclature has remained stable, except for new additions. So much so, that even though she began her project in the 1970’s, she continues to use the same basic names today. Though she did not plan to, because of demand, she also developed a formalized teaching method. For an instructor to teach “American Tribal Style” dance, she must be certified by Nericcio herself and must not teach other dance styles (Atkin 2006a). Because of this structure, it is easy to recognize and to describe ATS. Some FatChanceBellyDance combinations, and their names, may further demonstrate the blending of Western categorization and aesthetics with Oriental movements and imagery. The moves all have titles that are derivative of Middle Eastern words. The steps too are blended. Without contextual knowledge, it is not possible for one to know exactly where Oriental bits end and Occidental elements begin. What is apparent, however, is that the movements are not lyrical. They are grounded and controlled. In combining rigid arm placements, an upright carriage, steady counts and an obvious muscular control, the dancers signify power through their bodies. They control the movements, rather than seem to be controlled by the movements. Juxtaposing this control with Middle Eastern nomenclature layers power and purpose onto what may otherwise be Orientalized bodies. In this way, the derivative naming reinforces what is the overall project of ATS, blending Oriental and Occidental imagery, and thus blurring distinctions between the two. By creating a “powerful” presence, and then referring to their movements with Oriental terminology, dancers make it clear that their bodies are purposefully orientalized. Rather than be passive receptors of Orientalism, they control how Oriental messages are sent, and hopefully consumed. One standard ATS step, for example, is the Gawazee. The name comes from the Ghawazee dancers who were famous in Egypt in the 18th and 19th centuries (Alzayer 2004; Sharif 2004). To execute the move, the ATS dancer’s left foot remains in place while the dancer rocks forwards and backwards onto the right foot. Arms are held statically out to the side, with elbows slightly bent, shoulder blades pressed back and

down and hands held steady. The Gawazee can be done in place or—with wrist-circles for cues—on quadrant, or alternately facing the front and back of the room. The step is a basic one and exists in cabaret, but usually as the foundation for something else, such as a hip shimmy or to facilitate side to side movement, or accompanied by a stomach tuck. Arm work is not prescribed and can vary greatly. So, in cabaret dance, it is a very informal step that is infrequently done on its own. The “Arabic” consists of a torso wave done in two beats. The torso lifts upward on count one, to begin downward, a horizontal roll on count two. The result is an undulating movement in the torso with a follow-through in the hips. The movement is cued with an upward sweep of the arms. The movement differs significantly in the Middle East, and thus in many cabaret dances. The roll is executed in the hips rather than the torso. The upper torso roll was created in the United States and is still only minimally used in Egypt and Turkey. In cabaret, the count for the undulation is variable depending upon the music, and the arms are not prescribed. The third ATS step that I wish to discuss at length is the “Egyptian”. It consists of alternately tapping the right and left foot forward, accompanied by a lift and forward twist of the corresponding hip. This step is common in Tribal Style and Egyptian dance vocabularies, although it is unnamed in Egypt and in cabaret dance. Also the hip motion may differ slightly from one dancer to the next. Because the upper body is independent of the lower body, the arms may be doing anything. In contrast, in ATS, the arms are raised above the head with the hands facing inward. The arms alternately pull apart slightly, on a diagonal, in a move that more closely resembles flamenco than cabaret dance. The above steps are meant to be performed to fast music. The Taxeem for example is a basic step danced to slow music. To do the taxeem, dancers keep their feet planted and their torso rigid while moving their hips in a horizontal figure eight. Arms can be held in one of nine specified arm positions. The lead dancer can choose whether to count the step using four or eight counts on each hip, although she is expected to keep the count consistent to facilitate following. The same figure-eight hip movement is performed in cabaret and Middle Eastern dance. The arms are not prescribed and can be held in place or they can move through a variety of positions in order to give expression

to the movement. The torso can be held in place or it can sway along with the hips. This movement has no name and can be done at any tempo of the dancer’s choosing. The dancer can choose to alternately speed up and slow down the movement of her hips to match the music. The name, taxeem, comes from the type of music that the movement frequently accompanies. A taqsim, also spelled taqasim or taksim, as discussed previously, is improvised and arrhythmic. It can be an entire song or a section of a song. A taqsim is considered a particularly eloquent musical phrase in which the musician, through varying the tempo, can express a great deal of emotion. In cabaret, since the dancer is expected to interpret that motion through the movements of her body, she will speed up with the music and pause where it pauses. When she does the figure eight movement with her hips, it can be slow and languid, fast, punctuated, or can vary through different speeds in order to match the music. The ATS dancer keeps the pacing and size of her movements constant. Several other ATS moves, such as “rib cage circles,” “hip twists,” and “three- quarter shimmies” have names that are simply descriptive of the movement. They, like the aforementioned steps, have similar movements in cabaret dance, but the arm placement is specific to ATS. Also, slight differences may exist in the muscle groups being used to execute the movements. The differences may be difficult to distinguish by an American audience but do subtly alter the look of the dance. Overall, the ATS style appears more controlled, stronger. The cabaret style looks less stiff, more lyrical and flowing. The style is different enough that dancers that start in cabaret and move into tribal style have to adjust. “It’s like you are starting all over again in a way,” says Faye. “You have the movement vocabulary under your belt but then just doing it together and doing it uniform.” Conversely dancers who learn group improvisational movements and not cabaret style may not be as proficient at solo work and musical interpretation. According to Connie, “there aren’t that many people who does (sic) just ATS and has only had ATS classes; they can’t dance solo because they don’t have a feel for moves outside of the set moves they have been taught.” In going through their repertoire of steps, they simply do not dance to the music and feel the music in the same way as a cabaret dancer. While

teaching a workshop, (Haven) introduced a combination she created and that was inspired by cabaret dance moves. While it did not matter to her in performance, since she was not presenting herself as a cabaret dancer, she did tell the class that any cabaret dancers could tell her if she really used cabaret styling since she was not an expert. She said this almost jokingly, but the comment and her body language suggested she knew that the combination may be more Tribal Style than cabaret and that she did not necessarily have the expertise to differentiate. Costuming ATS costuming too contrasts with typical cabaret dance attire. ATS dancers wear earthy tones and choose tarnished metals and mirrors rather than flashy colors and sparkling sequins. They adorn wide, flowing skirts over bright, Turkish pantaloons that are gathered at the waist and ankles (Figure 3). To cover their upper bodies, the dancers don cropped, sleeved, Indian choli tops that may be covered in small sheesha mirrors or intricate stitching. Around their hips are belts adorned with metal and mirrors and dripping with tassels, similar to those used to decorate camel and horses. Accentuating the look are elaborate head pieces or multi-colored turbans--created by wrapping yards and yards of contrasting fabrics around the head--and layers of North African and Afghanastani-styled jewelry worn around necks, arms and waists, pinned onto belts and garments, and tucked into head wraps. Black eyeliner is used to circle the eyes (like Egyptian kohl) and to create dots and other “tattoos” across the face. Permanent tattoos, too, have become part of the look. It is not a requirement, but many ATS dancers sport tattoos on their arms, shoulders, legs, and on their hips and backs where the body art peaks out above hip belts but below cropped tops. Unusual piercings are an altogether common practice too, and the sight of a nose ring or multiple earrings is not out of place on a tribal dancer’s body (Figure 4). Tattoos and piercings are hardly unique to the United States but the style of body adornments—even those derived from Oriental imagery—favored by ATS dancers may be more American than Oriental.

Figure 3. Carolena Nericcio (front), FatChanceBellyDance, Tribal Café 2007

Figure 4. Tribal Style Dancer with Tattoo, Tribal Café 2007

Music Cabaret dancers perform to a mix of classic and modern Middle Eastern music. The more modern music, while sung in Arabic and with quartertone vocalizations7, is often set to synthesized drum rhythms in a 4/4 tempo. It is recognizably influenced by American pop music. Classic music uses ‘traditional’ instruments such as the nay (reed

flute), the oud (wooden lute similar to the guitar), tabla (hand-held, goblet shaped drum), the arghul (double reed pipe), the qanoon (instrument resembling a dulcimer) and more modern instruments like the saxophone, violin, clarinet and accordion. The music mixes tempos, to include taqsim sections with no tempo at all. American Tribal Dancers do not use these classic songs because it is difficult to respond to rhythm changes while doing group improv (Djoumahna 2003c; Atkin 2006a; Nericcio 2007). Instead they use music that does not change rhythms a lot. A favorite is Egyptian folkloric music (Atkin 2006a) and American music that has a ‘traditional’ sound. American musicians have created bands and labels that record compositions based on the classic songs, often using the ‘traditional’ instruments and rhythms, however the songs typically have a consistent tempo throughout or simple transitions between tempos (Helm 1995). Creating ATS was not an intentional project, however. What Nericcio accomplished was the development of a movement vocabulary and “look” that is signature to an ATS dancer, a total presentation. Nericcio provided a very specific and detailed structure for learning, performing and teaching this fusion dance form. In categorizing and creating a naming convention, she created deliberate boundaries, distinguishing clearly what is ATS and what is not. Plus, in the very structuring of it, she fused Oriental movements with a Western epistemological approach. The final package, although comprised of bits and pieces that are ‘authentic’ to the Middle and Near East, is an imaginative and seemingly folksy presentation of “belly dance” placed on a body laden with western symbols. Improvisational Tribal Style Dance Improvisational Tribal Style came about purely because of the rigidity of ATS. As dancers left Nericcio’s studio and started teaching their own classes, the dance began to evolve (Djoumahna 2003c; Locke 2003; Atkin 2006a). Jill Parker is credited with beginning the trend toward Improvisational Tribal Style. She left FatChanceBellyDance and started her own troupe, “Urban Gypsy.” She added new moves, for music she pulled in DJ mixes, and she incorporated theatrical themes. She also scaled down the costuming (Stants 2006).

7 A musical interval; the tone is one half of a semitone. It is a common interval in Middle Eastern music

Nericcio, wishing to protect the integrity of her initial creation began, to specify that ATS can only apply to movements and combinations that she crafts and those movements must be done to her specificity (Atkin 2006a). So Improvisational Tribal Style Dance continues where ATS stops. It retains the Tribal moniker to acknowledge its lineage, but is more fluid, allowing for continued innovation and fusion (Figure 5). And, because it is already built onto a base that is an acknowledged fusion form, it allows room for further fusion and boundary transgression.

Figure 5. Faizeh of the troupe "Hiplash", Tribal Café 2007

Music Music, for example, can depart from the traditional and traditional sounding. Hipnotic discussed dancing to a song by the band Meat Puppet at the Tribal Café conference in California. Meat Puppet bills itself as starting out punk rock, but later developing its own fusion style by combining punk, country, psychedelic and hard rock genres (Bostrom 1993). One troupe dancer, Ashley, said she does not like a lot of Middle Eastern music. “It is fine for background music but I don’t like to dance to it. I just get bored.” Another Connie said she does not feel “constrained” with having to use only music from the Middle East. She can dance to music that she listens to regularly, and that

but very rarely used on contemporary Western music.

helps her to build a stronger connection to the dance. During the performances I observed, the troupe danced to songs ranging from modern Egyptian pop, to Australian didgeridoo mixes, to ‘hair rock’ bands such as AC/DC. Erin said the troupe looks everywhere for music. They “pull from all different places, German music, Irish music. I don’t care.” As with ATS, one practical criterion narrows a troupe’s music choices: the song’s structure. Because the movement combinations are in counts of 4, the music must have a 4/4 rhythm, thereby eliminating classical Middle Eastern music. The songs must also have a beat that each dancer—who will take a turn leading the remainder of the troupe— can identify and follow. In Hipnotic, the troupe dancers had different levels of musical knowledge and some were better at finding the beat than others so the troupe often selected music that had very obvious beats. Also the song could not have tempo changes that would make it difficult for the group to adjust to improvisationally. Movements Tribal Style dancers may be on the cutting edge of fusion, performance art but many have a background in ATS and may still perform the American Tribal Style. Hipnotic, for example, watched FatChanceBellyDance instructional videos to learn new combinations and attended workshops taught by Nericcio. When a friend, who had studied under Nericcio for more than ten years, came to visit, she attended a Hipnotic performance, and was invited to up to dance. She was able to successfully lead and follow the troupe’s cues even though she had met the members for the first time that night. It is possible to see ATS movements performed straight, with no alterations, but for example, with costuming elements borrowed from other dance forms. Or to see ATS costuming elements with more fused dances steps, or to see highly theatrical costuming and dances done with ATS movements as the base (Figure 5). Hipnotic, for example, used ATS moves as a base but fused moves and costuming from other sources. So the forms are merged and can accurately be grouped under the label Tribal Style Dance. For the purpose of this project, however, it is important to distinguish between and to examine the separate facets of the same phenomena, ATS because it is a very specific

format and the foundation for the movement, and Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion as the evolving variants. Improvisational Tribal Style dancers have kept the formality of ATS. It was a lucky coincidence that a new, Tribal Style class began shortly after the commencement of my field research. That allowed me to take a class from the very beginning instead of having to join mid-way through. At the first class, the instructor explained that she would be doing “rigid Tribal training,” meaning that the class would work in the improvisational, group format. She distributed a syllabus along with a list of moves the class would be learning. The syllabus not only listed every move, it broke them into beginner, intermediate and advanced steps. At each class, the instructor would write on the mirror—with an erasable marker—the steps that we were to learn, or a list of the steps that we have already covered. She would also give “quizzes” to make sure students were learning the names of the moves and practicing them outside of class. With the intermediate level class—she did not teach an advanced class in my area—she began by checking off on a list, all of the moves that the local performers and dancers knew. This level of formalization was consistent in seminars with various Tribal Style teachers and with Hipnotic. In Hipnotic, the formalization and the cueing structure remained intact. Hipnotic used the same cueing conventions developed by Nericcio, but with the addition of verbal cues. Verbal cues consisted of “yips” and ululations, a high-pitched wail accompanied by an up and down trilling of the tongue. The dancers also used the words such as yalla or yalla yalla meaning, “come on” or “hurry up.” Verbal cues were less frequently used than visual cues because they had to be loud enough to be heard over the music and audience. Plus Oriental dancers at large make these same sounds, and it is common for dancers watching a performance to signal their support using these sounds and words. That can cause confusion if an audience member chooses to use the vocalization that has become a cue for the performing group. Improvisational Tribal Style, as the name suggests, has remained a group, improvisational format. That does not mean a Tribal Style troupe, however, does not partially choreograph its material. Dancers may choreograph sections, pre-determine formations, determine which dancers will lead which combinations and in what order,

attempt to time their improvisations so they can start certain moves on certain beats and so on. Furthermore some dances may be practiced frequently enough, with dancers leading the same moves in the same places, that they become nearly choreographed. Hipnotic worked along the entire spectrum from completely improvisational to tightly planned but, with every move, the troupe followed the pacing and cueing of the lead dancer. So if the lead made a mistake, was off beat or purposefully deviated from the plan, the troupe followed. That means the entire dance still had an improvisational feel and dancers stayed attuned to what one another were doing at all times, rather than just focusing on one’s particular choreographed moves. The role of troupe formations has remained in Tribal Style, with an important development. All of the ATS formations start on their right foot. Hipnotic, however, added an optional left foot lead. This lead was used, for example, in the standard “Clock” formation. To execute it, the lead dancer shifted her direction from eleven o’clock to one o’clock and with it, shifted to starting the step, on the count of one, with her left foot. This maneuver provided variety and balance, however it was seldom done by Hipnotic since the troupe was much more comfortable working with a right lead. Hipnotic too learned formations that I did not see performed by FatChanceBellyDance. The chevron was a triangular shape with the lead dancer downstage, in the point. The Pyramid was similar. The lead dancer was the point of the pyramid and the dancers lined up in staggered rows behind her. Two in the first row, three in the second row, and so forth. This formation facilitated both left and right foot leading. The clagger—a name made up by my research group—was a staggered clock. The dancers in the front and back of the clock followed the lead dancer. The dancers on the sides of the clock did different moves, led by the dancer in the 9 o’clock position. That secondary leader either copied the primary leader, mirrored her by executing the same movements but on the opposite side of the body, worked in the round by executing the same step but starting on a later count, or cued an entirely different, but complimentary movement. This obviously took concentration. Not only must the dancers be extremely focused on the correct leader, and the secondary leader must be

highly attuned to the actions of the primary leader, the leading and following positions changed as the clock rotates. Like in ATS, in Tribal Style dance, every move and combination has a specific name and way to do it. Hipnotic and other Tribal Style dancers have kept signature ATS moves like the “Gawazee”, “Taxeem”, and “Egyptian”. In some cases, they have made slight alterations. In ATS, the “Arabic” it is executed on a flat foot. In the Tribal Style group I observed, this move was done on toe. Tribal Style groups have, of course, not only taken from ATS but have also developed their own combinations. The names of the combinations that I witnessed and learned were based less on Oriental terminology and more on Western imagery, for example, the “Cloud Push.” Such clearly Western nomenclature—which is obviously not a literal translation of a foreign term—is more than a lyrical representation of new movements. These names symbolize the furthering of Tribal Style dance as a political project. They demonstrate the trend away from the lingering Orientalism in ATS. By layering Oriental movements with Western dance aesthetics and then using Western names, dancers not only blur the divisions between the Orient and Occident, they clearly label their creations as transgressive. It is further suggestive that these moves deviate even further from their Oriental movement base. The “Cloud Push” for example is executed with the feet planted in place. First the right hip and then the left hip pushes outward to a count of four or eight. The arms are held overhead with the palms out. As the right hip slides out and in, the right arm is lowered to the side and back overhead. This is repeated, then, on the left. The step can be accompanied with hand floreos. The move is continuous but has the appearance of being a slow move ending in an exaggerated pose. No such step exists in cabaret dance, although dancers may ‘pose’ with their hip pushed out to the side. Another Western named movement was the “Seaweed.” The lower body can be still, the hips can be doing a taxim, or the dancer can be stepping to change the lead position. The arms are held overhead with shoulders pressed back and down, elbows bent and palms facing outward. Together the arms press to the right and the left. Again, no such step exists in cabaret although the “Seaweed” is evocative of the fluid, overhead arm work that is part of cabaret.

My study group spent several weeks learning a move called the “Jellyfish.” It was a step created by the Sacramento, California based, Tribal Fusion troupe, Unmata, (www.unmata.com). It is a complicated movement that includes layering snaky arm movements with a lower body undulation, a hip push to the side, and a half turn. This combination combines Tribal Style arm work with Egyptian style undulations and Western foot patterns. Not all of the movements used English names. One combination, originating with Domba, a former tribal fusion group in Phoenix, Arizona, is called the Onda Nueva, which translates loosely to new wave. It combines the exaggerated, ATS style rib cage undulations—with one ending in a dip to the back that is held in place—with hand floreos and flamenco styled arm work, and a Western style, pivot turn. This combination has no similarity to any specific cabaret moves and is truly a hybrid in that it has Western, cabaret and Spanish flamenco stylings. The name, then, not only signifies the deep fusion base of the step, it highlights the fusion “nature” of the dance and thus its transgressiveness. During one Saturday dance workshop, I learned two combinations that further demonstrate the theatrical and fusion blending prominent in Improvisational Tribal Style (and Fusion Style) dance. The first was inspired by the image of a stereotypical, Las Vegas showgirl. It was meant to be a sexier combination that could be inserted into choreography or an improvisational dance. The combination was executed on a very high toe; the dancers elevated themselves as high as possible to mimic showgirls on their spiky heels. The combination included a walk forward, but rather than the low, grounded walk of a Tribal Style dancer, this was a stylized walk in which the dancer placed one foot in directly front of the other, forcing her hips to sway and rock like a showgirl’s. The second combination was inspired by Tai Chi. It was executed with knees in a deep bend. Rather than isolating the top and bottom halves of the body, the dancers allowed their entire bodies to lean and sway. The body did not lead. Rather it followed the arms as they swept slowly through a complicated pattern; the arms flowed, as if through water, pushing to side to side and back and forth. The combination required the body to work as a whole, rather than as a series of isolated parts moving in tandem.

These combinations, while not used by all ITS groups, do still highlight the lineage of Tribal Style in ATS and ATS in cabaret, in addition to the differences between the three. First the terminology: cabaret, because of its roots in the Middle East, retains the fluidity of Middle Eastern naming conventions. ATS, which retains its Oriental “look”, draws on Oriental nomenclature, but like the steps the nomenclature is not authentic to any one place or thing. Tribal Style, in that it is purposefully moving away from the persistent Orientalism of ATS, is introducing new movements with names that are clearly not Turkish or Arabic. Second the movements: cabaret, in that it is based on “traditional” dances retains its interpretative and fluid feel. ATS movements, in contrast, ‘empower’ the dancer by infusing control and strength into the dance. Tribal Style retains that power but clearly marks the steps as fusion. Because the structure of the movements and the muscle groups used to execute the movements are so different between cabaret, ATS and even Tribal Fusion dance, it takes skill to be able to do all three. The best analogy is to language. One’s first language may dictate, for life, one’s accent. The same is true in dance. Dancers who learn one genre first may have that genre’s “accent.” Only the most skilled dancers can shift between them flawlessly. Costuming. Costuming for Improvisational Tribal Style runs the gamut. It may mirror costumes worn by ATS dancers. It may borrow elements from Tribal Fusion Style. It may be inspired by current fashion trends. It may be influenced by other performance genres. It is difficult to characterize ITS costuming since it can be as variable as the dancer’s tastes (Figure 6-7). Trends do occur, but are no means ubiquitous. Dance pants are popular, for example, but the dance pants, like other costuming items may be more of a short-term fad than a sustained look.

Figure 6. Midriff Crises, Improvisational Tribal Style Dance Troupe

Figure 7. Midriff Crises Dancer, Tribal Café 2007

Hipnotic, to give an example of one costuming style, frequently wore dance pants, layered underneath coined belts, and cropped skirts made of glitter-dot fabric, black bras covered with black fabric and edging and then decorated with coins and silver jewelry, layered over fish net stockings cut and worn like a cropped shirt, and layers of heavy

silver jewelry. Individual dancers could opt to wear wristbands, gauntlets, striped socks, and other personal touches so long as they complemented the costuming of the rest of the troupe. For small shows, the dancers kept their hair relatively simple, usually pulled back into ponytails, pinned back, or in the case of dancers with shorter hair, spiked. They may tie thin pieces of fabric into headbands and wear hairpins and jewels pinned the to fabric or fastened to their hair. The hair for full productions was much more elaborate and similar to hairstyles popularized by Tribal Fusion style dancers (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Hair Ornaments, Tribal Café 2007

ATS, ITS and Cabaret Compared The descriptions list the general characteristics of the three dance forms. For clarity, here are some general comparisons between the three forms. These comparisons start with the feet. Movements ATS movements are done strictly flat-footed. Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dancers may opt to do moves flat-footed or on toe, although flat-footed is far more common. Cabaret is mostly on toe with some moves done flat-footed. Like in cabaret, the feet of ATS and Tribal Style dancers are kept close together and the knee is forward or turned out slightly. More Tribal Style dancers, however, are

pulling in movements from other cultures that require one or both feet to turn out, with the knee following the direction of the toe. To give one example, a dancer may bend both knees, sinking as low as possible without bringing her heels off the floor. Keeping one foot (and knee) facing forward, she may take the other foot and face it outward, as close to 90-degrees as possible. This asymmetric stance is sometimes used in Western dances but also is used in certain dances from India. Posing is a device used in a wide variety of dance forms. Posing is when a dancer pauses, holding a certain position for a number of beats. Cabaret dancers use poses to accentuate pauses in the music. ATS and Tribal Style dancers also use poses, but in a different way. It is too difficult to follow a lead dancer when she abruptly halts in a pose. Therefore poses are either pre-determined as part of a combination and are held to a standard number of counts or they are used at the end of song. The lead dancer moves into a pose slowly so the others can follow. Because poses must be executed purposefully and deliberately, it is difficult and requires great skill and familiarity with the music to time a pose to end on time with the music. Hipnotic used poses to end their numbers. It also had a unique use for poses during performances with only two members of the troupe. The format was pre- determined in order to provide variety since two dancers limits the number of formations available for use. For the duration of one song, the dancers would alternately pose. As one posed, the other unfroze and improvised around the posed dancer. When that moving dancer posed, it signaled the already posed dancer to begin dancing. Costuming In the case of cabaret and ATS dancers, the costuming is part of the overall identity of the style. In keeping with the fluidity of the form, Tribal Style dancers have no common recognized costuming. The theme of the dance, the troupe’s personal tastes, fusion influences, street fashions…they all have bearing on the dancer’s costume. So, for Tribal Style—and Fusion dancers—the costuming is about the individual troupe or dancer’s preference. Performance Aesthetic Despite the blurring and sometimes subtle distinctions between the forms, it is important here to discuss one major element that distinguishes ATS and Improvisational

Tribal Style from cabaret: the overall aesthetic. Tribal dancers do not ‘interpret’ the music in the same way as cabaret dancers. As Haven told her class one evening, “it is a complaint of Arabic audiences that tribal dancers don’t flow with the music, they flow on top of it.” That is because Tribal Style dancers must have a large degree of uniformity in their movements in order to facilitate leading and following. Dance steps must be done to certain counts. A hip sway, for example, must be executed in much the same way a metronome sounds out beats, with an even tempo, an even side-to-side motion, and having an even number of counts. The arms and hands of tribal dancers, while beautiful, are very exacting, sometimes to the point of being static, for very practical reasons…because that is where the dancers cue one another. Because original ATS dancers covered their hair with elaborate turban-like wraps, the headpieces would fall off if the dancer tossed her head too much. That has carried forward into Tribal Style dance in the form of a stiffer, more upright carriage through the ribcage. The Tribal Style dance vocabulary is lower to the ground because it is based on a flat-footed, bent knee stance. All of these bodily performances translate into a dance that is more ‘grounded’ and less airy. Erin who performs tribal but also teaches cabaret, explains the differences to her students. “I kind of say, all right this is the step that we are learning. This is what it looks like. This is a tribal move. If you get it off the ground, get a little more airy, it’s an h-step in cabaret.8” The inward focus on the group is another integral difference between cabaret and ATS/ITS. Being part of a troupe that must communicate continuously during a performance, rather than execute a choreographed dance, creates a different dynamic between dancers. The performers are dancing for an audience and for each other. Hipnotic members used the language analogy, yet again, to describe the difference. Learning tribal steps is like learning words and dancing is like putting those words together into sentences. Together, a troupe develops a language and an accent but each member uses the words differently. Over time, troupe members learn what words individual dancers prefer to use. “I know OK, she likes to use her arms a lot so I need to watch for arm movement. If somebody else is up there, like maybe --, it’s going to be

more hip eight’s kind of movements” Erin. So dancers have to be attuned to individual personalities and preferences. Tribal Fusion The Tribal Dance instructor with whom I took classes was very specific about naming conventions. ATS, she reminded, is a specific form and Tribal Style is improvisational, group dance based on ATS. The Tribal Fusion label has come to mean any form of Oriental fusion. Cabaret dancers who created fusion styles once worked in the fuzzy borderlands of cabaret dance. Now they have a firm space in this third-space grouping. Rachel Brice (Figure 9) is “widely recognized as the first tribal fusion soloist” (Stants 2006). She infused yoga into strict isolation work creating a unique blend. Tribal Fusion forms may be modeled after her style, or may include modern tribal fusion, theatrical cabaret, urban fusion or any other variant. Music can range form ‘traditional’ sounding to DJ Mixes. Costuming may include “layers of authentic textiles and tribal jewelry, scaled down sleek club wear or anything in between” (Stants 2006). Tribal Fusion, however, is commonly used to refer to fusion forms that build on the ATS/Tribal Style aesthetic.

8 A “h-step” is a good example of the fluidity of cabaret terms. She uses it to describe a specific step, however it is not a name that I have heard other cabaret dancers use.

Figure 9. Rachel Brice, Tribal Café 2007

The tribal dancers in Hipnotic wanted primarily to distinguish Tribal Fusion from Tribal Style since so many of the fusion artists do solo work. Connie says, for that reason alone, “you can say tribal fusion is a form of cabaret more than it is a form of ATS.” Furthermore, some of the dancers in big-named fusion troupes have no background in ATS or tribal style dance, rather they are learning from fusion dancers. Faye uses one famous dancer to explain this point. “Zoe has never taken a tribal class. That is what she told us…she said she just likes the style, the dress of it. Everything that they do in Indigo, nothing is improv. Ever. They don’t use cues. I thought that was interesting. These are our tribal role models and they don’t know how to do tribal.” Albeit fusion dancers are bringing in elements of cabaret dance, such as solo work, choreography, more musical interpretation, and even cabaret costuming elements, but the aesthetic, the lifted posture, the more rigid use of the head and the controlled arms and shoulder movements are purely Tribal Style. It is not possible to completely generalize Tribal Fusion dancers, precisely because of the fluidity of the style, however in the majority of the fusion performances I witnessed, dancers maintained the more serious focus and deliberative movement base of ATS. For example, the Tribal Café dance conference in San Bernardino, California, included two nights of performances. Friday night’s show had 22 acts, Saturday night’s, 33. Of the 55 total performances, the vast majority were fusion blends building off of Tribal Style movements. Only a handful featured dancers who were obviously grounded in cabaret. Their movements were similar to the other dancers, but the stylizations and the musculature were different. They wore, however, fusion costuming, danced to Westernized and blended music, and incorporated dance steps that were not Middle Eastern. So even the cabaret numbers were obviously ensemble creations, but the movement base was distinct enough for there to be noticeable difference. Cabaret is meant to be emotional since the performer interprets the music through her body. Tribal Fusion, and to some extent Tribal Style dance, has removed that emotionality and replaced it, in many cases, with theatricality. According to Connie,

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fusion means “we can do something darker like that, or more theatrical. It is easier for us to be theatrical”. The Tribal Café performances included a pirate-themed number, a troupe strutting and taking glamour girl poses while Marilyn Monroe crooned that diamonds are a girl’s best friend and Madonna declared that we live in a material world, and Gothic inspired dances with pale-skinned, heavily made-up, black-costumed dancers performing to dark music. As these examples demonstrate, fusion dancers can take their inspiration from anywhere. However there are trends. For example, much of the music being produced for and used by Tribal Fusion dancers is industrial sounding and does not necessarily include Middle Eastern drum rhythms (Brice 2005). Mardi Love, now famous as a Tribal Fusion dancer, popularized cowry shell hair adornments and soft yarn belts (Stants 2006). Dancers are increasingly drawing upon hip hop, Indian Baghra, fire spinning, and other performance and street arts to expand their dance. Sideshow is becoming a popular performance art; it is analogous to a circus sideshow and includes acts and stunts befitting a circus venue, but presented with artistry more analogous to Cirque du Soleil. Tribal Style dancers are increasingly borrowing sideshow elements or collaborating in wider sideshow projects. One example is a performance group called “Yard Dogs” (www.yarddogsroadshow.com). Bailee says she has a difficult time describing “Yard Dogs” as anything but a collaboration of artists. “Every time I have seen “Yard Dogs” there is a belly dance performance (tribal fusion style) and a burlesque performance and a sword swallower.” Raks Gothique draws from Tribal Style and cabaret and may include folkloric steps as well. As the name suggests, it blends Oriental dance with the Gothic subculture (Figure 10). Raks Gothique performer, Tempest, explains that the style cannot easily be classified as cabaret or as tribal. However it fits better with tribal because, “Gothic belly dance owes much of its existence to the rise and development of American Tribal Style. Carolena Nericcio, FatChanceBellyDance, and other founding women of ATS truly paved the way for the acceptance of those who follow a more alternative lifestyle path to be accepted in the realm of belly dance” (Tempest 2006:17).

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Figure 10. SuperKate, Tribal Café 2007

“Because Tribal Fusion is still in its infancy as an art form its rules are not yet firmly established. As it continues to evolve, its relation to ATS grows more distant and controversial” (Stants 2006). Now, within the dance community, members debate the definition of Tribal Fusion (Atkin 2006b; Stants 2006). How far can the dance be dramatized and fused and still be considered Tribal? Are new forms, such as Gothic Tribal, sideshow, and burlesque, really a part of the emerging Tribal Fusion movement? Connie echoes the sentiment of many when she says, “I think it is great but I don’t know if it needs its own name. I don’t know what that name would be.” Throughout my fieldwork, I heard it referred to as tribal fusion, ethnic fusion, fusion with folkloric elements and other variations, all stressing the combination of fusion with ‘ethnic’ forms. The difficult nomenclature will not be addressed at length in this thesis but it does highlight two important facets of the dance: its fluidity and its resistance to categorization. In creating a cyborg cultural ensemble that resists fixity and boundedness, Tribal Fusion dancers are transgressing Orientalist constructions of the dance.

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Conclusion

The remainder of this thesis will focus on Improvisational Tribal Style dance for several reasons. First, it was the predominant form danced by my study group. Second, like Tribal Fusion, it is a hybrid dance form. Third, it retains its clear linkages to ATS. Tribal Style dance, then, is a middle step between the rigidity of ATS and the extreme fluidity of Tribal Fusion. Studying it allows for an examination of routes and roots at the same time.

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TRIBAL STYLE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF DE-SEXUALIZED DANCE

IDENTITIES

The Orient can also express the strength of the West and the Orient’s weakness— as seen by the West. Such strength and such weakness are as intrinsic to Orientalism as they are to any view that divides the world into large general divisions, entities that coexist in a state of tension produced by what is believed to be radical difference. For that is the main intellectual issue raised by Orientalism. Can one divide human reality, as indeed human realty seems to be genuinely divided, into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, even races, and survive the consequences humanely? (Said 1978:45)

It is now time to investigate the spatial processes embedded within Tribal Style dance. Globalizing technologies have, to a large degree, contributed to the widespread and quick distribution of the dance. They have also enabled dancers to share and communicate information in ways that have allowed this dance form to become as much a social movement as an art. Time-space compression has more to do with this dance, however, than dispersion of dancers and information sharing. It is the very reason for the dance’s existence. Global Flows and Tribal Style Dance

Tribal Style dance is not a model of utopianism. It does not seek to foster a homogenous, world harmony through cultural sharing. It operates within nationalist discourses and uneven power relationships. It is a cyborg creation designed purposefully to interrogate power imbalances created through Orientalism, but that unintentionally reproduces power imbalances of gender. Hipnotic and Time-Space Compression Hipnotic is an Improvisational Tribal Fusion Style dance troupe that draws inspiration from globally dispersed sources. The members, for example, buy costume pieces from Afghanistan and Pakistan, read materials written by European performers, seek out music from Australia and Egypt, share messages with dancers in Japan and Norway and engage in a number of other unbounded practices. They have access to materials that have only recently become widely available, and have fully harnessed the communication innovations that have heightened interconnectedness among dancers.

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Specific examples abound. For example, every member of the troupe purchases performance and instructional DVD’s that feature dancers from inside and outside the United States. One member of the troupe, Connie, owns a substantial collection of American Tribal style, Tribal Fusion and cabaret dance videos, with Bailee claiming to own “ every tribal video that exists now. I don’t think that there are any that I don’t have.” Another major resource for this troupe is the Internet. Hipnotic extensively uses social networking sites, primarily by creating profiles—essentially web pages—on MySpace and Tribe.net. The profiles facilitate the publication of performance dates and allow the troupe to showcase merchandise, pictures, dancer biographies and other pertinent details. These popular social networking sites also allow the troupe to friend with other troupes and artists. Friending means creating links between profiles. The link allows friends to easily share information with one another. It is also possible to change account preferences to give friends broader access to one’s profile. Friends, too, can be viewed on the profile page making it possible for a visitor to easily navigate between linked profiles. Through friending and message boards, where comments are posted from different members of the social network, it is possible for communities of dancers to network with one another to share tips about making and repairing costume pieces, publicize who is teaching where, sell and swap merchandise with one another and, most importantly, develop and stay attuned to recent trends in dance. These social networks are not bounded to territories; it is common to read dance threads on the Internet and to find dancers from all around the world communicating with one another. The Internet and these social networking sites have helped Tribal Style dance, which originated in California, spread around the world. In only a few years, it has spread to Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Finland, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand (Djoumahna 2006; Matthews and Atkin 2006). Threads may contain links to websites where videos, photographs and merchandise are available, thus commodifying Tribal Style dance on a worldwide scale. Internet networking, coupled with on-line sales platforms, has profoundly impacted Tribal Style Dance. To illustrate, Bailee rarely buys anything from a source other than e- bay because she can find whatever it is she is looking for using that site. Melodia—a

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Tribal Style dancer and the maker of the dance pants that have become standard wear with Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dancers—to give another example, has a popular profile on Tribe.net. Dancers use the profile page to post information about their favorite Melodia designs, how to get the best fit, and ways of pairing the pants with other costuming pieces. Melodia sends out bulletins when the company releases a new design with links to its on-line E-bay store. The company started with a simple pant design that was worn by a few, famous dancers. Those dancers’ wide exposure in traveling shows, in Internet videos and on social networking sites, in addition to Internet platforms for easy sales, allowed the once small, California-based company, to expand rapidly. It now continually creates new looks for the pants using new fabrics, and sells the pants to dancers around the world. The video-sharing site, YouTube, is another extremely popular venue for keeping up with fellow dancers. “It’s nice because you get to see who all of these people are because it is really hard in America because we are so far from everybody that…you hear of somebody for years and years and if they don’t every come anywhere—like they dance in New York. I mean, we are lucky to get Morocco (Carolina Dinicu) here for a weekend otherwise, you know, it’s really hard” (Bailee). Bailee says she is on the Internet almost every day looking up dance related information but, because she has very little time to spend on the computer, she does not use sites like YouTube for entertainment purposes. Rather she searches out information about groups she hears about or that may be teaching classes in her area. “I don’t ever sit around and just go through clips. I know some of the girls will sit around and go on YouTube for the whole day. I did pull up tribal belly dance once and got about 60 thousand things. You know.” Genevieve says her time, too, is limited but on-line videos allow her to see what is new in dance and get inspiration from dancers who may literally live on the other side of the planet. “I usually go look for something in particular or get an idea in particular. I am not doing a lot of just random browsing. I wish I could because I know a lot of people get great ideas from that.” The Internet has also proven to be a valuable resource for sharing music and DVD’s that may not be available in local stores. A lot of this information, pre-Internet, was difficult to find. It was possible to locate limited numbers of “traditional” Oriental

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dance CD’s in the world music section—especially in communities with Middle Eastern diasporic communities—but the techno, fusion, industrial sounds that have become popular with a lot of tribal dancers were not available. They were not readily distributed through major music suppliers, and neither were Oriental dance videos. Some labels such as Eventide Music Productions (http://empcds.com/home.html) have sprung up, aided by internet sales and word-of-mouth publicity, that cater to tribal style dancers’ specific tastes, in addition to distributors of videos that are solely Oriental dance related. Major sales sites such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com now sell DVD’s and CD’s and allow dancers to keep track of new releases. So the Internet is making it easier for the Hipnotic dancers to find specific musicians and dancers, research them, and download samples of their music or watch video clips, all before ordering on-line. The Internet and DVD’s, by far, outstrip other sources of information, however dancers do also collect printed materials. A handful of subscription style, Oriental dance magazines have been around for decades. As Tribal Style gained popularity, the magazines devoted articles, and eventually whole editions, to Tribal Style dance and increasingly shifted focus to include various forms of Oriental dance beyond cabaret and folkloric styles. Although their audience is limited to a small world of practitioners and fans, Oriental dance books are rapidly disseminated and consumed within the dance community. Faye, for example, calls her collection a “mini belly dance library.” Printed resources may be limited by low edition prints and were once difficult to obtain. The Internet and book selling sites make it easy to locate these resources and to put out queries to purchase the books second hand once they are no longer widely available. Furthermore, Internet bookstores, which may not carry the volumes themselves, may have links to sellers that do have copies for sale. Globalization and Information and Cultural Object Sharing The convergence of Tribal Style dance with processes of time-space compression has allowed the form to flourish. The focus of this study was not the impact of globalizing technologies on Tribal Style dance, however it became clear during my research that failing to discuss globalizing technologies, and the Internet in particular, would be negligent. In my research, I did not meet a single tribal dancer who did not use the Internet in some way to further her dance. It also became clear that such technologies

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allow fusion artists to not only get new ideas from the larger dance community, but also to share their ideas and to create trends in the dance world. Cabaret dancers have had trends, such as popular styles of costuming, new props or new music releases. By far, however, those trends were set in Cairo and other Middle Eastern dance cities and passed down through visiting dancers to their students, from those students to other dancers, through dance conferences and through sometimes difficult to obtain videos and books. Tribal Style dance trends, in contrast, are increasingly being set by Western artists and are occurring at a much more frequent pace. Ashley summarized the dramatic change that has occurred, in just the past decade, as globalizing technologies have opened two- way dialogues between artists; We are coming out of a vacuum technologically. Before we’ve only had a one-way interpretation, or very few people had two-way—academics and people who are in government have had two-way conversations about these things—but, until now, with the Internet, I mean everything opened up. Everything opened up (Ashley).

This opening up has allowed the troupe to pull from multiple cultural sources. Hipnotic combines dance movements drawn from the United States, West Africa, India and Spain and layers them onto an Oriental dance base. Members dance to industrial and Gothic music produced in the United States and in Europe, or they use “world” music songs that incorporate instruments like the Australian didgeridoo and the Turkish oud, or exotic drum beats, many of which in and of themselves are fusion ensembles. For costumes, the troupe has cut up fishnet stockings to make fitted tops and that look something like an Indian choli, covered bras in coins to resemble the costuming tops worn by Egyptian cabaret dancers, purchased dance pants designed by Melodia of California, and collected jewelry imported to the United States from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their make-up has included Indian bindis, heavy liner that extends beyond the eye (reminiscent of the eye make up in Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings), and sometimes painted-on facial tattoos. Hair decorations have included ornaments made from North African or Hawaiian shells, Jamaican-style dread locks made from synthetic hair or yarn, ornate sticks similar to those worn by the Japanese Geisha, tropical, silk flowers dipped in glitter, porcupine quills, and any number of other such diverse objects. When asked where they get their ideas, two of the seven Hipnotic members replied with the same

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words, “out of their asses.” Rather than take this as a flippant comment, I understood it to mean that they take ideas wherever they can get them. Hipnotic member, Connie, sums up the troupe by saying, “we come up with off the wall things.” When articulated and presented together, seemingly random cultural objects create a cyborg entity that is not bounded to any place. Like Hipnotic, the larger project that is Tribal Style dance blends cultural aesthetics in a way that blurs us/them distinctions. The resulting cultural ensemble is not Middle Eastern; it is not Indian; it is not Romani; it is not Western. It is a new dance form that does not fit within any “traditional” boundaries.

Tribal Style Dance and Boundary Transgression

Tribal Style dance simply would be unintelligible in another place and time. It is an art form that must be nested into local, national and global spaces and within a past- present continuum in order to be understood as an artistic commentary about power and third-space, and not simply as mélange. So, it is in this spatial and temporal sense that TSD is next interrogated. The Necessity of Context Some have criticized the study of hybrid forms—such as Hipnotic—viewing them to be mere mélange configurations (Pieterse 1995; 2004). Hipnotic does, on the surface, appear to highlight homogenizing global forces that are creating a world of sharing. In this light, Tribal Style dance seems to be more about blending and cultural sharing than power. A more thorough examination, however, reveals the latter to be true. Tribal Style dance, with Hipnotic as a case study, destabilizes center and periphery models of culture and addresses issues of power. Processes of globalization provide an infinite number of cultural objects from which to borrow but the borrower acts within situated contexts. Tribal Style dancers are borrowers who do not randomly select appendages; they purposefully select objects based on their situatedness. Some theoreticians criticize the very epistemological basis for celebrating hybridity for its decentering possibilities, saying hybridity itself is a problematic theoretical concept. Hybridity theory attempts to blur essentialized categories yet

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hybridity, by its very definition, is a blending of distinct, homogenous categories (Barker 2003). For Tribal Style dance to be a hybrid, for example, Middle Eastern and Western dance must categorically exist. Tribal Style dance then, just perpetuates essentialized constructions; it does not undo them, as one cannot recognize the existence of essentialized constructions without reinforcing them. The project of undoing essentialized constructions, however, means recognizing their existence in the first place. If one recognizes essentializing cultural practices, existing within sustained antagonisms in time and space, one can then create hybrid forms that are not bound to any one culture or construction. That is the intent of Tribal Style dancers and of Hipnotic. In this case, their motives are partially about entertainment and are partially about undoing traditional boundaries around Middle Eastern and Western dance forms. By combining the two forms, and recognizing the cultural binary constructed between the Orient and the Occident, Hipnotic can then transgress boundaries between the two. Before progressing to my case study, it is important to first situate Hipnotic in context. In 1960’s and 1970’s America, cabaret dancing resurged in popularity. Performers—and later as teachers—wished to separate the dance form from the sexualized fantasies about the Orient that developed during the Victorian period. It was in this context that Jamila Salimpour created a dance aesthetic that was later to become ATS. Early ATS and the Project of “Othering” ATS as a project is linked to some social constructions prominent in the 1960’s. Essentializing practices were still widely in use, but postmodernists and feminists were beginning to unravel the uneven power structures in reified categories. Women were increasingly being recognized for their economic power and were, at the same time, laying claim to their bodies and their sexuality (Salem 1995; Wolff 1997). The gender categories “male” and “female” were still thought of as bounded, and woman embraced those qualities that were believed to be feminine. Linking Middle Eastern dance to femininity was not a far leap since the Orientalists had sexualized the dance and constructed it as a form done by exotic women, but not men. Women sought to take the dance and its perceived affinity with women and sexuality and tie it instead to

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nature and the naturalness of women, and claim it as their own. “Belly dancing” thus became popular with feminists who attempted to recast the dance from erotic display to one of ritual and celebration of the “natural,” female body (Salem 1995). San Francisco-based dancer and teacher, Jamila Salimpour, began what would become one such project. She did not ingrain the dance with femininity—that was Salimpour’s successors. Instead she de-emphasized the sexuality by re-emphasizing the dance as cultural. Her purpose was to create an ethnic dancer that could contrast the cabaret form that was very popular in California. Cabaret dancers were wearing intricately beaded and fringed costumes that showed a fair amount of skin and were often hired as much for their ‘classical’ beauty as for their performance abilities. The cabaret dancer performing in restaurants and nightclubs was often the stereotypical glamour-girl with long hair and even longer legs (Locke 2003). It is important to note some practical circumstances regarding Salimpour’s project. Her students—who performed cabaret style in San Francisco’s club and restaurant scene—started attending the Renaissance Festival in their glitzy clothing and dancing unsolicited performances in the walkways. Fair managers called Salimpour to complain. Salimpour put a stop to these unsolicited performances and took advantage of the situation to create a performance troupe specifically for the Renaissance Faire. Troupe “Bal Anat” was not, at the time, labeled tribal but is now recognized as the foundation of American Tribal Style (Ali 2004). Salimpour wanted a show that—like cabaret dance—drew from the Middle East but was more ethnic looking to fit the theme of a Renaissance festival. She turned to sources such as National Geographic magazine and Orientalist paintings for costuming and performance ideas (Frascella 2003; Ali 2004). From the beginning, Salimpour did not describe her troupe as “ethnic.” She billed Bal Anat as an American “belly dance” troupe that had the vocabulary to perform a variety of styles. She taught cabaret steps and other Oriental movements and then combined them in new ways based upon her imaginative borrowings. In this manner, she sought to expose audiences, through the course of a thirty-minute set, to a variety of Middle Eastern dance styles; it was what some have called a “30-minute education” in Middle Eastern folk and cabaret dance (Djoumahna 2003c). Bal Anat performances

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throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s were structured as sets of three to five dances, with a final cabaret dance done in “ethnic” costumes (Djoumahna 2003c). Some of it was real, some of it was imaginative borrowing, some of it was complete fantasy, and none of it was explained. In creating a more ethnic troupe, she decided to undo expectations for a stereotypical “belly dance” performance. At the time, cabaret dancers performed solo; Salimpour focused on group dances that merely highlighted individual dancers. For example, troupe Bal Anat is credited with developing the half-circle style of staging. Dancers would form a half-circle across the back of the stage and a solo dancer would come forward, perform, and then move back into the half-circle (Frascella 2003). Modern ATS dancers have kept that half-circle staging for large groups of dancers, in the form of the “crescent”. One final contribution Salimpour made to modern tribal stylization was the serious demeanor. Cabaret dancers did, and still do, make eye contact with the audience and employ a variety of facial expressions as a method of interpreting the music. Salimpour danced with a serious expression on her face. Troupe members adopted a similar seriousness. This mood stuck with later tribal dances who wished to portray their dance as serious, not sexy (Frascella 2003). As more American dancers traveled to the Middle East to study Raqs Sharqi in context, they took issue with the combinations, costuming and the ‘tribal’ identity Salimpour created for her troupe (Djoumahna 2003a). Carolina Varga Dinicu, a respected performer within Middle Eastern dance circles, lives in New York City but has traveled to more than 28 countries and returns at least once a year to Morocco and Egypt to study (Djoumahna 1998; Dinicu, no date). Dinicu, who dances under the stage name Morocco, has learned to speak eleven languages and has touted her semi-photographic memory and membership to MENSA in order to gain credibility as a dancer, has become a resource to other dancers and perhaps the most outspoken member of what fellow dancers call the “ethnic police.” Objecting to what she called “Jamila Salimpour’s fantasy,” she coined the phrase “California Tribal” to clarify that what was being presented to audiences was an imaginative borrowing of an other and not based on any real tribal group in the Middle East (Dinicu 2007). Dinicu writes that she found the

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dance to be “fraudulent, misleading and, in the instance of Jamila’s one-hipped/lean-back ‘technique,’ physically also incorrect and dangerous.” San Francisco dancers, well aware that the look was eclectic, fictional and essentializing, were known to call the Bal Anat style “Berkley Bedouin” or, in one case, “unfocused exoticism” (Djoumahna 2003c). Salimpour’s show, however, was popular and spawned other dance troupes that copied her “ethnic” aesthetic. Early ATS and Female Empowerment The specific ATS style was further developed by one of Salimpour’s students: Masha Archer. Archer was a jewelry and clothing designer with an artistic background. According to Carolena Nericcio—the final woman in the ATS, founders trilogy—Archer was “an artist who happened to dance for awhile” (Djoumahna 2003c). Archer had little knowledge of choreography and only danced with Salimpour for a few years before she, this “rebel student of Jamila’s” (Ali 2004), started teaching her own classes. She also formed her own troupe, The San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe, which she directed through the mid-1980’s (Frascella 2003). Because she had little foundation in choreography and Middle Eastern dance in general, Archer drew more on her artistic background than on dance. She developed her own interpretive style of dance that incorporated group improvisations. She also tailored her performances to Western tastes by adding American movements and even music (Djoumahna 2003c). Her musical selection often included classical European and American pieces. The costuming was as theatrical as the dance. Using Salimpour’s ethnic look as a basis, Archer relied on her background in clothing design to create a standard costume that would give her troupe access to venues other than the restaurants and night clubs she found distasteful. She pulled elements from India, the Middle East and Africa and combined them so as to create a “seamless” look (Frascella 2003). This unified look not only appeared “ethnic”, it also emphasized the hips, ribs, and arms—the parts of the body where the dance movements originate—and took attention away from the dancer’s legs, which contribute little to dance. Archer had another rationale for her costume design: “to increase the dancer’s power. Many of her choices were made to contrast the club’s ideal of the belly dancer, all long hair, cleavage and leg. She wanted the dancer to be dressed, not undressed” (Frascella 2003). Archer viewed the cabaret dancer as glitzy and

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objectified. She found the image of the beautiful and glittery dancer to be degrading and sought to empower the dancers and the dance (Frascella 2003). Archer eliminated the cabaret style top, which she thought exposed too much of the dancer’s breasts. She adopted the choli, the cropped, short sleeved, top worn under Indian saris. Over that she layered a bra made of coins. To cover and conceal their legs, Archer’s dancers wore wide pantaloons, gathered at the ankle, overlain by a fringed shawl tied around the hips. To cover their hair, Archer designed a turban (Frascella 2003). Like the pantaloons and choli, the turban had a dual purpose. It contradicted the fantasized image of the dancer with long, blond hair. With a turban, the dancer’s hair was covered and the audience could not distinguish the blondes from the brunettes and red heads. Archer explained the turban’s design also helped to show off the head and shoulder movements that she said were hidden under those lengthy locks (Djoumahna 2003c). The costuming was meant to empower the dancer, so too were the movements. In cabaret styling, the dancer was expected to do floor work—often balancing a prop like a cane or candelabra—while executing a series of controlled movements on the floor, or to drop to the floor in a sudden, dramatic finish. Archer did not let her performers do floor work because she did not want audiences looking down on her dancers (Djoumahna 2003c; Frascella 2003). Furthermore, cabaret dancers would undulate and move their ribcages, Archer’s dancers kept their ribcages more rigid and uplifted, a posture that in a Western context—handed down from the Victorians—symbolizes power and control (Frascella 2003). Archer took Salimpour’s model of group choreography a step further. She regularly watched Middle Eastern dancers perform in restaurants and nightclubs and, although she loved the dance, she did not like what she called “challenge-style” performances. By that, she meant the succession of solo acts with each dancer trying to out perform one another. To stop the perceived competitiveness between dancers, Archer required her students to work together. They were required to look at another, rather than the audience, and to watch each other dance. This not only provided a cohesiveness to their improvisational performances, it embodied for the dancers and the audience a symbol of cooperation, not competition, among dancers (Djoumahna 2003c).

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Archer’s project was one of social consciousness. She sought to downplay what she saw as a heightened objectification of cabaret dancers. Archer’s project, however, resorted to more “traditionally rooted modes of negotiating nature and the body” (Pitts- Taylor 2003 :124). She created a romanticized and fictionalized “other”. One that looked “ethnic”—in other words, from a non-Western, more primitive place. By equating the dance to a tribal ethnicity, she played on the essentialized construction of the primitive identity. Primitives, in that they are more “connected” to nature, were considered more natural in their sexuality. They did not need to jiggle their breasts, flip their hair, move around on the floor or engage in other “artificial” displays of sexuality. Nor did they have to fit into normative constructions of beauty in order to perform. The contrast between the objectified sexuality of the cabaret dancer and the naturalized femininity of the Tribal Style dancer has carried forward, and is still as powerful today as it was in the 1960’s. ATS and Female Empowerment All of Archer’s naturalized elements: the costuming, the group format, the eye contact among dancers and not with the audience, the elimination of floor work, the elevation of the torso, carried forward into modern ATS dance primarily through Carolena Nericcio, who was one of Archer’s students. In 1987, Nericcio decided to found her own troupe after Archer moved back to New York to pursue what became a successful career in jewelry and clothing design. In a published interview, Nericcio said she always viewed Archer as a powerful person who taught her that women do not have to be “quiet, pretty and feminine” and that “power and presence are more important than being pretty” (Djoumahna 2003c). Nericcio says she attempted to convey that same sense of power to her own troupe. In creating her troupe, Nericcio relied heavily on what she learned from her teacher. First, she had no other significant dance training. She started taking lessons from Archer when she was only fourteen and it was not until much later that she dabbled in Flamenco and Kathak (Indian) dances. So, when she began teaching, Nericcio thought what she was doing was “belly dance”. The more she researched the dance as part of her role as instructor, the more she realized that Archer’s style was fantastical. Because she

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was building from a fantasy base, she felt no need to preserve an “authentic” dance. So she adapted the style to her own tastes and to her expanding dance training. For costuming, Nericcio kept Archer’s basic “ethnic” design but added the 10- yard skirt worn over the pantaloons and under the fringed shawl. She also added the fabric, hip belt with large yarn tassels and—to provide more space for displaying the large jewelry collections of her dancers—she increased the size of the turban (Djoumahna 2003c; Frascella 2003). Nericcio credits her students with contributing to the costuming and the choreographic style. For example, it was a student who introduced her to the 10- yard skirt (Djoumahna 2003c). Nericcio would adopt ideas that worked and that she found aesthetically pleasing. Over time, that created what was to become the signature ATS dance. She describes the process now as one of, “diluting the cabaret movement to make it broader and a lot more repetitive” (Djoumahna 2003c).

Tribal Dancers and Transgressive Identity Construction

“FatChanceBellyDance”—interchangeable with the abbreviated title “FatChance”—is synonymous with ATS. There’s that story about when I (Nericcio) was young and dumb, I would tell men I was a belly dancer (sic) and they would ask for a ‘private’ show. I would think “Fat Chance!” I told my friend Jim Murdoch, who’s a clown, with a rather subtle, outgoing sense of humor, and he said, “Oh, Fat Chance Belly Dance!” I just knew I wanted it (Djoumahna 2003c)!

The odd moniker is one that Nericcio’s students resisted at first but now proudly proclaim. It is a phrase that has become synonymous with American Tribal Style dance. It resonates with the power Nericcio attempted to infuse into her troupe and explains the project of de-sexualizing “belly dance” that was undertaken by Nericcio’s predecessors and inherited by her students. The title “American Tribal” additionally, and rather eloquently, encapsulates the othering project that spawned this unique dance form and continues to resonate with Tribal Style dancers. Nericcio routinely explains her intent of empowering dancers, describing the dance as featuring “the strength and beauty of women” (Atkin 2006a:6) Later ATS dancers echo the sentiment. Kajira Djoumahna, one of Nericcio’s students and later a

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teacher and troupe leader herself calls the dance “regal” and “powerful” (Djoumahna 2003b). Those same adjectives are used again and again in publications about the dance (Frascella 2003; Locke 2003; Atkin 2006b; Matthews 2006). Hipnotic too used these terms to describe their dance. In all cases, these words are used to contrast the cabaret dancer who is deemed to be “cute”, “delicate” (Djoumahna 2003b), classically attractive and sexually objectified. The ATS project of empowering dancers through de- sexualizing the dance is one that has carried forward into Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dance…and is the reason for the styles continued connections to ATS versus cabaret or some form of modern fusion dance. Hipnotic and Transgressive Identity Construction Hipnotic, while not representative of every ITS troupe, does lend credence to the argument that empowerment and transgression of Occident/Orient nationalist politics indeed shapes the every-day performances of dancers. Bailee said on several occasions that she respected specific cabaret dancers in the community but did not want to dance like them. Deirdre admitted after one performance that some of the troupe members do not like cabaret. Hipnotic members did not reject cabaret dancing as a whole, nor did they reject cabaret dancers outright. They acknowledged the skill that cabaret dancing takes and that it is the basis for their own dance form. In fact, all seven of the troupe members have studied cabaret dance, two continue to do so, and all of them said they appreciate cabaret. “I think cabaret is beautiful and I do enjoy watching it. I have several videos of classic cabaret,” said Deirdre. It was interesting to me that many of the dancers said, usually jokingly, “we probably all wish we were really good at cabaret.” The members expressed a desire to be skilled at cabaret, to have that base of knowledge and to able to identify and execute “traditional” moves but that was coupled with a desire to challenge the construction of cabaret identities. So it is not the dance, it is how the dance is perceived that is problematic. This implication is furthered in context of other statements about cabaret dancers. Deirdre tells of a cabaret performance that she saw on a video distributed by Belly Dance Superstars. Saida, she is wearing all white and she is shimmying and she is doing a back bend and each time she goes a little lower and a little lower and then se bends all the way forward and starts undulating with her butt up in the air. That is so much more sexual than anything I have ever done, in my opinion (Deirdre).

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She also told me about a cabaret dancer who felt objectified after a performance at a local restaurant. Some young guy came up to her and told her that it was very disrespectful to allow a man to throw money on you and that she shouldn’t do that. And he told her that she was such a good dancer, she would make more money dancing at (a local strip club) than dancing at (the restaurant). I have never had anyone come up and say that.

These comments suggest that she sees cabaret as more sexualized than Tribal Style, which is more “natural” to a woman’s sexuality. Hipnotic objected to four particular elements of cabaret: the sparkly costuming, the performance spaces, the performed personality, and the solo work. Solo Work. Nericcio was the first person to actually use the word “tribal” to describe her own troupe. Nericcio had wanted to call the dance “Modern Tribal” to indicate its modern fusion form but, drawing off of the “California Tribal” label, many had begun calling the style American Tribal. She took on that name to emphasize its fusion construction and lack of tie to any one place. It is about roots and routes; the mere juxtaposition of the words “American” and “Tribal” indicate its hybridity. By the time Nericcio adopted the “tribal” moniker, the meaning of “tribe” in the dance context had changed from describing an “ethnic” looking dance to describing a dance performed by a community of dancers. In the 1960’s, when Salimpour’s Bal Anat troupe was founded, the word tribal was frequently used to refer to “third-world” societies (Huq 2006). Tribal people, by inference, were inferior to white, cultured people, who had the superior rationality and intellect to live above nature. When applied to Salimpour’s troupe, the word “tribal” was meant to indicate the irony of her power- laden construction. She was a Californian attempting to reframe Oriental dance by equating it with the earthiness of an “other.” Archer took that further by attempting to de-sexualize the dance by equating it with the more “natural” sexuality of an “other.” In the late 1980’s, when Nericcio started her own troupe, the word “tribal” had been interrogated by social scientists for its essentializing characteristics and people had begun using the term neo-tribal in its place. Neo-tribal was intended to signify a grouping of people that is more fluid, where membership is not a constant. Tribes, in this

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sense, have a communal identity but members can have their own identities in addition to their tribal identity (Huq 2006). This has come to be the meaning of “Tribal” as used in the name “Tribal Style Dance” (Djoumahna 2003c; Locke 2003; Atkin 2006a). The nomenclature—Tribal—has lost its original meaning and come to represent the group work that is implicit in ATS and Tribal Style dance. So the meaning has stabilized to mean the collective of dancers who work together as a unit, sharing a dance language. All of the Hipnotic dancers said that is what “tribal” means to them…the sense of community that is constructed among dancers and the connections they consequently make. It is also about the shared “energy” of a group of dancers working as one. Erin identifies herself as a Tribal Style dancer, however she also performs with a cabaret troupe. She says the cabaret troupe is not nearly so connected as the tribal group. “There are certain people you click with more and you hang out with more. In tribal, it is like this whole unit of people and we all work together with the same goals.” That creates a bond, according to the dancers, that is like a sisterhood. Because dancers have to lead and follow one another, the members have to communicate, even when they disagree. That communication requirement, along with the shared dance experience, has brought together people with divergent backgrounds and tastes who would unlikely meet under other circumstances. “In so many ways, I wouldn’t be friends with these people if it weren’t for this. But I feel like, because of this, we have found these common things and we overlook the negative. So it is almost this blessing in a way” (Ashley). The group focus makes the dance, according to Connie, “not a good place for divas.” She goes on to explain how one woman, a local cabaret dancer who was accepted into the troupe, caused discord because she was not willing to give up her established dance persona for the group identity. The woman left the group, just prior to the start of my field research, to pursue cabaret dance more fully. Members of the troupe remained in contact with her, and continued to support her in her personal life, but all expressed satisfaction that she had chosen a to leave the troupe to pursue a dance identity more suited to her “diva” personality. Hipnotic did occasionally perform cabaret style dancing, but by that members meant that they were breaking away from the group improvisation, spreading out into the

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audience and doing solo work. Connie points out that this claim did not mean they are really doing cabaret dance: You know, with Hipnotic sometimes, when we dance not improv, or group improv, in any solo way we call it cabaret. Like when we are at (--) we do a tribal song and a cabaret song and all that means is we are not dancing with each other. It doesn’t mean that we are dancing in necessarily a high, Egyptian style. I think in some ways it is a false dichotomy (Connie).

Their solos usually included movements that were a combination of ATS and Tribal Style steps combined with dance steps used in the Gothic nightclubs. Instead of isolating the ribcage and the hips, as is the foundation for cabaret and Tribal Style dance, they would sometimes allow the head and ribcage to lead the entire body in new directions. The arms, hips and legs would follow. So the term solo work was not about a style, but rather about a reference to the diva-ness of a dancer who refuses to share her performance space with anyone else. Every troupe member commented on, or made jokes about, cabaret dance being the realm of ‘divas’ who do not wish to share the spotlight. It is significant that the term ‘diva’ is, of course, used to describe self-obsessed singers who feel that their talent far exceeds that of anyone else. It is noteworthy that the term is defined culturally—and in the dictionary—as particularly describing female singers. When applied to a male performer, the suggestion is that he is feminized or homosexual. The choice of language and the attitude that I witnessed toward cabaret divas suggests, yet again, that Hipnotic is creating an identity of resistance against the sexualized construction of the cabaret dancer. Costuming. Genevieve commented that people are uncomfortable with “belly dance” costumes because “you have a lot less clothing on than you would in regular clothes.” But Connie points out, that perception is a construction that does not always fit with reality. She argues, “You can have stuff that leaves nothing to the imagination, like figure skating costumes…and people freak out about belly dance costumes. And part of it, I think, is the high art/low art distinction and the white versus non-white distinction.” Connie argues “belly dance” costumes are designed not to be provocative, but to show off the dance. “There is a reason for the costumes. You want to show the isolations and you want to be able to show belly work.”

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But dancers find it difficult to escape the sexual signifiers placed onto “belly dance” costumes. Connie says, I think there is the myth of availability that all women suffer from in our culture, right? Men want to think that, you know, a woman, they can have her if they wanted. And I think it is easier to imagine that with a cabaret belly dancer than with a tribal belly dancer. And I don’t want to degrade anyone but you know a glittery, pink costume is a lot less threatening than one covered in metal.

That was a recurrent theme, that Tribal Style costumes are “cool” and “powerful” while “cabaret is so, it’s glitzy, glamour, sparkly, shiny” Faye. Haven said during a class that she has come to embrace all styles but she has stayed with Tribal because she does not “want to see a sequin” on her body. Such comments suggest, yet again, that Hipnotic embraces Tribal Style as a more powerful and rational dance model to offset an artificial feminine model. The troupe purposefully avoided “feminine” colors like pastels and sparkly accents like rhinestones and sequins. To illustrate, when designing the wings for their “bat dance”, the troupe made a conscious decision not to purchase fabric that was too sparkly. As Bailee commented, “this isn’t cabaret.” The final fabric selection did have a sheen to it from silver threads woven into the material but did not have sequins or jewels. Performance Spaces. Lebanese, Greek and Middle Eastern restaurants frequently hire cabaret dancers to perform for their patrons. It is one of the few, regularly paying venues for cabaret performers and, consequently, it is often considered integral to a dancer’s career to obtain a regular restaurant booking. Restaurants not only bring in regular wages, they provide exposure to clients who may be willing to pay larger amounts of money to book a dancer for private parties and lessons. As Bailee explains, “As a belly dancer, you don’t have that many choices. You are expected to do those restaurant gigs.” All of the dancers in Hipnotic said their least favorite places to dance are restaurants. Restaurants are more about showmanship than dancing. It takes a great deal of energy to engage a room full of people who may be more interested in dining than watching a dancer. It is especially difficult since diners may have sexualized and othering notions about the dancer. “Sometimes when you do a restaurant gig, all these

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people are there to have dinner and they don’t even realize that there is going to be a dancer and they’re uncomfortable about the whole thing and they don’t want to look at you” (Bailee). Those who do look may not know where to look or how to interpret the dancer. All of the Hipnotic members said they were not overly particular about the venues they performed in so much as they cared about the performance space in those venues. When asked about their favorite performances, all of the members listed ones that were done on stages. Connie says, to her, a stage or separated dance space means she does not have to work extra hard to engage an unwilling audience. “The audience actually sits and watches when you are up on a stage.” Anyone watching is there to see the performance. Bailee describes it thusly. “I would rather be in situations where I am like, here I am. Come see me if you like.” The stage eliminates the pressure to engage with the audience. By providing dancers with their own performance space, the stage puts space between the dancer and the dance consumer. The dancer on stage does not have to act “sexy” or “alluring” to attract attention and she does not have to respond to unwanted leering, touching or other objectifying reactions. Personality. Faye described cabaret as “all about being in the limelight. You are doing your thing and everyone is watching, and part of me is like, I just don’t have that. I am not a very good actress.” She went onto describe cabaret dancers as doing graceful poses and elevated posturing. “The core of me is authenticity in being who I am. This is who I am. I am not going to put on a mask for you. So learning to put on a mask, learning how to take a posture is really hard for me.” All but one dancer in the troupe, in random comments during practices and in their interviews, indicated a linkage between cabaret dance and a bubbly, sparkly, falsely friendly personality. For example, the troupe was discussing plans for entering the stage during a coming dance set. One dancer suggested that the group do something “sassy.” That got an immediate reaction from Faye, who replied that she “can’t do sassy. That is why I am not a cabaret dancer.” Connie countered, that Tribal dancers can be sassy, just not bubbly. This discussion was a negotiation of the contextual boundaries drawn around Tribal Style dance. In another practice, Ashley explained why she is not a cabaret

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dancer. “I don’t have a bright and cheery bone in my body.” Bailee quipped in response that was because Ashley does not have that “pink, glittery personality.” Non-Sexualized “Real” Identities By rejecting the solos, costuming, venues and performed personalities of cabaret dancers, the members of Hipnotic were rejecting what they see as an artificial construction. Connie admitted this to be a stereotype, but it is one, none-the-less, that she says does not work for her as an identity construction. “The stereotype of the cabaret dancer is fun and flirty and upbeat.” Ashley says she has come to understand that cabaret dancers are not all the stereotype, and that they work hard at their dance form, but it took time studying dance for that to become apparent. “Whenever I started, I was like, oh, cabaret sucks. I hate it (laughs). Just because I didn’t get it, you know.” She, and all of the members of the troupe, now sees that it is possible for someone to perform a variety of dance styles including cabaret and Tribal. “For me, it was more about I am not a glitzy girl. I cannot wear a sequin outfit and feel like I am me. I would feel like a complete fake and just would not be able to pull it off.” The linkage here, then, is not between belly dance and sexuality, but between cabaret forms of dance and normative ideas about feminine sexiness. Ashley says becoming a dancer herself helped to eliminate some of her mistaken impressions about cabaret dancers. “You think all cheerleaders are one way and it wasn’t until I was in high school that I am like, oh, cheerleaders are real people. So, I think I definitely had that one-sided (view).” Ashley had no idea that cabaret dance was really an ‘ethnic’ dance. She assumed it was some made-up portrayal of an ‘other’ and that the images she had seen were all based in fantasy. To a large extent, that is true, since the modern image of the cabaret dancer—even in the Middle East—is a mix of Hollywood staging and costuming with Oriental movement vocabularies, however the more she has come to see that the dance has a basis in “traditional” forms, the more she has come to respect it. Bailee says she had to attend a workshop with Artemis—a world-renown dancer who has extensively studied Turkish Oriental and Turkish Romani dances—before she “got to where I was like, I really do want to learn about this because she is so learned. I look at her as a junior Morocco in that she goes out and lives in the Czech forest with all

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of her musicians.” Deirdre had traveled previously to the area, when it was Czechoslovakia, and says she fell in love with the country. Their mutual connection to the area opened her to the possibility of studying with Artemis. That workshop then connected her to the dance in ways she had not anticipated. In its wake, she read as many books about Romani and cabaret dance as possible and started studying the dance form in earnest. Even if she is not drawn to performing the “traditional” dances for herself, she finds value in them. All of the Hipnotic members expressed some degree of respect for dancers who work to learn and perform “authentic” dances. This attitude is ironic considering Hipnotic practices a dance that interrogates tradition and is based on a fantasy version. This irony, rather than be out of place, further exposes the overall goal of Tribal Style dance. It is a project of intentionally creating a new form that purposefully exposes Orientalized representations of the dance in the West. Their respect, it must be noted, is for those who really know what the dance means in the spaces of its origination and not for those who unintentionally reproduce Western sexualized and idealized versions of dance. The respect for “tradition” indicates a respect for the dance as a cultural object but a disdain for how that cultural object has been distorted through spatial politics. Connie studies both cabaret and Tribal Style although she only performs Tribal and prefers that form because she feels “a better sense of it” to her personality. Four of the dancers made similar comments. Tribal dance, because it is less glamour-girl and more dancer-with-attitude, allows them to create a cyborg dance identity that is closer to their “authentic” selves. Literature on youth and culture often cites authenticity as core to youth movements (Barker 2003). That authenticity is to one’s self rather than to a structure that represents the meaninglessness and inauthenticity of others. Hipnotic members are hardly members of a youth movement, yet their comments suggest the same. Rather than take on what they perceive to be the shallow persona of the cabaret dancer, they have articulated various cultural elements to create a cyborg dancing body that is authentic to their own personalities. It is rather ironic that Tribal Style dancers, in order to create a dance form that reflects their “authentic” identities, actually reject a form that is “authentic”. The irony is significant because it indicates that these dancers are not pure

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postmodernists who are rejecting authenticity outright as a social construct. Rather they are construing authenticity as it resides in the individual, in being true to the self, rather than to the supposed rituals of a stable culture. Bailee, for example, makes the equation between Tribal Style dance and authentic identity when she explains that her personality is not feminine and that is why she does not like cabaret styles of dance. “I am not drawn to sequins, and I don’t mean it like it is mean or anything. I grew up, just like, nobody knew I was a girl until I was seventeen. I built racecars. I smoked pot and was a punk rock dude and drove a hot rod.” Faye says, the dance isn’t sexual, but the cabaret dancer puts on a sexuality that does not fit her identity. “It is hard for me to look at someone and be all sexy and do the whole bewitching thing.” In addition to making an “authenticity” distinction between Tribal Style and other styles of “belly dance”, the dancers are linking the sparkly, cabaret identity with the Western culture of thinness and normative ideals for the female body. The ‘traditional’ cabaret dancer is attractive, tall and slender with long hair and a peppy personality. The Tribal Style dancer in contrast is dark, serious, powerful, grounded, tattooed, pierced and edgy. It is not accidental that Tribal Style dancers borrow from “street” dances, non- normative performance genres, and folk dances of “others.” Bollywood films, hip-hop dance, industrial club music, popular fashion, burlesque and Gothic movements were the most widely used sources of fusion borrowings that I witnessed. Faye explains the evolved variant of ATS that has become the basis for this Tribal Fusion: “You have got soloists and you are changing the costuming to be more ghetto or urban or more, you know, whatever, you pick a theme and throw it in there.” Ballet, Indian classical dance, and other “high” arts have crept into Tribal Style dance, but dancers are not looking to the high arts as sources of inspiration. “I don’t think ballet would probably look right with tribal; do a little pirouette or something. But, I suppose somebody may be able to pull it off if they have an extensive enough knowledge of the form.” While speaking, Erin laughed at the image of a Tribal Dancer incorporating a ballet step suggesting a certain absurdity in creating such a hybrid. Faye says, “tribal was more of a folkloric—you know, you take belly dance, but make it a little

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more folkloric belly dance. Dancing with the costume was different, a little bit more like ‘gypsies’ rather than the glamorous stuff.” Like the comments by Hipnotic members, the wider Tribal Style community equates cabaret to glitz and glitter. Numerous articles made reference to sparkles and glamour, yet Tribal magazine, which itself made these references, included an article listing the best brands of body glitter (Staff 2006c). This indicates a consistency with Hipnotic. That it is not the glitter and glitz to which Tribal dancers object so much as they take issue with cabaret identities that are artificially glamorous; that cabaret dancers create intentionally glitzy identities to fit a threshold of expected normativity. Tribal Style, in contrast, does not require one to “put on” an identity. Tribal Style dance is more organic to dancers’ existing, and in many cases, non-normative selves. Culture is about power. Tribal Style dancers here did not call themselves better or worse than cabaret dancers, but all demonstrated a presumed superiority to the “artificialness” of cabaret dance. It is glitter. It furthers implications of objectified sexuality. It celebrates artificial ideas of sexual attractiveness. Tribal Style dance is a deliberate project to counteract those ideas; Tribal Style is meant to contrast the uneven power relationships in cabaret dance—the imagined identity of the sexualized and feminized cabaret dancer. The history of Tribal Style bears out this claim.

Reordering Culture Through Performance

Like the ATS dancers, Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dancers have adopted certain bodily performances that purposefully contradict the sexualization of Oriental dance. Through the course of my field research, I witnessed about 100 dance performances by various troupes, ranging from ATS to Tribal Style to Fusion. During those performances, the dancers’ facial expressions ranged from small, teasing smiles to outright glaring, as if to challenge someone not to watch. Hipnotic used similar expressions during its performances. Facial expressions have become so controlled that the vacant, detached expression has become a stereotype in the Tribal Dance world. As Faye explains, “I have to actually work very hard on keeping my gaze alive in front of an

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audience. It is hard for me to look at someone and be all sexy and do the whole bewitching thing. I’m like, that’s not me. That’s not who I am. It feels kind of weird.” The boundary between sex and Oriental dance was established in the classes too, through movement vocabularies. Even though the pelvis and torso are used in both Oriental dance and erotic dance, Haven made a point of distinguishing between burlesque and cabaret movements. She taught a particular step that included a vertical circling of the pelvis. She demonstrated the move, pointing out how she kept her feet close to one another and how small and controlled she kept the hip circle. She then cautioned the class to watch how Tribal dance performers do the hip circle so it cannot be misinterpreted as sexualized. She next demonstrated the move, showing how it would be performed in a burlesque context. She stepped with her feet wide apart, and enlarged the hip circle, using less muscle control and putting emphasis on the forward motion. While teaching another move that included lowering the arms in front of the body, she explained that the dancer is not to touch her hair or body, even though her hands may be held very close in and even trace the shape of her body.9 She demonstrated what the move would look like if one were to touch her body and how it could easily be turned into a move that one would be associated with stripping. Haven not only dances burlesque, she is the director of a burlesque troupe. So it was notable that she drew clear lines between what is acceptable in “belly dance” and what is not. The same moves, executed in a larger exaggerated manner, or with touching cross a line and become sexualized. She also said to me, after one of her classes, that it really bothers her when someone takes a move that she has taught and then performs it or passes it along incorrectly. While saying this, she executed a shoulder roll, but held her arms close together in a way that pushed her breasts together. She also added a sultry expression to her face. It was clear that what she objected to was not creative license; it was dissolving the lines between “belly dance” and sexuality.

9 This is also true in Raqs Sharqi. The dancer’s hands may be close by, but do not actually make contact with the body…with the occasional exception of the hair, although repeated hair touching is considered provocative.

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Sexualized Bodies and Hipnotic Hipnotic dancers, like members of the larger ITS community, use their bodies to transgress the sexualized identities fixed onto “belly dancing” bodies. First, they put priority on the group identity. Some of the dancers even suggested they do not like all of the aesthetic elements of the Hipnotic identity, but they accept them because it is the about the group and not the individual. Individuals can create their own dance identities in more individualized spaces, but when dancing with the group, they take on the group identity. Not every member likes the darker costuming, for example. Two of the members say, on the whole, they prefer Tribal Style costumes to cabaret, but like more color in costuming. Genevieve admitted that the music is not always to her liking but that she is open to dancing to music the troupe selects. “Sometimes it at first sounds weird or I am like, this just isn’t going to work but then it ends up being pretty cool.” The communal structure of Hipnotic is reinforced by the construction that Tribal Style and ATS groups are only as strong as the weakest member. Hipnotic keeps a list of combinations and movements that everyone can do and sticks to that list for performances. No new movement is added to the list until every member is comfortable with it. That means less skilled dancers determine what the troupe can perform. When the troupe added new members, it had to back off from learning and creating new combinations as it indoctrinated those new members. The group further limits its movement vocabulary based on physiology. Some members, for example, are not as flexible as others or cannot lean so far back as others in the layback. Two of the performers have knee problems and one broke her foot and was recovering during my field research. Their physical limitations were taken into account. Tribal Style dance, particularly ATS and group improv, cannot feature any one dancer more prominently than another because the focus is completely on the group. Dancers take turns leading the troupe using pre-established cues and movement combinations. Thusly, each dancer alternately leads and follows the others. The focus of the dancer is always on the leader because, if she misses any of the cues, she will not know what step is coming next. The troupe members argue that this inward focus, on each other and away from the audience, takes away the pressure to create an entertaining personality. “I would think there is a realness to tribal because you are not—you are

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almost dancing for these other women.” Faye goes on to use what she calls a cliché in the tribal world. It was often repeated that ATS and Tribal Style dancers “are dancing more for each other than the audience. The joy in it is more the interaction with each other and the language that you have or the energy that is flowing between you.” While planning one dance, the troupe wanted to make the piece more dynamic by having smaller groups break out from the rest. They debated if those should be pairings, or if the groups should include three or four dancers. Someone used the term “showcase” with regard to featuring those smaller groupings. Ashley objected to the use of that term because it insinuates inclusion and exclusion. Dancers who are not “showcased” are excluded from the limelight. She admitted that she may just be arguing semantics, however it was important to her to use language of inclusiveness. That morphed into a discussion about “showcasing” the costuming. By bringing dancers forward, in different formations, each grouping could execute different movements that bring attention to the costumes, not the individual dancers. Second, the troupe has retained the movement base of American Tribal Style. The dancers keep their ribcages lifted, their movements grounded and work hard to isolate the movements. Their groundedness and emphasis on muscular control give the dance a feeling of “strength”. The demeanor, too, is one of distance and control. They limit eye contact with the audience. Their focus is on one another. They use serious and sometimes challenging facial expressions, occasionally smiling and joking with the audience, but not ever alluring. Classical Egyptian music is usually expecting the dancer to show emotion during certain phrases, something that Tribal doesn’t do. We show a consistent emotion of happiness by smiling, but not flirtatiousness by tipping the head side to side, or intensity by gazing down at the floor or up to the ceiling. We are keeping ourselves open to pick up cues from the other dancers by not making prolonged eye contact with the audience. But this way of dancing to a classical song will appear ‘flat’ to someone who is familiar with Raqs Sharqi or Beledi dance (Nericcio 2007:10).

As Djoumahna explains, what drew here to Tribal, “The dancers never presented themselves as ingratiating, never overtly sexual, not as playthings” (Djoumahna 2003c:238). This same style of presentation was apparent in Hipnotic.

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To an audience, the troupe appears, to use the dancers’ own words, less “flirty” and “bouncy.” It is telling that the descriptive terms the dancers used to characterize their dance are considered masculine. Physical strength is a characteristic often used to describe men, while “flirty” and “bouncy” are discursively used to indicate femininity or male homosexuality. In adopting the masculine “traits” of strength and control, the troupe dancers attempted to elevate their dance. It should be noted that people who visited venues specifically to see Hipnotic were predominantly female, and performances at venues like Tribal Café were mostly to female viewers. Most audiences, however, were mixed gender. Paying is a problematic discourse because it involves tipping. Dancers do earn paychecks, however that is supplemented by tips. Cabaret and Tribal Style dancers both debate appropriate ways to accept tips. Many dancers refuse to dance in ways that solicit tips, preferring instead to keep a distance between themselves and the audience. Others actively accept tips but control how the tips are given. They may allow people to tuck tips into the side of their hip belt or under a strap, but usually are very careful to keep tips away from sexualized regions of the body. Bailee says tipping is a sensitive topic in the United States because so many people equate tipping someone on their person with tipping strippers. I have talked at length with Arab men about it ‘cuz I was really interested. So, you know, in their culture, they don’t have the context of tipping a stripper because there’s no such thing. And so, when you plop down and you are at an Arab restaurant here and it is full of Arabs and Americans, the Americans see the Arabs tipping the dancer like they would a stripper in America and they get really confused, because most Americans don’t know anything about belly dancing (Bailee).

Convention in the Middle East is to generously tip the dancer. It is customary in some Middle Eastern countries to actually shower the dancer in bills; in others the tip is pressed onto the dancer’s body. In either scenario, the tipper does not actually touch the performer. It is the act of touching, not tipping, that is sexualized. Because in the United States, tipping has different connotations, Faye says she is uncomfortable with it; There is a part of me that is protective that this isn’t about sex. This isn’t about dancing for men. And that’s kind of what people think is the belly dancer. You know, people

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putting dollar bills in her belt or in her bra or something, you know. That’s like, that is not what it is at all (Faye).

Hipnotic avoids this linkage by not accepting tips in their costumes. If someone attempts to give them a tip, they take it in their hand and place it into a tip basket. They also announce, during their final number, that they will accept tips, but in the basket only. They then pass the basket through the audience. Bailee says she thinks the troupe “has it really easy by doing a basket dance and by explaining to the audience, here, this is our job. We want money. Don’t touch us.” Hipnotic’s bodily performances all reinforce the notion that as “belly dancers”, the troupe is different. The members determine the sexuality of their bodies, rather than allowing themselves to be objectified by another. This ties directly to the theoretical foundations of ATS/FatChanceBellyDance: combating “the silly response dancers often get from onlookers who think that they beautiful, feminine belly dance is merely an exotic entertainment for their personal pleasure” (Nericcio 2007). Non-Normative Bodies and Hipnotic Bailee says Hipnotic’s very first gig was “a punk rock show that was packed. I mean packed. You couldn’t even walk through the place. And everybody just screamed. They loved us.” Several Hipnotic dancers said they enjoy performing at biker events and would like to do more. Bailee said about another of their first performances “twenty guys with tattooed necks loved the Gawazee step. We did the Gawazee step over and over.” The troupe also performed in between acts of a theatrical production called Lesbian Shorts and found the audience response to be very positive. Connie suggested that Hipnotic has a good rapport with gay, bisexual and transgendered people in the community. She quipped once, about a song the troupe was working with, that “gay people love it.” So they are attracted to and appeal to non-normative crowds. Hipnotic had a purposefully “darker” aesthetic. Erin says what the troupe does is interesting because audiences “are attracted to the bizarre and the macabre.” Erin told the story that after one performance; a lady in the audience accused them of being witches who were putting a hex on her. Admittedly the performance was at a Halloween show, however dancers were wearing silly costumes over their dance gear. Still the audience

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member merged the imaginative imagery of femininity and witchcraft with the dark aesthetic of Hipnotic. Music selections considered for performance were demonstrative of the members’ tastes: heavy metal band AC/DC; 1980’s, post-punk/new wave band The Cure; modern European Gothic band, The BloodFlowers; American rock band, The Butthole Surfers; and English rock band, The Muse, although The Muse was discarded for being “too pop” because it had played on mainstream radio. The troupe regularly danced to a song the members referred to as the Nightmare on Elm Street song, referring to the 1980’s horror film by that name. As the nickname suggests, the song is reminiscent of the music bed of a horror film. Additionally, they danced to industrial/trance musical genres and heavy metal. Bailee described the lead singer of one performance song thusly; “that guy has a chip on his shoulder.” Their dances too were clearly designed for more non-mainstream tastes. The troupe altered a movement combination when they decided it looked too much like “Britney Spears,” in other words, too normative for their aesthetic. One entrance number used in several performances had troupe members dancing in one by one, holding skulls in the palms of their hands, until they all ended up in the middle of the stage, doing snaky kinds of movements in place. The skulls had black streamers attached that dangled down to their knees accentuating the dancer’s arm work. The troupe, for some time, rehearsed one number, referring commonly to its music as “the bat song”, to a tune by Gothic music band Ego Likeness. The dance included movements and costumes designed to make the dancers resemble bats. The troupe members’ costumes were all black with silver detailing and jewelry. They wore drapey fabric sewn onto arm gauntlets and cut to look like stylized bat wings. The dance began with the troupe huddled in a group and bent forward to look like sleeping bats. When the pulsing of the music began, they rose and stepped away from one another— keeping their backs to the audience—and began pulsing their wings by slowly raising and lowering their arms. The dance steps all included stylized arm movements meant to keep the wings in motion. One movement, used in several places in the dance, required the dancers to bring their right arms up in front of their faces, so the bat wings covered everything below their eyes, holding the pose and then pivoting while bringing the arm to

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the side. This had the look of a bat peering out over its wing. The overriding theme for the dance was a state of being, as Faye described it, “dark and creepy, not happy.” During one practice, Bailee reminded the group, “We aren’t cheery.” The troupe performed another number it called the “claw trio.” This was a blend of choreographed and improvisational dance performed by four members of the troupe. Two entered carrying flowers while smiling, waving and talking to one another. Two other dancers crept in a short time later, wearing long, pointed, extensions on their fingers, which they threateningly waved at the audience. Using slow, stealthy Tribal Style and Gothic inspired moves and with sinister expressions on their faces, they formed a circle around the other two dancers, who began to tremble and back up, ending back-to- back in the center of the stage. The sinister dancers lowered their arms on either side of the trembling dancers, putting them into a sleep-like stupor, and then took turns doing solo work and ‘guarding’ their slumbering prisoners. The dance culminated when the supine dancers awoke to walk slowly to the back of the stage only to return a short time later. During a phrase change in the music, suddenly all four dances splayed their fingers…all were now wearing the “claws” and the same dark, unsmiling expressions on their faces. The dancers have jokingly called the dance the “lesbian recruitment number” because the women all stand very close to one another, almost rubbing chests and backs at some points in the number. The dance, however, is more dark than erotic, especially with its theme of transformation as two, normative characters—symbolized by the smiles and flowers—are metamorphosed into dark, unsmiling, clawed creatures. The costuming, too, fit this darker aesthetic. Troupe members regularly shopped at Hot Topic and suggested the store as a place for purchasing costuming pieces. Hot Topic bills itself as selling alternative music accessories and clothing (www.hottopic.com). One member suggested purchasing striped tights that could be cut up and worn on the legs, arms, torso and wrists. In addition to striped tights, the troupe stuck to a color palette of black, red, blue and silver, colors familiar in the Gothic scene. Four of the dancers in the troupe characterized themselves as non-normative. These were not young adults or teenagers; the dancers ages ranged from the late twenties to the mid-forties, so these were not youthful expressions of defiance. These were

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women secure in their outlook on life. One of the older members classified herself as a practicing neo-pagan; she selected a pseudonym to dance under that comes out of pagan/witchcraft literature. She and one other member regularly wore dark clothing, dyed hair, and other markers that they prefer a Gothic aesthetic. Those two members also spoke of going on some weekends to the local Gothic nightclub. Four of the other dancers wore clothing that more adequately reflected the markings and clothing worn on the nearby college campus by more ‘edgy’ students: layered shirts, t-shirts that were artistically torn and cut, hair dyed to red or black, stretched earlobes, nose rings, clunky, silver jewelry and dark colors. The group, as a whole, expressed openness about non-normative sexuality, suggesting the troupe members are transgressive in their personal and their dance lives. Two of the members openly described themselves as bi-sexual, one even made jokes that she starts flirting with the other troupe members after she has had a few drinks. One practice, the group openly debated if, and how many, of the original FatChanceBellyDance members were lesbians. At another meeting, Ashley, reacting to a description for an event for gay/lesbian/transgendered people, argued that she cannot understand why transgendered sexuality is called a syndrome. She went onto to say that transgendered people should be able to select the gender identity with which they are most comfortable. Tattooing and body piercing, while gaining popularity, still have transgressive appeal. “The act of getting a tattoo changes who we are in the sense that we have chosen a permanent marking we know and accept that society may never see us the same way again. I think ATS attracts these bold types of personalities”(Djoumahna 2003c:135). The tattoo/body piercing culture is firmly embedded in Hipnotic’s aesthetic. Hipnotic is not unique: it is commonplace to see tattoos on the bodies of tribal dancers. Tattooing began with Nericcio and ATS. Nericcio did not advertise her classes at first; all promotion was word-of-mouth. Her ‘empowering’ style attracted mostly people from the alternative scene in San Francisco, people who were interested in belly dance but who did not fit the look of a “belly dancer”. “They could have any type of body type, or any hairstyle. We’ve had hairstyles and body types and piercings of all kinds” (Djoumahna 2003c). The original members of FatChanceBellyDance were heavily

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tattooed. Their body art was not part of the original look of tribal, rather it was the case that the tattoos showed while they danced. In 1980’s San Francisco, where FatChance originated, tattooing (and body piercing) indicated alterity and was tied to the modern primitive movement. Bailee’s interpretation is that tattoos are markings of alterity that the dancers bring with them to the dance: Carolena was tattooed when she started doing it already. She is obviously more heavily tattooed now but she was nobody who had just a star on her ankle. She already had major tattoos. Paulette from Gypsy Caravan was in a punk rock band. Married a guy from a punk rock band…was a real alternative person. Jill Parker was heavily tattooed from the get go. So I think that, the royalty of ATS—which tribal fusion grew out of— were these women who, most of them, were already alternative. That’s how they ended up there.

Nericcio supports this conclusion. She believes that because she was tattooed her classes appealed to “other young people who were living an alternative lifestyle” and who may not have otherwise studied Middle Eastern dance (Nericcio 2007:66). Soon Nericcio’s troupe started performing at tattoo shows and conventions and became well known within the tattoo community. Not only do several of the Hipnotic dancers have tattoos, tattooing is a frequent topic of conversation. Bailee mentioned on several occasions her time working in a tattoo shop and her connection to tattoo artists in town. During class, Haven revealed to Hipnotic her new tattoo: her troupe’s logo that she had inked on her forearm. During my field research, Genevieve added a new tattoo to the center of her back. It looked like a stylized, upside down triangle over a heart. Over the span of several weeks, she had new elements added to the tattoo. Whenever she had more work done, she showed it to the rest of the troupe. Other troupe members discussed plans for future tattoos or talked over different tattoo ideas. Tribal Style dance merged tattoo culture with dance culture. This does not suggest that cabaret dancers and other artists do not have tattoos (and piercings) but it is difficult for a cabaret dancer with tattoos and piercings that do not meet the Western ideal of the Arab aesthetic, to successfully market herself as “authentic.” Tribal Style dancers, in that they reject “authenticity”, embrace body modifications (Staff 2006a). It is

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possible to log onto Tribe.net, for example, and to read dancer threads that focus specifically on tattoos. “It’s like there are tons of people who…their whole tattoo thing revolves around their dancing. It’s like mostly tribal dancers and there’s a whole tribal style of tattooing.” Bailee goes on to say she remembers an entire thread, once, on peacock tattoos after prominent tribal fusion artist, Sharon Kihara, had large peacocks inked onto her hips. “ When girls get into cabaret they see Suhaila…they see who ever, Sonia. These are all beautiful women. Not tattooed. They get into tribal and they see Sharon Kihara who has a freakin’ magazine tattooed on her arms. They see Rachel who just, I think, only has two tattoos but one is pretty damn big. I mean it goes all the way around her body. You see Kami Little who is a rockabilly chic with skulls tattooed all over her body (Bailee).

All of the members of Hipnotic said that, in their opinion, tattooing has become mainstream. So while tattooing is linked to tribal dance and the dancers who are leading the movement have distinguishable tattoos, it is no longer a sign of alterity. Yet all but one of the troupe members have multiple tattoos, albeit small ones on their shoulder blades and ankles. Only one troupe dancer, Genevieve, has the large style tattooing around her waist. It is a tattoo that she added after she started dancing. She did it to supplement the small heart that she already had on her hip and to balance out the tattooing across her mid- section. Genevieve says she loves tattoos and her tattoo artist and would probably have done the tattoo even if she had not become a tribal dancer. When she first started planning her back and stomach tattoos—which wind around her torso just below her waistline and will eventually be connected—she thought she was doing something unique. Later she learned that large stomach and hip tattoos are common in tribal dance. “I thought I was being so original with the belly one because a lot of people in town have the back. I did want to be a little bit different but in the tribal world, it’s not different.” Genevieve admits that she is more reserved about showing her tattoos in some locations. She told a story about using the swimming pool in an upscale resort. And I’ve got my swimsuit on and I am looking around and there is not one other tattoo there. And I’m like, its really weird, because in some places I don’t have nearly as many tattoos as some dancers do, but in that place I am waiting for people to say, “mom, look at that girl”…because there were a lot of kids. So (in) different places I do feel more—

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not necessarily self-conscious—but I was telling my husband, this is kind of weird, you know, in two different situations to have different responses as to what you have chosen for your body art (Genevieve).

Faye has a different opinion about tattoos. She uses temporary tattoos when she performs because she does not want any permanent marking on her body; she wants to be able to change her mind. Plus she says she finds that tattoos can be distracting, “it is like you are focusing on the art on their body…it can look kind of cool but I don’t want to do it for myself.” These two stories and the size and location of the majority of the troupe’s tattoos suggest that tattoos are consumed differently by different people and in different spaces and that, while the dancers say they see tattoos as mainstream, the extent of the tattooing that has become associated with tribal dancers is non-normative. Body piercings have been connected to tribal style dance in the same way as tattoos. Tribal magazine, for example, carried articles on piercings and on piercing after care. This is because Carolena Nericcio was tattooed and pierced, as were many of her troupe dancers (Staff 2006a; 2006b). Tribal Style dancers that have come after Nericcio say that has given them freedom to experiment with their own body modifications. “Since dancing more predominantly Tribal style I feel I have more freedom to be creative with how I adorn my body and express my individuality. One could actually say that Tribal almost encourages more piercing and tattoos, after all many of the leading ladies and teachers are heavily tattooed and pierced.” Of the seven dancers in my study group, all have multiple body piercings, to include piercings of the tongue, nose, and belly button. This it not so unusual, however most of the dancers in Hipnotic also have several piercings in each ear and they have stretched some of those piercings, thus enlarging their lobes. Ashley says when she was growing up in the 1980’s, piercings were linked to drug culture and did not interest her. It was not until she started dancing that she began to like body piercings. Now she has a nose, eyebrow and tongue piercing in addition to ten holes in her ears. When I was fourteen, I was like I am never. I think part of it was because the only people I knew with nose piercings were punks, like hardcore punks, and like, into drugs and living on the streets and stuff like that. And whenever I got into dance and really wanted to see it in a whole other light, that is when I wanted it (Ashley).

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Genevieve, in contrast, had multiple ear piercings when she graduated from high school and about a decade before she began doing tribal dance. She has also stretched several of the holes so she can wear the larger earrings like those popular with tribal dancers. For her—and like tattooing—she was already a part of that culture, so joining a tribal group did not mean a change in her positioning on tattooing and piercing, although she did change the style of her tattoos and piercings to complement her dance. Piercings were once body markers of alterity but have become more mainstream too, to the point that Bailee wonders if they have lost their symbolic meaning. About her piercings, she says “I used to be cool.” Bailee is the oldest member of the troupe and the professed, former street punk. “I mean, it was a huge deal that I had a hole at the top of my ear 25 years ago. People just thought I was a freak and I am all (she shrugs). I don’t know. Now I think it is just very aesthetic.” Like with tattooing, here again, three of the dancers admitted that the piercings are perceived differently in different spaces. Faye says she has considered getting a nose piercing. “A teeny, tiny, little, imperceptible piercing in my nose. And that is about the most radical thing I would do.” She considers that OK because it is small enough to not attract a lot of attention and she can take it off. Plus, she says, small nose piercings are becoming acceptable in the professional world. “You probably don’t want to go to a job interview with a nose piercing but once you get the job…” suggesting that the other piercings (multiple ear piercings, eyebrows, tongues and so on) are not appropriate for “professional” spaces. Genevieve does not take her multiple earrings out to go to work now that she has been with her employer for many years. She did only wear a set of small earrings to her interview and gradually added the other earrings over time. “For a while, I actually took them all out because I was working and they would be like, oh my God, how many earrings do you have? So I just got tired of answering questions and dealing with it so I took them out for a little while.” Now her attitude is that she does not want to work in an office where she cannot wear her earrings. When Ashley pierced her nose, her family called her “weird” and her grandfather expressed his dislike. The nose piercing was the last of her multiple piercings and she says she worried that her parents would “disown” her. That did not happen but she still is

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aware of their disapproval of her body markings. She also wonders if people, in normative spaces, see her piercings and think she is into drugs or some hardcore street culture. “I am sure they do. I try not to care.” Erin has multiple piercings, stretched lobes and is one of the two dancers who wear colors (red and blue) in her hair. She is a schoolteacher and says she has had trouble with other teachers in the past. During her internship, her supervising teacher refused to give her any responsibilities. One of her first school principles treated her poorly until she complained to an advisory committee. Over time, she has developed a rapport with her students and colleagues and says she now receives good reviews but she is sensitive to how her body markings are consumed, and have caused her difficulties, in her professional space. Again, these stories reveal a contradiction. The dancers say piercings and tattoos are normative. The prevalence of them on the street would certainly suggest this to be the case. However, despite their street popularity, piercings and tattoos are still consumed differently in different spaces. Professional spaces and spaces designated for higher socio-economic classes are less welcoming of body modifications. Tattoos, and piercings, despite their growing popularity, are still connected with fringe groups such as hippies, bikers, punks and sadomasochists (Staff 2006a). Furthermore, the extensive body modifications that have become popular in the Tribal Style dance world push the boundaries between normative and non-normative tattooing and piercing. “In the greater context of the tribal world, I don’t think it (Hipnotic) is all that alternative. It is pretty mainstream, tribal fusion stuff,” says Faye Bailee suggests that mainstream for the Tribal Style world does not mean normative for the greater world of dance. “It’s like, we live in this whole world of what can we do that is more extreme. Dance wise, I think the extreme things in dance, period, are tribal belly dance and aerial dance.” Hollywood music producer Miles Copeland reinforces this notion. He added Tribal Style dancers to his Bellydance Superstars show after seeing Rachel Brice perform at a dance conference. He says he added her to provide variety, and to add an anti- establishment feel to his production (Copeland 2006).

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Conclusion

In all of these examples, Hipnotic use two devices to create non-sexualized identities: inscription (embodiment) and performance. Through tattooing, piercing, costuming, make-up, hair coloring and adorning, the dancers inscribe non-normativity onto themselves, using their bodies as canvases for signifying difference. Through physical performances: the way they move, accept tips, use facial expressions, and professionalize the dance, they perform rationality, control and distance. These inscriptions and performances are meant to distinguish themselves from objectified, sexualized cabaret dancers but have opened spaces in which non-normative bodies can perform. According to Bailee, It is like the tribal dancers, over all, are the freaks and all the cabaret dancers are going to eventually be someone’s nice grandma. I don’t meet that many alternative lifestyle people who are straight up cabaret dancers. There are some people who kind of lay in the middle like Suhaila or somebody, but she is an anomaly.

Because it has created a place for the “freaks”, Tribal Style dance has become an embodied space where difference is produced and reproduced.

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ATS, ITS AND SPACES OF DIFFERENCE

The pleasure that comes of exercising power that questions, monitors, watches, spies, searches out, palpates, brings to light; and on the other hand, the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power, flee from it, fool it, or travesty it. The power that lets itself be invaded by the pleasure it is pursuing; and opposite it, power asserting itself in the pleasure of showing off, scandalizing, or resisting (Foucault 1978:45).

Tribal Style dance has created dancing bodies that resist constructed female, performance bodies for being glamorized, sexy and artificial. That project has, inadvertently, made room for people who use their bodies to challenge other hegemonic constructions of bodies. In opening these spaces, the dance form has also opened dialogues about tradition and the power relationships involved in preserving boundaries that construct bodies as non-normative.

Tribal Style and Non-Normative Dancing Bodies

In creating a body that is antithetical to the artificially glamorized and sexy cabaret dancer, Tribal Style dancers have opened spaces for bodies that do not meet normative beauty ideals. My experience in cabaret dance is that people of all ages, races, and shapes and sizes are welcome to participate. The paid performance options, however, are limited for anyone who is not classically beautiful by Western standards. And it is glamorized dancing, and the normative performing body, in addition to the sexualization of “belly dancers”, to which the ATS predecessors objected. Producing a Natural Dancing Body Three Hipnotic members, when asked why they do “belly dance” instead of a more “traditional” Western form, contrasted Oriental dance with ballet. All three said that ballet just does not appeal to them. Ashley, in particular, took a modern dance class in college, but says she felt out of place with the other dancers. This was her first formal dance class and all of the other students had dance training. “I think the ballerina girls were the meanest ones in the class and it just seems to me like this really rigid, you have to do it this one right way kind of dance.” Improvisational Tribal Style and especially ATS are just as rigid, as dancers need a specific vocabulary in order to physically

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communicate when dancing, but one does not need many years of training in order to perform Tribal Style dance. Neither does one have to have the thin, lithe, graceful body of a ballet dancer. Erin took ballet as a child, but is no longer interested in that form, calling it too “girly, girly.” Ballet has come to dominate the hierarchy of dance in the United States (Buonaventura 2004). As a consequence, ballerinas have become identified by their “positive bodies,” to which all other dancing bodies are compared, and found less adequate. In the examples of ballet and “belly dance”, the hidden power of normativity creates a “natural” ordering of seemingly fixed cultural objects. A more thorough examination however reveals those boundaries to be sustained, not by natural differences, but by discourses of power. Buonaventura, who is active in her attempt to destabilize reified dance constructions, comments that, “maybe its fitting that an art (ballet) which rejoices in the artificial and celebrates human triumph over nature has come to represent the Western ideal” (Buonaventura 2004:232). Salimpour and Archer, in creating the predecessors to ATS, sought to craft a dancing body that can be natural and still beautiful. To understand the significance of their project, one has to investigate context. The West constructed the image of tribal people as not bound by the rational need to control their bodies. Tribal people, in that they were equated with a state of being closer to nature, were identified as having natural bodies and thus natural sexuality. To create a de-sexualized, natural dancing body, Salimpour and Archer juxtaposed images of various tribal people in the Middle East and North Africa and placed those images onto Western bodies. In using primitive, natural, “ethnic” bodies to reject artificial expectations for beauty, and for rejecting artificial constructions of the thin dancing body, they also reified Orientalist constructions of Western dominance and control. The naturalizing of tribal bodies carried forward into ATS. The Tribal Bible, for example, contains an entire section about being comfortable in one’s body (Djoumahna 2003c) and Djoumahna remarks in several locations that ATS, and ATS costuming, is more suited to different sized and aged bodies (Djoumahna 2003c; 2003b). The Bible also contains an article by the assistant director of FatChanceBellyDance, Mira Zussman,

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called “Far From the Pink Chiffon: Reshaping Erotic Bellydance” that was originally carried in a publication called the “Whole Earth Review”, which encourages people to “take back their power and put it to use” (www.wholeearthmag.com). Nericcio, in “The Art of Belly Dance” questions, How did we go from honoring the natural shape and substance of a woman’s body to seeing it as something imperfect? Nature created us perfectly—an incredible system of nerves, muscle, bone, and blood, all interwoven in such a way that an impulse from the brain can make a hip bounce or an eyelash flutter. The modern culture in which we live has no interest in the original perfection of the body. We seem to have lost our respect for nature and its infinite wisdom of balance (Nericcio 2004b:5).

It should be noted, that the naturalization of the body was separated to some extent from the project of “othering” with ATS. The performed bodies still embody a more tribal “ethnicity” but Nericcio has always asserted that her dance is not traditional (Djoumahna 2003b). Through her disclaimer, she has attempted to retain the earthiness but to lose the othering element in ATS. She is, however, still equating natural femininity with that “Other,” a point that will be discussed at length later. Improvisational Tribal Style dancers to some extent, and Tribal Fusion dancers largely, do not create an “ethnic” looking body; thus they no longer use the Orientalist us/them construction in order to further inclusiveness to Westerners with non-idealized bodies. However the project of inclusiveness continues. Hipnotic provided many examples of how Tribal Style dance, as opposed to other forms, including cabaret, is more accepting. Ashley told about a regional association of “belly dancers” that distributed newsletters to its members. “There was an article in there about how cabaret dancers shouldn’t have visible tattoos or hairy armpits because, in California, that’s totally cool and that was this huge deal. And I remember being, like, oh that was really strict.” Faye tried Oriental dancing for the first time to support her friend, Rachel Brice, who had decided to try teaching. In the class, Rachel Brice, who began in ATS and is now one of the most famous Tribal Fusion dancers in the world, stressed inclusiveness and supportiveness between dancers. Faye only took Brice’s classes for a short time before moving to China as part of the Peace Corps. She later moved back to the United States, but to a different city. She returned to dance classes, but this time with an acclaimed cabaret instructor. Faye says that the experience soured her on cabaret dance.

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“She has some good things about her as a teacher and I respect her, but there wasn’t that all inclusive—you know, be proud of this. It is OK to make mistakes. We are all learning. We all move differently.” The teacher cannot be representative of all cabaret teachers, but it left Faye feeling as if only Improvisational Tribal Style could offer the group support and camaraderie she had come to expect of her dance classes. Ashley explains that growing up she did not try to perform because she felt that her body would be out of place: I was always heavier than other kids. When I was 11, I only weighed 20 pounds less than what I weigh now. It was this taboo thing; everyone else weighed 90 pounds and I weighed 130…and I always just felt so awkward. So I think I was always closed off. I love to dance and I love to sing. I would never sing a solo even though I seriously wanted to in choir. I was just too scared and too ashamed people might look at me, and what if I screwed up and…just insecurities. And I would never dance in public. I mean, I’d go to clubs or to things with my mom but I never let anyone know that I really wanted to learn specific dances or anything. So I feel like I am more myself now than I ever was. Especially when I am performing because this part—that I don’t always talk about but is important to me—comes out (Ashley).

Tribal Style dance lets her be herself. She does not have to adopt any pretenses, to mold her body to fit normative expectations, to feel as if she does not fit. The Tribal Style identity is one of acceptance. Performing in Third Space By creating a dance that transgresses normative dance constructions, one can attract non-normative bodies, including bodies that are purposefully so. That is why body modifications are so popular, and why borrowings come from street and alternative culture and not classical art. The well-known Improvisational Tribal Troupe, Domba, for example, took its name from an ancient Sanskrit word for an Indian sub-caste. The word Domba literally refers to the working class in India. “Tribal was more of a folkloric—you know, you take belly dance, but make it a little more folkloric belly dance. Dancing with the costume was different, a little bit more like ‘gypsies’ rather than the glamorous stuff” (Faye). And Tribal has become more urban edgy than its predecessors. That, in turn, opens the dance form to non-normative people who would not be otherwise attracted to “belly dance” (Locke 2003). “We are

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just different. We fit the crowd better. People going out there are on the edge a little bit. They don’t want to see skinny, little stick girls in sequins” (Erin). Fusing different cultural objects, all requiring different contextual understanding, gives people of different backgrounds something with which to relate and to appreciate. Faye gives the example of using heavy metal music for a performance at a local motorcycle shop. “At that bike show, if we were to have danced to Hakim10, or something, I don’t think very many of them would have been very interested in it, even though we would have looked the same and we would still have been doing the same dance. I don’t think they would have come in or stopped what they were doing to come watch” (Faye).

The conscious project of crafting the dance to represent “difference” was further signified by the spaces in which Hipnotic chose to perform. They were less ‘traditional’ and ‘glamorous’ and more popular spaces, like clubs and bars. These were not cocktail bars or dinner clubs, but rather the loud, late-night, bars and dance clubs frequented by college students, twenty- and thirty-somethings and non-normative crowds. Erin says these are places where cabaret dancers could not easily perform. For cabaret dancers, “it would have to be a high-class bar…not like we do.” Hipnotic has in the past, only occasionally, performed in normative venues like community street fairs and once at a Senior Olympics, but the vast majority of their gigs were later than 10 P.M. and were in club-like settings. Bailee says the troupe gets a great response from bikers and the troupe has performed two years in a row between acts during “Lesbian Shorts.” It is a festival featuring one-act plays that focus on, or include lesbian and bi-sexual actors. In the past, they have performed in other shows linked to non-normative sexuality. Deirdre says she really enjoys those performances, such as “doing the Boys R Us and the Dragstar shows because the gay and lesbian communities are always extremely supportive and love what we do.” Because the troupe is more Gothic in appearance, uses music that is more familiar in nightclub settings, and has a majority of members who prefer the nightclub scene to ethnic spaces, in addition to having members with contacts in the night club world, it is much more likely to be booked for a late night club show than for a festival.

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What Hipnotic does is non-normative. No other “belly dance” group in town, and certainly no other classically trained dance troupe, is invited to dance in these spaces.

Interrogating Tradition

In creating spaces for non-normative bodies to perform and by performing in spaces where non-normativity is expected, Hipnotic not only resisted normative constructions, it resisted tradition. Tradition concerns fixity; it can naturalize fixed constructions and keep boundaries intact. As a consequence, tradition can be a means for stifling fluidity. Cyborg constructions challenge specific traditions but they also challenge tradition as a fixed construct. In this way, cyborg creations, like Hipnotic, are postmodern constructions; they problematize reified structures. Hipnotic and Resistance to Tradition Improvisational Tribal Style dance and Tribal Fusion dance both challenge the boundedness of tradition. Cabaret dancers, in contrast, see their dance as bounded. As Jillina, a famous cabaret dancer puts it, cabaret is “rich in tradition” (2003). Hipnotic is situated within that project and sees itself as freeing “belly dancers” from the confines of tradition. It is not that the troupe members disrespect “traditional” forms. They do, however, disrespect the attitude that dance must remained fixed because of tradition. All of the dancers in Hipnotic said they respect cabaret style dancers, especially anyone, as Connie put it, who is really dedicated to doing Egyptian style and really does the research and is following the way it is done over there, then it is great in a way as preservation, and that is important in a way, as preservation. I am fine with that, as long as they also respect that it is important to also have innovation (Connie).

At the same time, however, the dancers were quick to point out that “preservation” is an elitist project that does not recognize difference. “That’s not cabaret. That’s Egyptian. That’s Turkish. I can’t believe she did Turkish veil and she calls herself an Egyptian dancer. I really hate that,” says Bailee. Faye, likewise, says she finds it “funny” when “people want to freeze it and say, OK, this

10 Popular, modern Egyptian singer and music producer.

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is what it is.” Pounding her fist on the table for emphasis, Faye parodied those who wish to confine Oriental dance within traditional boundaries. “We need to keep the dance. And this the way it’s supposed to be. And this is the way the cue is supposed to be. And its like, don’t you know that art is constantly evolving? It is constantly crossing boundaries.” Connie called those people “authenticity snobs” in an anecdote meant to highlight how problematic the concept of authenticity really is: My mom was visiting. She was talking about the librarian who had just started working at her school…and how she was a belly dancer and kind of a diva. And she (mom) had mentioned, oh my daughter does belly dance; she is a Tribal belly dancer. And this women had been—urgh—had that reaction. And that was an instant red flag. I don’t care much for the authenticity snobs because, one, often they aren’t as authentic as they think they are and, two, they are really using it as a crutch to feel self-important (Connie).

As the literature by Tribal Style dancers also points out, cabaret is not “traditional” in the sense that it is a historically stable creation. It “is a melting pot of expressive Oriental dance” that draws from Flamenco, classical Indian dance, Persian dances and from the United States (Sharif 2004:84). To further illustrate the point, consider classical Middle Eastern music to which Raqs Sharqi is performed. Today musicians play modern—and western—instruments such as the saxophone, violin, cello, clarinet and accordion. In some cases, those modern instruments are played in ways to make them sound like the older, more ‘traditional’ instruments. In other cases, those ‘traditional’ instruments have been completely replaced with even more modern guitars, keyboards and synthesizers (Sharif 2004). This point is significant because cultural essentialism is constructed as fixed in time and space. In terms of Orientalism, the Orient was constructed as a binary to the West based upon the epistemology that the Orient is inferior because that is just the way it is. “It shares with magic and with mythology the self-containing, self-reinforcing character of a closed system, in which objects are what they are because what they are, for once, for all time, for ontological reasons that no empirical material can either dislodge or alter” (Said 1978:70). As the music example clearly demonstrates, “Oriental” culture is not spatially and temporally fixed; it is as fluid and dynamic. Raqs Sharqi, like the music to which it is performed, is a cyborg creation that has been given the status of tradition in the Middle East. That means cabaret, which is a

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descendent of classic styles, like Raqs Sharqi is also hybrid. So attempts to preserve cabaret as traditional are attempts to fix a fluid form into a fixed format. The “fact” that even “traditional” dances, like cabaret, are fusion compilations, reminds us that fixity is a construction. Temporally and spatially stabilized constructions, though they may endure, are hardly natural; they do not just “exist”. So, if culture is a condition of borrowing and changing, anything that becomes stable, and for that matter when a stabilized construct changes, it is due to power. It is hegemonic power that fixes cabaret dance into the guise of tradition. Tribal Style dancers recognize that, and accept that cabaret can remain in the realm of the traditional, but they are making spaces for innovation and resistance against tradition. Because cabaret dance is seen as bounded, homogenous, static and linked to place, Tribal Style, in contrast, hails creativity and boundlessness as its norms. “Cabaret is still a Middle Eastern cultural dance. It is in a different context. When I dance it, I want to respect that context. When I dance it, I cannot innovate as much as I want because it is not exactly my dance.” Bailee says it is “kind of like, they are over there and we are over here.” Fluidity is, the dancers argue, what leads to variety. Genevieve suggests that evolution is necessary for variety to exist; as a cultural object evolves, new variations are formed. Those variations can exist along side one another and do not exclude more “traditional” forms. So rather than having dancers who look the same across time and space, “evolution” allows for a mix of dancers doing different things. “They are all good and they are all just different and if someone were to go watch a show that maybe they were all participating in, that’s so much more appealing to an observer.” Tradition then is seen as sameness. Fusion is viewed as creating difference. Because adaptation and change is part of the Tribal Style project, for every dancer, “there is a lineage there before her and there will be people after her. Central to this ideology is the idea that knowledge is transferred from one dancer to another. An individual dancer may adapt that knowledge to fit his or her aesthetic, but that knowledge comes from somewhere. If knowledge (or a dance step, or a costuming idea) comes from a source then, by extension, the product of creativity is always based on a borrowing- whether from one’s own culture or that of an other. Sometimes the borrowing is directly transferred, perhaps it is taught by one dancer to another:

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You look at Zoe and the people—and Marti—and the people that Rachel has influenced and, of course, they have their own styles too, but its not like she is just trying to look like Rachel Brice. But it’s like—well, yeah, that’s how you change. You imitate something and then something happens and you have your own thing (Faye).

That allows a dancer to express his or her personality without limits. Faye suggests that this was the rationale of the original Tribal Fusion dancers, like Rachel Brice, who loved “belly dance” but felt confined by its “tradition.” “So she did, of course, fuse as any real artist should.” ATS, because it was not bound to any one tradition at its inception began the movement toward fluidity in Tribal Style dance. Nericcio explains that the boundaries of ATS were indeed meant to create freedom. “If you know what is expected of you, you are free to create without limitation” (Atkin 2006a:24). Members of my study group said they like Tribal because it has a set base that individual troupes then build upon, providing a mix of fluidity and structure. “It made it OK to expand it,” says Deirdre. ATS’s off-shoot, Tribal Style dance, has kept the ATS structure and built onto it the pressure to be non-traditional, which is ironic since ATS has since become as bounded, if not more so, than “traditional” cabaret dance. You can see it in the way the name has changed from American Tribal Style/ATS/FatChanceBellyDance to just being called Tribal and now, ‘oh no, you cannot call it tribal.’ It’s Tribal Fusion because if you are not wearing pompoms on your hip, it has to be Tribal Fusion, or a turban on your head, then you aren’t a true Tribal dancer. Its like, oh, whatever (Faye).

Her comment suggests Faye finds the structure of ATS stifling, just as stifling as “traditional” forms of dance. While it is understandable that Nericcio wants to prevent people from performing poorly executed moves or wearing shoddily constructed costuming and then claiming to do American Tribal Style dance (Atkin 2006a), she is creating spaces of homogeneity and fixity; the ATS structure has no room for difference of change. It is telling that her latest project is a workshop called “Tribal: Pura, Creating Tradition.” She is marketing that workshop to dancers as a way to return to the roots of ATS. Tradition dictates what a dancer will look like, how she will move, what music she will dance too. But within those confines is the vast potential for innovation and

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change. That is the project of cabaret, to use the underlying structure of “traditional” “belly dance” to foster creativity. “Traditional” elements can be combined in unique ways to create new dances. ATS, ironically, works in this same way. It began as a project to transgress fixed structures but has become a fixed structure in and of itself. In contrast Tribal Style, in that it is a fusion style, is founded on a structured base but has no boundaries as to what can be added to it. While valuing the contribution ATS has made, Hipnotic has no desire to perform strict ATS. Doing so would mean adopting someone else’s aesthetic and creation, and would stifle the innovation that attracts them to Tribal Style. This opposition between fusion (Tribal Style) and tradition (ATS and cabaret) could be perceived as a dualism, with fusion being used to explain what tradition is not, except that fusion—in the very essence of its being about difference—defies easy categorization. That is the project of Tribal Style dance and that is how Tribal Style dance creates new power structures. It works within existing cultural dialectics about “belly dance”, but redefines the dance so those dialectics do not make sense. “People want to peg things and this is a certain style. There really is more fluidity, I think, in how things go.” Note that not all changes to structures of cabaret and ATS are purposefully transgressive. Some are simply practical. As Bailee explains, “We have to design every kind of move or combination to be whatever the worst dancer can do. The worst dancer changes depending on what the move looks like.” Some dancers are better at fast moves while others prefer slow movements. One dancer may have great shimmies but poor arm work. So many variables have to be taken into account that almost every move or combination will be altered in some way before it is performed. But the fluidity of Tribal Style dance goes far beyond practicality. It is a conscious construct. Two dancers who auditioned for Hipnotic and then left after a short period of time did not have a background in Tribal Style dance. One was a cabaret dancer and one studied purely ATS. Connie says neither was very creative. Because they both came from bounded forms of dance, neither was comfortable with the transgressiveness of Hipnotic. “They were more cookie cutter and more willing to be cookie cutter.”

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Ashley suggested it is about contributing back to the structure of the dance. “I think that it is really important for us to contribute to it. Yes, under the guise of the reason, so we don’t look like everyone else, but I also feel like there is part of us that subconsciously feels like we need to be not just taking in all the time but also giving back.” Tradition is a structure with no room for agency. In contrast, these Tribal Style dancers see themselves working within a dance structure while taking an active role in creating that structure. Hipnotic, because it puts such an emphasis on agency and creativity, shies away from dancing to music used by other groups, borrowing costume ideas unless they are radically altered, and directly copying moves and combinations. Are we stepping on people’s toes by incorporating Gypsy Caravan and FatChance and Domba and our own? And especially when it comes to teaching, because I feel like those three formats have this huge stamp on them. And if anybody doesn’t so much, it’s FatChance because it was the original and it is what we started learning in a way. I think it’s because they are further away, in a way, that it wouldn’t be so ethically questionable if people were to start teaching that here (Ashley).

So proximity matters in that Hipnotic, unless they are ATS components, does not want to borrow someone else’s creative elements, especially when the creator could be performing in the same venues. Close proximity increases the likelihood that an imitator will get caught. Also, the pressure for creativity has led to a reverse sensitivity toward others’ creative works, especially when it is a matter of compensation and ownership. So the context of the audience matters to a great degree in identity construction. When the audience will be one that is unfamiliar with Tribal Style dance, the desire to create a totally hybridized and unique identity is not so great. Deirdre says Hipnotic’s location in space makes it acceptable for the group to imitate to a greater degree for local projects. “We are in a really, really small town where not everybody is doing it. So we are, I don’t want to say unique because we are totally copying these other people who have done it before, but I think it is easier for us to get away from it because there is no one else here who is doing it.” That means the pressure for originality is greater when the troupe travels to a neighboring city, especially where other Tribal Style groups exist, in order to perform, and is magnified when Hipnotic dances at a venue where Tribal Style dancers are

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performing and/or are in the audience. Because the foundation of this dance form is creating non-conformist, hybridized identities, dancers will be valued specifically for their ability to think across boundaries. Connie says that is what she specifically contributes to the group. “My strength as a dancer is I am very good at thinking out of the box. I mean it’s weird. Sometimes I want to roll on the floor now. I am going to roll on the floor now because that is what I want to do.” And by rolling on the floor, she is able to contribute non-conformity to her troupe. The troupe participated in one venue with other Tribal Style dancers during the field research period. It was a three-day workshop with classes taught by some of the big named Tribal Style dancers and an evening show featuring dozens of troupes. Preparation for the event began long in advance and planning often involved searching for costume ideas and music that no one else is using, so as to be unexpected. Hipnotic was under what the members felt was pressure to not look exactly like any other Tribal Style troupe. They interpreted the Tribal Style structure as permitting one to borrow but not to directly imitate. In contrast, cabaret, in that it is a more ‘traditional’ form, has no expectation for fluidity. “No one would be like I don’t want to wear harem pants because I don’t want to copy someone who wears harem pants—in cabaret belly dance. But there is some level of we don’t want to wear big skirts because we don’t want to look like FatChanceBellyDance,” to the point that the troupe has purposefully decided not to do something simply because it was done elsewhere. “It is so new and there are still all these auteurs in the dance and you don’t want to look like clones of them.” The women to whom Connie refers are core dancers located in California, where ATS originated. Connie herself has been described by her fellow dancers as an innovator. Erin calls her “about as creative and out there as you can get, anything from being born out of a veil to” (she trails off with a laugh). The concern about imitation is wider spread than Hipnotic. ATS dancers too have said that unless one is performing someone’s style exactly and giving all credit to the originator, then one must honor their resources by borrowing, but not copying (Djoumahna 2003c). In cabaret, credit is given when one borrows choreography, but it is expected that music, costume choices, and movements will be similar from one dancer to the next.

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Tribal Style dancers, in contrast, engage in discussions on the Internet about borrowing moves and how those core, California dancers really feel about it. Deirdre says she read one discussion where auteur Rachel Brice weighed into the discussion. “She’s like, I copy people all the time. I copy Suhaila and Carolena because that is who I, you know, studied with.” So copying is considered an integral part of the dance, but here, the word “copying” is not imitating. It is taking inspiration from what has been taught or done by others to create an individualized—to a dancer or to a troupe of dancers—identity. The dancer’s identity, then, becomes a hybrid that is based in some part on contemporary styles in the dance. Those identities are hybridized because they do not directly imitate, nor can they be easily fit into a category of dance. Despite the demand for creativity, categories of fusion dance do exist. Hipnotic, because of its constant quest to create and recreate a hybridized identity, may not fit exactly into those categories, but the categories do sometimes prove useful in making sense of the troupe to others. For example, the Hipnotic website describes the aesthetic as Gothic belly dance. It is a description that Ashley has decried to other troupe members. “I absolutely hate it. I am like, we dance to dark music but we are not Gothic. Gothic is cheesy, eighties, oh-my-God-I-have-to-dye-my-hair-black. And I don’t see that. The whole genre of Gothic bellydance, I am like, what makes it Gothic? You dress scary?” So there is some disagreement among the troupe members about just how far to carry their non-imitation policy. Some members of the troupe are adamant that they avoid all trends. Others take a more practical stance that they should pick and choose based on what suits them personally. To give another example, the Melodia pants that have become almost standard attire for Tribal Fusion dancers. Hipnotic now wears those for almost every performance but the decision to purchase them was hotly debated. Some members saw the pants as too trendy, but others argued that they prefer pants to skirts and that trends should not dictate what they cannot wear. Herein is the irony in the pressure to create non-conformist identity constructions; it is not possible to escape the context—in this case a costuming trend, or the “Gothic belly dance” label—that gives context to this dance without creating an identity that feels inorganic to some members or is nonsensical to the greater dance community. If the group goes too far out of context, it

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will no longer be linked to the Tribal Style movement. Some people, for example, now question recent trends in Tribal Fusion dance. The range of influences has become so broad, and the Middle Eastern component so watered down, that some prefer not to use the label “tribal” or “belly dance” at all. This trend in ITS and Fusion Styles of the dance reinforces the notion that space matters. One can attempt to transgress fixed constructions but one’s transgressiveness is limited by one’s context. Performative options must make sense within space. Hipnotic and Spaces of Perceived Authenticity Because it overtly rejects tradition, Hipnotic made sure to represent itself as non- traditional. Sometimes at performances the troupe would leave out business cards with a photo and contact information on the front and a listing of different styles of “belly dance” on the back. Tribal Style, on the cards, is distinguished as a modern, American dance form, thus making it clear to their Western audiences that they do not claim to represent any nationalized “tradition”. They also did not try to forge connections with any classical performance groups or with Middle Eastern people since they are not dancing for “traditional” audiences. Connie once said, she does not know of any sort of Egyptian, diasporic community in the city where she performs. She thought there might be a Lebanese diaspora but she was not sure. During another conversation, we discussed a local Middle Eastern restaurant. The restaurant hired cabaret dancers for the dinner hour and for late Friday and Saturday night when it turns into a hookah lounge and dance club. The restaurant served “traditional’’ fare and had a large number of young, Middle Eastern male customers. Connie said that did not sound like an appropriate venue for Hipnotic. The audience in Hipnotic’s performance spaces, then, were much less likely to expect “traditional” dancing, and were more likely to recognize the Western elements, from rock music to Gothic make-up, that were part of the group’s hybrid performance. Says Erin, If we are dancing and there happen to be…you aren’t going to find those Middle Eastern men of high status, that will care. That it will bother them. It is probably the younger generation of guys that is hanging out, you know. And they don’t care; if you are wearing fishnet, they are like cool. If they happen to hear something with a Middle

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Eastern beat, they are like, what’s that? Opposed to the men that are more established, that are more traditional. They wouldn’t be in that venue.

So, Hipnotic performs in spaces that are intentionally designated as neither classical art spaces nor as “traditional” Oriental dance spaces, in other words, they intentionally avoided what I labeled, spaces of perceived authenticity. That has two direct implications. First, of course, any Middle Eastern people in the audience are not expected to attend in order to see their “traditional” dance. Second, anyone else in the audience is not expected to know the dance form. They have only an American context from which to judge. Genevieve, who is nervous about performing, says that gives her the added comfort of not feeling like she has to live up to anyone’s expectations. The audience will not know if the Middle Eastern moves that she is doing are good or not because audience members have nothing with which to compare. Bailee, who says she has danced for Arabic people who said afterwards that they liked her performance even though they were not familiar with her dance style, admits that may be because the venues were not “traditional” so the expectation was different. So while she is not hesitant about dancing in front of Middle Eastern people per se, she is uncomfortable dancing to what she calls “hard-core, Arabic music” in front of Arabic audiences. Ashley says she worries that Arabic people will misinterpret the context for which the dance is intended. They may presume that she is “representing their culture… and (thus is) offending them” because the representation is inaccurate. Connie, on the other hand, says she is “terrified” that what she is doing will be perceived—in her words—as cultural appropriation. “I see it as something different and outside their culture but I don’t want them to just think I am stealing their cultural values and just messing them up.” Genevieve says she feels it is important, in order to quell any notion that the troupe does not know what it is doing and is mistaken in calling itself a “belly dance” troupe, to have some moves that are clearly “traditional” to the Middle East. Being able to properly execute “authentic” movements within the fusion structure gives “some substance to what you are doing. You are not just up there dressing up scary and pretending to do stuff.” It is about creating a performance that indicates knowledge of Middle Eastern dance but is clearly meant to be inauthentic and transgressive.

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Protecting the Integrity of Tribal Style Dance

Because Tribal Style is based on the dance of a historically degraded “other”, because it interrogates the traditional, and because it transgresses notions about classical bodies and art, it has to confront notions of inferiority. Dancers all expressed concerns that the dance will be devalued socially. They also rejected practices that could further any power-laden discourses that devalue “belly dance” as a whole. Elevating the Dance Of the seven members of the troupe, all but one talked about Oriental dance, and Tribal Style, being something they “found.” Those six dancers did not grow up with an understanding of what the dance is. Nor did they spend a lot of time seeking out qualified instructors or researching the Middle East or trying to learn the context of the dance. Five of the dancers stumbled into classes to support friends: My friend is a belly dancer…is a good and really well known one and taught. It was a total fluke and then I just went because it was fun. You know. Where it all ended up was completely by accident (Bailee).

I met Connie because she worked with my husband and she was like, “I take belly dance lessons…you should totally come.” And I was like, “belly dancing is real?” I seriously thought it was something from 1940’s films or some hokey thing making fun of Egypt or something like that, you know? So I completely thought it was made up. So I went to classes with her (Ashley).

I saw a belly dance performance on a trip we were on and that’s when I wanted to take lessons (Genevieve).

(My friend), she thought she could teach a class for a little extra money so she started a class. Me and all my friends, it was like, “we have to support (--).” So a bunch of us went and took her class and just loved it (Faye).

This scattering of stories shows how unprepared and unknowledgeable the dancers were at the beginning. Because the dance is so poorly represented in an American context, it is misunderstood. Consequently it is easy for dancers to reproduce stereotypes or fantasy constructions. The troupe suggested this happens in two specific ways: people perform without enough knowledge or skill and people begin teaching to soon.

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Premature Performances. Hipnotic members all said they started to perform long before they had the skills to do it well. Deirdre’s experience may have been a bit unusual in that she was thrust on stage after her first week of classes. Her instructor was teaching a program for teenagers that was designed to get them performing. The weekend after her first class, Deirdre was told to join them at a street festival. She sewed a costume and joined them on the stage. “I didn’t do any of the choreographies. In fact, I just stood on the stage for about fifteen minutes before I walked off. I just couldn’t do it.” This scenario, while not likely to be the experience of every dancer, certainly highlights how teachers may be too eager to put new performers in public venues where they end up misrepresenting “belly dance”. Bailee says the first few shows that Hipnotic did “were so terrible.” Some of the performers had backgrounds in cabaret; the group had taken a full-day Tribal workshop and had worked with videos. The members now acknowledge that they had very little skill and did not really know what they were doing. The few steps that they knew they performed well simply because they practiced them again and again, but the members did not know enough to be discriminating about the combinations they performed. At the time, the group was not even a formal troupe. Over time, and with increasing demands for troupe performances, the dancers’ attitudes and the group’s structure became more sophisticated. The troupe’s cohesiveness and skill level increased partly because, early on, it obtained a weekly performance spot at an area restaurant. That proved to be a lot of work for the fledgling group but forced them to practice and to learn. The troupe is now several years old and members look back on that first year with skepticism, wondering if they should have been performing at all. Now, all of the members voice concern about dancers of all genres who teach and perform without proper training and skills. Ashley says she constantly evaluates herself and what impression am I giving people of belly dance? Because there are a lot of people who are performing that shouldn’t be performing and I know that I was definitely one of them at one point. I absolutely, 100-percent know we should not have done that first year of shows that we did (Ashley).

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Connie says seeing a dancer put him or herself out there when not ready, wearing inappropriate costuming because he or she does not know better, or making mistakes about dancing can reinforce incorrect conclusions about the dance form. “There are so many weird ideas about belly dance, I feel like every belly dancer has to be an ambassador way more than, let’s say, a ballet dancer has to be.” Ashley adds that she is uncomfortable that the troupe got paid for those first gigs. “Now that I understand the market and you shouldn’t represent yourself as a professional belly dancer when you are not. You know, I didn’t even know. I was just having fun. Now I am like, oh, that was kind of unethical.” Unfortunately, Hipnotic members say it is all too common to see people teach and perform with very little knowledge and to perpetuate incorrect information without knowing better. During one practice, the troupe members talked about women in town who obviously lacked the appropriate knowledge, but yet were claiming to be “belly dancers”. Bailee said she knew of someone who had taken four classes and then set out to perform. Bailee approached that woman and told her she was not a ‘belly dancer’; the response: “I know.” The members then spoke of another woman who decided to make a costume top using real coins. According to Bailee, the piece was so heavy that it was impractical, and anyone who was a “real belly dancer” would have known the impracticality. That launched a discussion about an artistic, performing group that had recently begun promoting that it had a “belly dancer” in its cast. The troupe members commented that that was a false claim because the performer billing herself as a “belly dancer” actually had little experience. They were especially critical of those dancers who do not spend enough time learning to understand what they are lacking; developing an appreciation for the dance form takes a substantial amount of time studying it, its history, and learning to differentiate the different styles. Bailee does not take as hard a line as her fellow troupe members because, as she puts it, “it is like that with anything that is an art. There are always going to be really crappy painters.” But she does admit that—like with painting—people who are uneducated about an art form may not know the difference. With a dancer, the audience may be more appreciative of her stage presence or how she

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engages with people than with her skill. In that sense, she says she sees bad dancers “all the time. It is just lame.” Additionally, she mentions dancers who assume they can learn Oriental dance without the kind of formal instruction they would expect from a high art like ballet. “There probably is a group of dancers, a chunk of dancers out there that don’t have the background knowledge. You know, they are learning the moves from videos and recreating it.” Others in the Hipnotic echoed this sentiment with comments peppered into various conversations, such as critiques of other dancers or teachers in the area. The tones of voice during these conversations ranged from saddened to sarcastic to downright angry, suggesting disgust that anyone would have a low enough regard for the dance to assume that, with little to no training, one could adequately represent the form. This suggested that the dancers highly value their dance form and expect it to be highly valued by others. This also suggested their awareness for the low-art value of Middle Eastern dance in American contexts. If dancers give “appropriate” value to the dance, they will be more skilled before they attempt to represent it to others. A more skilled representation equates with a better representation of the dance. Better dancers may change the way the dance is consumed by uninformed audiences. An obviously skilled dancer, who has spent years perfecting her craft, can create an identity of seriousness that can dispel imaginative geographies built around the sexualized and romanticized “belly dancer”. This attitude suggests that the dancers in Hipnotic hold Oriental dance, and Tribal Style dance, to a high enough standard that they believe it should be learned from a qualified instructor. Many people do not learn the dance as well as they should because they presume that Oriental dance is “natural” movement and does not require the skill that is demanded of professionals who perform “high art” dances like ballet, jazz and tap. It is presumed that this dance of an ‘other’ lacks sufficient depth to require structure and teaching, an approach it is unlikely dancers and audiences would assume about a Western dance form. These discussions are critical if dancers are to undo stereotypes that can be degrading at best. The group regularly performs at a local hookah lounge. Hookah lounges allow people to smoke flavored tobacco using the traditional, Middle Eastern

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pipe. The hookah is popular in the Middle East and is associated with tradition and socializing. In the United States, it is often misrepresented as drug paraphernalia because it can be used to smoke marijuana. This particular hookah lounge caters to university students and not to a Middle Eastern audience so it is a nice fit for a Tribal/fusion style dance group like Hipnotic, however the juxtaposition of hookah and “belly dancing” raises potent misperceptions. Ashley says she is careful not to tell most people that she dances at a hookah lounge. “They think hookah is a bong or they associate me with smoking a lot and hanging out and partying and I’m not like that. And I would rather people just know me rather than those little details, I guess.” This degrading of the dance of an “other” is reinforced when audiences see poor dancers and thus do not have an idea of what good dance can look like. Bailee gives the example of the hit television show, America’s Got Talent. One of the competitors, who managed to progress through the show was a ‘belly dancer’. She received high commendations from the judges, but Bailee does not think she was particularly good. Yet this woman is representing the belly dance community and doing it on national television and getting positive reviews from judges who do not know enough about the dance form to be truly critical. In all of these examples, Hipnotic members place great importance on the dance form being treated with respect. It is telling that, even though they are members of a Tribal Style troupe and that they are attempting to get away from replicating an orientalizing dance form, they still wish to see the form elevated socially. This is not ironic; rather it is consistent with their overall project of transgressing the imaginative geographies that have sexualized “belly dance.” All of the dancers talked about the skill involved in tribal dance in order to justify its pursuit. Deirdre, who has been with the troupe since its inception, called the moves “really, really difficult.” She said the dance is a challenge for her, and that is part of the draw. She had studied the dance for three and a half years and was a professional dancer in that she made a living booking dancers into venues and dancing herself. At one time, she devoted as many as eight hours a week to classes, four hours a week to group practices, and one night a week to an informal dance/drum practice session. She still took regular classes and attended regular troupe practices, watched videos regularly,

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taped practices sessions and watched those again and again, and she practiced daily until a foot injury forced her to give her body a rest on some days. Despite her dedication she said she still felt “really awkward calling myself a professional dancer when I don’t feel like I am. When I haven’t put my entire life into it.” This is direct equation of Oriental dance with more mainstream dances like ballet and modern, for which dancers train from the time they are children. She regards Tribal dance as serious enough to require the same dedication as other dance forms. Yet she can be a professional because society does not demand the same skill level for “belly dance” as it does for its own elevated dance forms. Their seriousness was reflected in the troupe’s construction. Dancers met twice a week for group practices. One practice was in the mother-in-law suite of a troupe member. The second of the weekly practices was held in a large space rented for the occasion. The room had wood floors, a sound system and ceiling to floor mirrors. All practice sessions lasted a minimum of two hours. Dancers who could not make a practice were expected to notify the troupe director ahead of time. One dancer, Connie, was elected to head a practice committee; she would plan each practice in advance, in consultation with the troupe’s elected manager. She would type, photocopy and hand out the day’s agenda at the start of each practice, lead the warm-up and determine what was to be accomplished in that practice session. The troupe also held periodic business meetings in addition to the troupe practices. The manager would type up the agenda and lead the discussion. At the meetings, members would discuss and vote on performance opportunities, plan and vote on new costume pieces, talk about promotions and marketing ideas and discuss other such relevant information to the troupe. For example, during my field research, the group discussed and declined to perform at almost as many venues as they accepted. The troupe also voted to purchase t-shirts with the logo, and discussed trying to arrange a photo shoot so the troupe could have professionally done photographs for publicity purposes. The members would also use the business meetings to set up additional meetings—such as costume design meetings—as needed. At one business meeting, the director asked each dancer to describe what she was doing each week to enhance her dance. A few dancers admitted to just practicing dance,

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but others discussed studying fitness and dance tapes, taking yoga classes, taking cabaret classes and attending dance practices in town. The commitment to cross training and practice, the business-like tone of the meetings and the level of formality of the practices imbued a sense of seriousness to the rehearsals. The dancers spent time joking and catching up with one another, but each practice was planned to accomplish something. Teaching too Soon. The dancers in my study group refused to teach. One, who wanted to gain some teaching experience, considered teaming up with another teacher, almost as an apprentice. During several practices the troupe members admonished other dancers in town who were teaching without the appropriate level of dance and physiological knowledge. Comments suggested Hipnotic members were concerned about people learning poor versions of the dance or actually hurting themselves. For a short period, no ATS or Tribal Style classes were offered in their city, yet despite demand, they refused to fill that void. By demonstrating proficiency at the dance and by refusing to teach without proper training, the dancers in my study group sought to performatively elevate the dance form. Poor teaching produces poor dancers. Poor teachers may also push students to perform before they are ready or may not provide “safe” performance opportunities for students. Because exceptional skill is not expected, and audiences are not familiar enough with the dance form, they may not know enough to distinguish a well-learned dancer from an unskilled dancer. Because of the low expectation for this dance of an “Other,” audiences may assume that a poor performance is representative of all Oriental dance, and, that student may pass along misleading or incorrect information, thus reinforcing constructed notions about the dance. These sentiments are echoed by the wider Tribal Style dance community. Dancers who perform too soon are decried as giving the dance “a bad name” (Atkin 2006c 31). Nericco, who stresses the inclusiveness of ATS, strongly encourages dancers to get “experience” performing before accepting formal gigs. “The dance is always ready to be enjoyed by a group of women. But performing...has to be good. You can’t experiment on an audience” (Atkin 2006a). Change as a Sign of Respect. For the Hipnotic members, the ultimate form of respect was knowledge without imitation. First, borrowing a move from cabaret or ATS or any other dance form, or finding inspiration in a costuming element from a foreign

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country, or using world beat music for a performance set…those were signs of appreciation. The dancers did not borrow elements from cultural objects, such as ballet, for which they feel a lack of respect. They pulled from forms that they valued in some way. Second, they found more integrity in borrowing and changing a move or costume element than in copying it from someone else, “because you need to put your own spin on it so you aren’t just ripping someone off.” Fusing, for the members of my study group, was more than a matter of practicality; it was about participating in the process of structure building. My study group was not trying to create a Hipnotic format that could be taught and passed along to others. That would be antithetical to their philosophical approach. Instead they were trying to create a format that was distinctive for Hipnotic, and hopefully a format that would inspire others’ creativity.

Conclusion

Names like “American Tribal” and “Urban Tribal” are meant to juxtapose the ideas of tradition and cosmopolitanism. It is no mistake that Tribal dancers routinely use such seemingly oxymoronic names, or phrases like “evolving tradition” to describe their dance (Locke 2003:12). The names draw attention to the dance as a project of rejecting the boundedness of tradition. Tradition then is recognized and performatively challenged as a social construct. It is tradition that fixes people into identities and categories that may not fit their lived experiences. Furthermore, those identities and categories may actually reproduce structures that empower some at the expense of everyone else.

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RECONFIGURING AND REPRODUCING POWER

Whilst some see globalization as perpetuating Western/US domination in particular over the third world, others are enthusiastic about its possibilities as an enabling force in decentering the West and allowing marginalized communities a ‘right of reply’ to their positioning in the new world order, thereby potentially effacing old borders (Huq 2006:58).

Power does not have to be a controlling force; it can also be an enabling force. Here creating a dance identity that is gaining popularity and could, possibly, become a widely recognized art form, has great potential to rewrite “belly dance” stereotypes. Furthermore Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dancers are moving away from the lingering “Orientalism” in California and American Tribal dance. That does not mean, however, the forms have managed to escape entirely from discourses of power. Any time one borrows from another, the borrower has power. He or she dictates the terms of that borrowing and the context into which it will be used (Pitts-Taylor 2003; Scott 2004; Huq 2006). This chapter will further discuss some of those issues of power.

Loss of Contextuality

This research project rests on the notion that space matters. Borrowings do not occur as part of a harmonious, global, cultural experience. Borrowings are taken from another historical and spatial context. This paper has focused on the United States— where Tribal Style dance is emerging—and the dancers’ intent of challenging hegemonic nationalist discourses in the U.S. Focusing on the Tribal Style dancer as borrower neglects cultural issues in the spaces of origination. The borrowings come from somewhere, and that somewhere has temporal-spatial processes at work. As globalization fosters borrowing, further questions must be asked about power relationships in the spaces of consumption and origination, as well as in between. That problem is beyond the scope of this project, as lines must be drawn around any research for practical purposes, however it is important to acknowledge that discourses exist at the site(s) of the borrowing and to address the issue here, at least superficially.

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Borrowing Versus Representing The Hipnotic borrowings do raise some ethical questions. Faye admitted an ambivalent attitude about borrowing from other cultures. “Maybe that is a little bit more of an issue if you are trying to represent something that you don’t know very much about…but maybe not. What do we really know about anything?” She firmly believes that context is so important that one cannot fully understand the culture of another, so trying to represent an other would be a false representation. “Saying, ‘I know how Balinese dancers dance and what it all means’ and pretending, you know, to know something that I don’t, is just wrong. I wouldn’t do that.” Yet that is what cabaret style dancers are doing. They are representing the dance of another and attempting to do it in a way that is ‘respectful’ of that other’s tradition. Tribal Style dancers move away from questions of representation of an ‘other’ by simply not doing it. Instead they borrow ideas and get inspiration from “others.” The troupe members find more integrity in borrowing and changing a move or costuming element than in copying it from someone else, “because you need to put your own spin on it so you aren’t just ripping someone off.” Erin continues, “There’s steps that we fuse that are Bollywood steps. There are steps that we use that come out of cabaret, but we tweak them.” Connie says a recent trend is to borrow from the hula. “If you are not selling it as hula, I don’t know that that is a problem. We certainly borrow a lot of hip hop moves.” So, in this example, Tribal Style dancers who are inspired by the hula are not attempting to recreate a hula tradition but to take what they like from the hula—or Bollywood, or cabaret—and integrate it into a new context. This creates an ethical assumption that because the borrowings are “treated” in the same manner, whether they come from a center of from a periphery, the final result is about transgression and not appropriation. Ashley says mixings in the periphery justify mixings in the center. “Before we thought it was really wrong to fully adapt this to ourselves, but now we see that it is happening both ways so maybe it is not so bad, you know. It’s that double standard thing.” Tribal dance purposefully draws from multiple sources, both center and periphery, without intent of authenticity. That means tribal dancers knowingly take pieces of an “other’s” culture and repackage it to create identities with mixed signifiers.

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In cases where the borrowing has a specific source, the dancers in Hipnotic all said that it is important to give credit to that source. As Faye put it, “acknowledge the lineage. Acknowledge the predecessor, where it came from, whether it was a culture, or a person, or a group or an idea.” The group made no distinction between crediting borrowings from a center or from a periphery. “You can’t say that a choreography belongs to a certain culture but I definitely think if you got influenced by something in a different culture, you should give them credit or mention that” (Genevieve). This is where the issue gets a little more nebulous. Because Tribal Style dance is a Western dance form, Hipnotic dancers know where certain combinations originate. They could also tell me the source of some of their costuming ideas or from whom they learned about a new music selection, but they could not distinguish between an Egyptian styled chest circle and a Tribal Style chest circle. Because they are not trying to recreate any authentic form of dance, they are much more aware of Western contextuality than they are of contextuality in unfamiliar cultural spaces. Consequently their discussions about credit focused on giving credit when borrowing creations as a whole as opposed to in part. For example, Erin explains which Tribal Style groups created which movement combos when she teaches them. “I tend to say I am Domba based. Here is Egg Toss. If you put your arms up higher and do this move, it is called a pestle with Gypsy Caravan. So I tend try to give credit to my teachers that I have taken and a certain move was taken from a troupe.” The disparity in treatment indicates that Hipnotic does indeed treat borrowings differently. Despite their intent of creating a hybrid form that transgresses power relationships based on a normal/Western and exotic/Oriental other, their borrowings are uneven. They are quick to acknowledge the American auteur or troupe that created a move or a costuming look but their knowledge of others’ contributions is vague. So they recognize their Western borrowings as invented and refined but their borrowings from another are viewed as intrinsic to that other’s culture, an approach that is more essentialist than transgressive. Their purpose of transgressing the us and other binary, then, does not escape this power imbalance. It is important to note that the troupe is careful about basic etiquette, such as not using Arabic songs that are religious or that have objectionable lyrics, or not showing

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palms and other such gestures that could be blatantly offensive to a person from the Middle East. Bailee says that is because, even though their shows are not “traditional” and are not in “traditional” cabaret venues, the fact that they are labeled “belly dancers” and take part in “belly dance” events in which cabaret dancers also participate means Middle Easterners could, on occasion, attend their performances. Thus, they say it is important to know some of the contextual meaning. Several of the dancers referred to a particular hand gesture that is offensive in the Middle East. Bailee says she learned about that gesture from a dance teacher. “Susan Ide has a great story. When she first went to Morocco and she used to do this and wherever she was dancing, that was the way to flip the bird and she didn’t know it.” Hipnotic make sure not to use that particular gesture. Most members of Hipnotic also purposefully do not use the word “gypsy,” as it has negative connotations that degrade the people to whom the term refers. Connie says, “If you want to go study Roma dance, then please do go and preserve it, but don’t put on your big skirt and call yourself a gypsy.” By avoiding the term “gypsy,” the troupe demonstrates sensitivity to inaccurate stereotypes about groups of people. They refuse to purposefully perpetuate those false stereotypes. But can a fusion dancer always know when something is offensive, or if a borrowing has meaning in another context? That said, all of the dancers I interviewed admitted they do not know the context of many of the moves that are in their repertoire. Some of them professed a belief that they should know the context, at least as it relates to movements that might have meaning in another culture. Bailee suggested it is helpful when people ask questions about specific movements. Others said it is also to make sure the borrowing makes sense. Several of the dancers referred to mudras or symbolic hand and fingers gestures. The gestures have meaning in Hinduism and Buddhism and are used symbolically in dance, yoga and ritual practices. Many Tribal Style dancers have incorporated mudras into their movement vocabulary. Erin has taken workshops with people who have studied Indian dance and mudras and who have shared their form and meaning with tribal dancers, along with warnings about being careful to use them correctly. “Taking classes with DaVid of Scandinavia, he was very explicit of, do not teach this routine to anyone who has not taken this class with me because this dance, if you alter the shape of the steps or if

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you alter the arm movements, has different meaning to it.” His dance, he explained, told a very specific story and he wanted to make sure that the meaning was not muddled. The mix of hula and “belly dance”, sometimes referred to as bellynesian, has generated controversy on hula dance communication boards and has prompted articles in dance magazines. Many Hawaiian people argue that hula, because it is a story-telling dance, has meaning and cannot be taken out of context. As Unmata and other Tribal Style dancers incorporate it, these hula steps do not have meaning. They create an “unusual” aesthetic. Connie says she is aware of the contextual meaning of the hula but she does not study the hula so she has no idea of those meanings. “As a Westerner, I think it is really cool.” She is aware that not every Hawaiian may like the borrowing, but she says Hipnotic does use Unmata moves that hula inspired. On a personal note, I studied the hula for ten years and have seen some of the hula inspired movements performed by Unmata. They do not incorporate the hand and arm gestures that are the main focus of hula storytelling and the steps have been altered enough that they only partially resemble the original. Some of the moves, although hula based, could just as easily have been the creation of a dancer who had not ever seen the hula and was simply trying out new movement ideas. So the moves have departed from the original context and form enough that they are almost unrecognizable as of the hula “tradition.” It is important to note here that the postings I have read were by Hawaiian people who are upset about the fusion of hula and Tribal Style dance but who had not ever seen it. Their concerns seemed to be about the meaning of the dance being imparted incorrectly, like with DaVid’s storytelling song and of an imperialist appropriation of their culture. Of course, this research pins on the idea that hybrid creations—which form within the influences of globalizing process—are undoing bounded “cultures.” Furthermore Unmata’s usage appears to be purely aesthetic and the steps used are ones that do not have particular meanings, but that is something of which Tribal Style dancers studying Unmata combinations may or may not be aware. While Hawaiian and Tribal Fusion dancers would both agree that hula borrowings are undoing bounded culture, Tribal Fusion dance suggests that to be a good thing as all tradition is “false”. But hula moves, whether copied directly or altered and fused onto

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other forms, do have deep, cultural meaning in Hawaii. Borrowing the moves puts Unmata in the position of power, and it is the loss of power to which Hawaiian people are objecting. A move called the omi is a telling example. It is a hip circle. While hip circles have been historically part of Oriental dance, different muscle groups are used to drive the Hawaiian omi. In every ITS or Tribal Fusion class attended—and in some Unmata combinations—the instructor taught some form of omi, or umi, as it was frequently pronounced. When asked afterwards where the step came from, none knew. So the historic and spatial contextuality of that movement had been lost. While it does not have any specific meaning by itself, it is a signature movement in the hula. Another cultural borrowing incorporated by ATS dancers and passed along to many Tribal Style dancers is facial tattooing and Indian bindis. The facial tattoos include drawn on dots around the eyes and brows and lines on the chin. Indian bindis are stick- on dots that come with various, intricate designs. Tribal Style dancers may wear them in the center of the forehead, near their eyes or in any other configuration. In several instances, Hipnotic dancers used make-up to draw dots and markings on their faces. For a less formal performance, Deirdre wore Indian dots on her face. At a hafla, or dance party, Connie chose to use eyeliner to draw dots above her brows. She also penciled in a triangular shape on her forehead. Genevieve occasionally wore bindis when she performed even though she did not know their meaning. “I think about that when I am putting them on. You know, if that or this means something…but, what I do look at is what other people are doing and do similar things.” So instead of researching how bindis are worn, she looked to the Western use of them to determine how she would wear them. In this case, the look became purely aesthetic. Many members of Hipnotic, when asked, did not know of any significance of these markings in their ‘original’ cultural context. “If it is just a dot by your eye, or something like that, I don’t think that’s offensive. I have never really seen anything about make-up and the dots that would say one thing or another” (Erin). Bailee says she checked this with a friend of hers who grew up in India. Her friend has said that bindis, facial dots, and nose piercings could have meaning in other parts of India, but to her they were purely aesthetic. Bailee used this information to draw the conclusion that bindis are decorative and not culturally significant. However, just because the markings may have

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no specific meaning, they may signify Indianess. Hence the very reality that non-Indian people are wearing the markings may seem as an unwelcome appropriation. Hipnotic wore facial “tattoos” when they first started—specifically three dots around the eyes--but later dropped that practice. That is primarily because their costuming style changed from an ATS aesthetic to a more fusion inspired, industrial appearance. Genevieve said she avoided the facial tattoos because she had not studied their meaning and she did not want to put something onto her face that could be offensive to anyone, “when for me it is just a way to do make-up.” She acknowledged that it is not possible to borrow something that has contextual meaning and reduce it to something that is purely aesthetic. At the same time, she admitted that the members of her audiences probably would not understand the symbolism. Erin said she would not incorporate an unfamiliar element without knowing something about it, but that she would consider a workshop sufficient background. Those workshops are often taught by other artists, the vast majority of whom are Westerners who have studied the dance forms extensively. They may have learned from other Western artists or from people for whom the dance form is part of their cultural heritage. That lineage is usually revealed, but the dancers taking those workshops and classes must assume the knowledge they have is “real.” Adding to the complexity is that, as steps and costume ideas pass from one person to the next, they may be altered. The original context may remain, it may have been purposefully or not changed, or it may be completely lost. In that way, much of what dancers borrow from one another may have had meaning at one time but may be used as a purely aesthetic element or in a way that would be nonsensical in another space where the original would have had meaning. Connie brings up the ohm, an important Hindu symbol and a sound used during meditation. “I get a really big kick out of how many people I see walking around with ohms on who are the least meditative people alive. I am like, you are a dork.” Connie also uses the modern primitive and punk rock movements as examples. She says, in both cases, people wear signifiers or engage in symbolic behaviors coming out of those movements, without really knowing their meaning in time and space. “I met a guy at a fetish ball who is, like, 15 years younger than me who told me he brought suspension to the U.S; he is the father of modern

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tribalism. I am like, have you every heard of Mustafar? Where have you been?” She says the 1970’s and 1980’s punk rock movement was intellectually anti-establishment. It bothers her that intellectualism and activism have given way to aesthetics and that groups would use punk rock signifiers without being part of the overall punk culture. “You go to a Green Day concert and take the hundred biggest rockers and put them back into the shows I went to and they would all die. They wouldn’t even get it at all.” All but one of the dancers drew a distinction between borrowing aesthetic elements and borrowing rituals or religious iconography. The one dancer who did not express this concern admitted it was because she did not think much about the subject at all. She was relatively new to Tribal dance and was still learning basic movements and combinations and had not put a great deal of thought into where those movements originated. The other performers said that it is important to know about and to at least partially understand the religious context of those movements to make sure the borrowing is appropriate. Bailee said jokingly, that she had not “borrowed anything from the Koran lately.” While meant to be amusing, her comment was at the same time profound. The Koran is the sacred text of Islam. Hinduism and Buddhism—in contrast to Islam—have different ideas about religious iconography. “I think that the Hindi (sic) religions, it’s not such a big deal because the Hindi religions are pretty friendly and happy. There aren’t a lot of Hari Krishna terrorists. There are not a lot of people who have machine guns and big Ganesh statues in their houses.” While acknowledging religious difference, her statement at the same time reified categorical stereotyping. She reduced Hindus to products of their fixed, essentialized culture rather than recognizing them as agents acting within historical and spatial processes. In so doing, she situated her borrowings from Hinduism into fixed contexts. Is it really ever possible to fully know the historical and spatial processes embedded in a borrowing? Movements or objects that have cultural ties may not have any particular meaning or they may have deep cultural significance or be signifiers of cultural belonging. It is difficult sometimes to know. Borrowing without concern for the authenticity of the borrowing or for the context from which the borrowing comes is the ultimate expression of power because it is the borrower, and not the source of the borrowing, that gets to determine how it is used and in what context.

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Complicating this discussion is the fact that, because information is lost over time, it may not be possible to trace the origins of something that has been borrowed from its original context, and then borrowed from the borrower. Bailee studied the history of costuming in school: There are a fair number of examples of clothes from the Crusades, but you get beyond that and it is all paintings. And how accurate are the colors they could paint with and the colors they could dye with, you know? And you find these bits and pieces. And all the time archeology is changing their definition of the past because they find a new technology (Bailee).

Furthermore, with globalization, cultural material that was once unobtainable is readily marketed and shared, making it easier for movement across space. An Internet search will often reveal hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of links to information that may or may not be accurate. Cultural objects can be sold and shipped around the world. “I don’t think about it a lot,” says Genevieve, because a lot of the things that we do use that can come from other cultures are out there so we can use them. I mean, they are readily available. It’s not like we are going and digging through all these secret things to find things to use. I mean, like I said, most of the stuff that I buy is on eBay. So it is out there to buy and use (Genevieve).

Her rationale was that if it is out there to be bought, then it is out there to be used by the buyer, and in whatever way that buyer chooses. To give a specific example, Tribal Style dancers often use jewelry pieces that come from Afghanistan and Pakistan. International vendors, who sell these items on line, also travel with booths to venues where dancers have access. For example, the city in which Hipnotic lives is also home to an international gem show. Thousands of vendors from around the world sell geological and related items during the two-week long event. Some of the vendors specialize in merchandise such as “ethnic” beads, garments and jewelry, including the pieces favored by Tribal Style Dancers. Erin says she buys her pieces from those vendors. Her assumption, which may or may not be accurate, is that the vendors, because they are from the region, must know what they are selling: Some of the things we pick up will actually say made in Pakistan, you know, on a little sticker on the back. I mean, just being in tribal for so long, we know what these pieces look like because we have used them. We’ve seen other troupes use them. We have watched what the vendors have and in pictures of things from the Middle East (Erin).

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So their use is a trend in Tribal Style dance and the context of this jewelry is nebulous. However, because these cultural items are for sale in the United States, they are available for dancers to consume according in whatever manner they choose. The dancers may have some contextual knowledge. They may be aware that meanings are attached to some cultural borrowings. They may be sensitive to the presence of religious or ritualistic significance. However the pure mass of available material makes true contextual understanding difficult. And Tribal Style dancers, in that they are purposefully not representing any one “tradition,” borrow from multiple cultures. Dancers can research particular moves, but it would be difficult to know all the nuances and meanings for every borrowing. As Connie said, “I try to look it up, but sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.” So the dancers recognize their ignorance, but borrow the materials anyway. Genevieve, for example, admitted her cultural awareness had not increased since she started dancing. Others, who had done more research, said they still borrowed elements that were unfamiliar. Ashley spoke of this in terms of costuming. “I think part of making our own costuming is that wanting to set ourselves apart and to contribute back, but not necessarily to get away from an ethical thing because we still incorporate stuff like that.” Crediting Sources Further complicating the situation is the concept of crediting. To honor does not mean to copy outright. When you honor your teacher, you credit her with passing on to you information that you, in turn, process, and share with the world anew. Honoring your teacher means acknowledging your sources. Honoring your teacher means respecting what came before while lovingly creating what will be (Djoumahna 2003c:233).

Crediting of sources, in the sense of teachers passing what information they have along to students, seems to be a conscious project of Tribal Style teachers. It is a very different case, however, when it comes to passing information on to audiences. The dancers all said it is important to acknowledge choreographies. “If you were to go to a workshop and learn something and then go do it at a performance, it needs to say somewhere, you know, in the program. If you are doing the exact same thing, it needs to say this is a choreography taught by (the source).” In terms of other borrowings, the dancers all said

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they are quick to give credit when an audience member inquires, but otherwise they do not acknowledge their sources. This is mostly for practical reasons. Like Deirdre says, moves like a wrist circle really do not have a creator. The creative aspect comes in how that move is applied and the spatial context of that move. Furthermore, the costuming, music, and movements used in Tribal Style dance are not such a mix of influences that it is not always practical to point out all of the influences, nor do the dancers always know themselves. Crediting then, for very practical reasons, is not a blatant sourcing of all borrowings, it is done through terminology like ATS or Urban Tribal that only broadly communicates the project of juxtaposing the fluid and the “traditional.” Without further study of the borrowed elements, specifically of how those elements are situated within original contexts and how they are consumed by Tribal Style dance audiences, it is not possible to truly interrogate the power imbalances in the borrowings. The point here is to note that the power imbalances exist. Hipnotic, as exemplified by their knowledge base and crediting processes, was more cognizant of the artistry and innovation in the West while borrowings from another were viewed as more rooted in culture. Linking “Belly Dance” and Femininity

Tribal Style dancers cannot know the context of all of their borrowings, but they can be aware of power imbalances and attempt to find out as much as possible. It is also important to realize that some borrowings, like facial tattoos, have been embedded with discourses of “otherness” and can reproduce, rather than transgress, us/them binaries. The Tribal Style project can be successful in recreating the image of “belly dance” but it can also be successful at furthering essentializing distinctions. This becomes more important as the dance gains in popularity. A popular touring group, Belly Dance SuperStars, provides a good example. Miles Copeland, the music promoter and producer who made his name producing for the popular band “The Police.” In 1998, he fostered the collaboration between pop star Sting and Raí musician Cheb Mamie and produced the hit world music song and album Desert Rose. With that success, he branched into the world music scene. In 2003, Copeland organized an Oriental dance competition to promote the release of a new song. Because Americans

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and Middle Easterners attended that competition and music release, Copeland saw an opportunity for expanding the reach of world music. He created the Belly Dance Superstars and Desert Roses, a touring group of American cabaret, and later Tribal Fusion dancers (Copeland). The Belly Dance Superstars, BDSS, became a hit with Oriental and TS dancers. The touring group now has profiles on MySpace and Tribe.net. The performers regularly teach workshops in America and Europe and are still touring as of the publication of this thesis. The BDSS, as they are often referred to in Internet postings, have formed offshoots, including a Tribal Fusion performance tour. BDSS is where Tribal Fusion dancers, like Rachel Brice, were able to gain superstar-like fame in the dance community and to begin the diffusion of Tribal Style dance outside of California. Ashley told me once, in casual conversation, how she has mixed feelings about BDSS. Its performers have become household names in dance communities and are treated like superstars by many. BDSS is also credited with attracting a wider audience to belly dance. It is through that vehicle of BDSS that Rachel Brice and others were also able to introduce fusion styles and attract people who ordinarily would not have considered becoming cabaret dancers. Ashley begrudgingly admits that she is appreciative of the wider acceptance of the dance but says she is not fond of Miles Copeland, who has fostered hostility in some dancers for selecting only young looking, slim, attractive women to perform a dance that many feel is about inclusion. He is also blamed for sensationalizing Western fusion genres of Middle Eastern dance and neglecting the folk dances and folk heritage of the dance. Ashley’s particular grievance is that Copeland makes his decisions based solely on entertainment value and sex appeal. He has adapted BDSS to fit a Western performance aesthetic with beautiful female dancers, flashy costumes, fancy backdrops and lighting schemes, toe-tapping music, and so on, but in so doing, is reinforcing the overtly feminized “belly dancer” construct. Belly Dance Superstars is pointed to as an example, and Hipnotic members and other Tribal Style dancers may be aware of the hegemonic constructions being reproduced in some cases, but unaware of the hegemonic constructions they themselves are producing. For example, the project of the 1960’s feminists to reclaim “belly

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dance”—in order to minimize its sexualization—and imbue it with feminine power has had lasting repercussions in Tribal dance. Salem makes the point eloquently. “Even though American sexuality of the Orient and even though sexual liberalism seemed to offer new freedoms for American women, the larger structure of race, gender, and class hegemonies remained intact” (Salem 1995:248). Male “Belly Dancers” It is not uncommon to hear dancers explain that Middle Eastern dance has historically been performed for women by women, or that the dance is organic to the way a woman’s body moves. Both are those are technically correct statements. The gender- segregated societies in parts of North Africa and Southwest Asia have limited women from dancing in front of men. The pelvic and torso movement base helps to strengthen and stretch one’s core, without causing sustained damage the way some Western forms of dance can. Because either qualification could apply to women and to men, the direct connection of these to women suggests a gendering of the dance. Oriental dance in reality is done by women and men (Alzayer 2004; Sharif 2004; Sultan). Middle Eastern societies elevate rationality over physicality, however they do not classify dance as feminine as we do in the United States. Dance is seen as something to be done and enjoyed by men and women in a social context. It is not uncommon at a party or social event to see men jump up, tie a scarf around their hips to show off their hip work, and start to dance (Sultan). Indeed, it is much more likely to see a man do this than a woman since women, in mixed gender situations, are limited to watching while it is permissible for the men to dance. The situation is different in a performance context, but as a consequence of Western intervention. Prior to colonization, male performers were common in Egypt and elsewhere. In Egypt, there were periods when female dancers were banned and males actually dressed up like females and danced in their places. Some colonialist writings even tell of travelers who were misled into thinking performers were women, until closer scrutiny revealed facial hair. These stories were used to further the notion of the depraved Arabs whose men engaged in effeminate activities like “belly dance”. When the fancy nightclubs of the early 1900’s opened to cater to Orientalist expectations,

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women were featured, but not men. Over time the Egyptians, not wanting to appear backwards, stopped appreciating male dancers (Sultan). Recall that Sol Bloom brought male and female dancers from the Middle East to perform in the Egyptian pavilion. When it looked as if his project was failing, he called a press conference in which he intentionally sexualized the dance in order to draw crowds. Male dancers are included in pictures and advertisements for the fair, but it was the females he featured, and it is the females who have been remembered (Alzayer 2004; Sultan). The Reproduction of Gender Categories The feminization of “belly dance” was an overtly political project that has been forgotten over time and across space. Even books like Belly Dance (2004), by Australian dancer Keti Sharif, which is informative, well written and thoroughly researched, fall back on stereotypes about dance being natural and thus feminine. In it she calls the dance “soft”, “beautiful”, and “feminine” (Sharif 2004:33). The women of the Middle East, to whom this dance belongs, use it to celebrate their bodies and to communicate a powerful message bequeathed them by their ancestors. They remind us that beyond the confines of society, this is a dance for the spirit (Sharif 2004:4).

The linking of “belly dance” to hegemonic constructions of gender, physicality and dance did not end with cabaret dancers. The magazine Tribal is demonstrative in that includes regular articles on meditation and spirituality and has printed letters from readers that mention the “femininity of belly dancing” (Mandy 2006:3). Nericcio and others make reference to the dance being done by females. “Imagine this: there was a time in history, a long time ago, when the bounce and sway of a woman’s hips was considered so beautiful that they set it to music and made a dance out of it” (Nericcio; 2004b). Four of the seven members of Hipnotic did not make such connections. (Haven), however, along with two members of Hipnotic, Deirdre and Faye did make a link between “belly dance” and natural femininity. Faye said she tells women that …it is one form of movement that really takes advantage of how our bodies are built and how we are shaped. We are curvy and we are soft and we are round. We have these curves and shapes and forms on our bodies and the way our hips move is different. You know, we have hips and it’s, is just really takes advantage of how our bodies are constructed. Our bodies are perfectly made for belly dance (Faye).

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Ashley said she had become so much more comfortable with her body than she was before she danced. Prior to dancing, she wore baggy clothing in order to hide her body. Over time she became comfortable in tight clothing, tank tops and shorts. She credits the dance boosted her self-image and self esteem, and for that reason, she thinks, “every woman should do this.” Both of those points demonstrate how dance can help one to connect to one’s body in a positive way, especially for women who culturally—due to hegemonic constructions of the female form—are more likely to feel unhappy about their bodies (Swedlund and Urla 1995). However both of those dancers also took the next step to connect dance to ‘natural’ femininity. Faye also suggested that women are naturally sensual and erotic, thus that has become tied to Oriental dancing. “It is very erotic and sensual, but that is not its purpose. It is not meant to be, you know. It’s more coming into your own body and being a woman. It’s very feminine. And women are sensual and women are erotic and that’s the nature of things” (Faye). Deirdre said she dances because it makes her feel good about herself and her body. That is a sentiment echoed by almost all of the dancers with whom I have spoken. That, from my positionality, is a strong argument toward taking up dance. But Ashley also said she connects to her body precisely because this dance is a “feminine dance, in the sense that it’s by women, for women.” The comments by both Faye and Ashley suggest a “natural” link between dance and gender, and between feminine sexuality and Oriental dance. This construction was furthered in a comment by Ashley by which she connected Oriental dancing with childbirth. Dinicu published an article citing two dance moves that she learned were used in some of the “less Westernized” parts of Saudi Arabia to help women prepare their muscles for childbirth. She did not attempt to link Middle Eastern dance with childbirth or sexuality in any other way, nor did she suggest that the entirety of Middle Eastern dance is based on childbirth moves or ritual. She stated in the article that her intent was to desexualize “belly dance” and to demonstrate its practicality in helping to strengthen the body (Dinicu 1964). Since that article, the link between birthing and dance is sometimes generalized, as it was in this case. Saying that all “belly dance” moves come out of childbirth movements perpetuates mistaken links between

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Oriental dancing and female sexuality. The dance is beneficial to women because it helps to strengthen and stretch the core, but that can be beneficial to men too. Both Ashley and Faye also suggested a deeper connection between dance and community. Deirdre said “in the Middle East, and a lot of different cultures, I think, family is really, really important, and the grandmothers and mothers and the daughters all live together. The sisters and the cousins, they all hang out. They are always together dancing.” Again that is, in some respects, an accurate portrayal. In the Middle East, harem (which means “forbidden” or “off limits”) was simply the women's quarters. It was the space where women could live and play without fear of intrusion by a non- relative male. Ashley’s portrayal of the communal arrangements of women suggests a romanticized version of the harem. She is not sexualizing the harem, but she is making a link between dance and feminine community. Faye connected Tribal Style dance with the condition of being “primal.” While searching for a word to summarize Tribal Style dance, she attempted several descriptions. “It’s not fundamental. It’s rooted or something…it’s like the core of things for me. When I think of Tribal, I think of the seed, the core, the fundamental basic. Like the heartbeat is.” These anecdotes, and terms like core and seed suggest that the othering function—while diffused—has not been completely transgressed by Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dance. The dancers are not using images of another in a degrading fashion but they are making links between the body, particularly the female body, and a state of naturalness and community. A woman’s body that is bra-less, unshaved, and “natural” is still a constructed body. Furthermore it does not undo patriarchal power imbalances. Instead it reinforces the categorical differences between men and women (Butler 1999). Likewise, the link between naturalness and femininity does not allow women to reclaim their bodies. It reifies the construction of the masculine male. Feminist scholars are particularly concerned with transgressing the reified structures placed onto women’s bodies. The cyborg creation, as coined by Haraway (1991) is about transgressing boundaries, not recreating them. Any cultural ensemble that naturalizes the body is no longer transgressive. Instead it reproduces patriarchal power structures. That is indeed what many Tribal Style dancers are doing by feminizing the dance as an attempt to desexualize

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it. Additionally, any cyborg that reinforces the “naturalness” of an “Other” reinforces the West’s rationalized positionality by which all others are contrasted. Claiming Oriental movements are “natural” and closer to nature and that one can build a better relationship with one’s female body with this dance reproduces normalized categories that link women and their bodies with patriarchal gender categories while reifying the idea of primitiveness, that being in a primitive state is closer to nature, and thus further from our unnatural state of living in the modernized West. Connecting with nature, through one’s body, allows one to escape dialectically from the inessential demands of Western modernity but creates categorical separation between the modern us and the primitive other.

Linking “Belly Dance” with Sexuality

Tribal Style dance—as a project of difference to cabaret—evolved out of cabaret. So the first dancers to do these new styles were cabaret dancers too. That is no longer the case. Dancers may study only a Tribal form of the dance and not have the same, more expansive knowledge, about Oriental dance. So these dancers may not know much about the other forms, but it is communicated that these are all forms of “belly dance.” “Belly Dance” Terminology As discussed previously, cabaret dancers have debated the term “belly dance”. Those who use the term say it is widely understood and makes it easier to market themselves than terms such as Oriental dance, Raqs Sharqi or Middle Eastern Dance. Other supporters of the term suggest that dancers can reclaim it by demonstrating to the public what the dance really is and educating the public about the misperceptions that have been linked to the term. But a large contingent of cabaret dancers say the term is derogatory and needs to be abandoned. It incorrectly labels the dance—the moves do not originate in the belly—and it perpetuates stereotypes. Furthermore, they point to the origination of the term with Sol Bloom as a publicity stunt that was meant to be scandalous. Nomenclature was difficult in this thesis. Because it takes a decidedly activist role in attempting to expose reified power imbalances, it is improper to use terminology

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that reinforces those imbalances. At the same time, it is appropriate to use those terms in specific instances to highlight their very construction. The tribal dancers in my study group commonly used the term “belly dance” even though they said they were cognizant of its sexual implications. “There might be a little more of a disclaimer with people I don’t know that, you know, it is not what you think. It is not stripping. There may be a little more of that tendency to protect it” (Faye). Connie took the same approach. She told people, “I know you have all sorts of weird ideas. Whatever idea you have of what belly dance is, I can see you have this. Put it away!” Ashley, who had been clear that what she does is not Middle Eastern, used that phrase instead of “belly dance” when describing the dance to unfamiliar people, “just to avoid that connotation with outsiders, people outside the club.” Yet, the troupe members all labeled themselves belly dancers. All of the literature, web postings, conference materials, and magazine articles that I have read as part of this research referred to Tribal and ATS dancers as “belly dancers”. Additionally, I did not come across anything to indicate that the term is a disputed one in the Tribal dance world. Instead, the term is being used to encompass a wide variety of Tribal dancers who base their movements on dances from the Middle East. Recall that some even use the term “belly dance” because it is an American term and what they do is an American dance. So they feel that “belly dance” is a much more appropriate to use than anything that hints of an Oriental ethnicity. The use of this term may, indeed, advance Tribal Style dance as a project of transgressing Orientalist boundaries. Audiences, it has been made clear, already equate “belly dance” with any number of power-laden constructions. Tribal Style and Tribal fusion dance, which are based on Oriental movement vocabularies, are clearly not “ethnic” dances in that they are not bound to any one essentialized culture. Describing themselves as “belly dancers” and then presenting a dance that clearly does not fit common notions of the sparkly, solo cabaret dancer may blur the boundaries around “belly dance”. But in some cases the juxtaposition may not be so clear. More folkloric presentations and performances in venues of perceived authenticity may not be obvious fusion ensembles to a Western audience. So some performances in some contexts can

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actually problematize the project of Tribal Style by reproducing hegemonic structures of “otherness.” Inserting Sex into Tribal Style Dance At this point, it is important to note that not all Tribal Style performances are asexual. On the contrary, performers that I witnessed—Tribal Fusion dancers in particular—sometimes laced their dances with overtly sexual moves and costume pieces. I witnessed Tribal Style dancers using sexually suggestive signifiers such as crawling on the stage toward the audience, making beckoning gestures toward the audience, wearing corsets and costuming associated with the Cancan (a dance that was designed to titillate the audience by providing glimpses of the dancer’s legs and crotch while she high kicks) and burlesque. In all of these cases, the dancers did not go so far as to grope themselves or one another, to expose themselves or do anything that mimicked sex. Rather their movements and costumes merely hinted at sexuality. Hipnotic did not do any dances that were overtly sexual and Connie said the troupe tends “to understate.” But, in the same breath, she admitted, “For goodness sakes, that claw dance is steamy—that we do.” Deirdre said it is precisely because the dance is so grounded and powerful that the troupe could push the boundaries around dance and sexuality. “All the (tribal) women look so strong and so like, we are going to kick your ass if you even come near us” (Deirdre). “Just the look of ATS,” said Connie, “is very grounded and powerful and like, you know, you mess with me and I will beat you up, powerful.” In this way, the members of Hipnotic used terms equated with masculinity to elevate the dance. In obtaining this masculine rationality, and control of their sexuality and how it is presented, they felt free to include sexualized elements. As Deirdre said, she feels like the strength of the dance—its strong, controlled femininity—allows her to assert her sexuality back into it. In all cases, the sexualized elements were presented in a manner to suggest to the audience that they were conscious choices, and that those elements were controlled. In other words, the dancer set the terms of her sexuality. The intended message then was that the dance, which cannot be categorically sexualized, and the dancing bodies, which cannot be categorically objectified, can be highly sexualized if

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the dancer chooses. Deirdre explained her changing attitude toward sexuality and “belly dance:” When FatChance came out, that was in the seventies or the eighties when women were trying to say we are not sexual objects, you know, and now we kind of are. We are reverting a little bit I think. But the women are a lot stronger in their sense now. That’s not to say we are out there saying, “Hey, look at us. We are women and we can move now…not to say that FatChance wasn’t strong in that day, but they were trying to send the message that “yes, we are women and we dance for each other and this isn’t sexual in any way, shape or form. And you are not going to see it that way because we are covering up those areas that we don’t want you to associate with that.” But now I think they did that for us. They proved that women were not just sexual objects so now we can be safe and put it out there (Deirdre).

That attitude has persisted. Hipnotic dancers said they do not have to deny their sexuality, like in the cabaret world. But, rather than have it imposed upon them by men, they can reclaim it for themselves. By eliminating the naturalized construction of femininity, by fusing Oriental movements with Western images, by giving the dance masculine traits, objectifying sexuality was stripped out of the dance, allowing the dancers to add it back in…when and where they choose. “We aren’t sensual and erotic just for men. It is not a sexual thing, essentially.” However, said Faye, “it can be, you know. It can be.” Connie says Tribal Style dance is always sensual, in that it is a sensory experience, but it is not always sexual. “It can be sexual but I don’t think it is. A particular dance can be, but overall I don’t think it is. I think we have a hard time acknowledging that the sensual isn’t the sexual.” Sexualized Spaces One of the dancers who successfully auditioned for Hipnotic and then left a short time later was not comfortable dancing in some of the venues where Hipnotic regularly performed. Connie explained that when she auditioned, she was told about the venues. “She was like, OK, whatever, and then she refused to” participate in two performances, “Lesbian Shorts” and the “Horns and Halos” fetish ball. Fetish Balls. Hipnotic had performed in fetish balls in other cities, along with other Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion troupes, and was paid every year to perform at the local fetish ball. It was held in an historic hotel that was reserved for the night. The local fetish ball occurred during my field research period allowing me to witness how the

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dance was presented in this non-normative venue. As the name suggests, the event catered to people’s sexual fetishes; it was demonstrably about non-normative sexual practices. Vendors sold sex and bondage paraphernalia, participants walked around almost nude and in erotic clothing and groups performed simulated sex acts on stage. Hipnotic danced on that stage twice, in between performances by lesbian groups, fire breathers, and sadomasochist demonstrators. One space was dedicated for suspensions, a ritualistic performance in which people are hung by piercings in their skin. That space however was set apart and not easily accessible; thus neither I, nor the other troupe members, were able to locate the space and actually witness a suspension. Several members of the troupe said in advance of the performance that they liked the fetish ball because it was a well-lit, staged show, the audience was appreciative, and it was the highest paying gig of the year. Two of those dancers, who specifically said they enjoyed the staging, expressed no interest in the fetish ball itself. This bore out when they left the premises in between sets and did not hang around afterwards. Erin, on the other hand, did stay. She said she even prefers dancing at the fetish balls to some of their other venues. “I am attracted to the freaks, I guess.” Deirdre said in order to maintain the veneer of control the troupe made sure to eliminate any sexual signifiers from their dancing. According to Faye, “even our costumes do not get any more—you know, I would not feel comfortable dancing in pasties or a g-string. Ever. Not even for my husband.” Costuming elements were, indeed, the same for the fetish show as for other late-night venues where Hipnotic danced. Nothing was added to sexualize the dance. The movements were kept to strictly ITS dance steps. Eye contact between dancers was limited to that needed in order to exchange ‘choreography’ information. No one lifted eyebrows or used other expressions to communicate personal messages. To give one specific example, the dancers, because they worked so closely with one another, had a higher degree of bodily comfort around one another. In practice and sometimes in performances, they would discretely make faces at one another, touch one another or make sexual innuendos. Deirdre said that during the fetish ball performance she felt an impulse to—as a joke—mime licking another dancer suggestively on the shoulder. It is likely the audience would not have seen it because the dancers were so close to one another, however she refrained. She did

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not want anyone to unintentionally see and misinterpret the frolicking gesture as a sexual one. It would have been meant in fun, but in the highly sexualized atmosphere of the fetish ball, it could have been consumed as erotic. Performing at the fetish ball blurs the already fuzzy line between the exotic and the erotic. The dancers send mixed signals to the audience. Connie admits that performing at the fetish ball transgresses any boundaries between sexuality and “belly dance”. “I mean, for some people, it (Hipnotic’s non-normative aesthetic) is going to be their fetish. It will be their turn on. Flat out.” In this case, she recognizes that her troupe could attract a fetishized sexuality, even while they work against mainstream sexual categorization. So the troupe dancers allowed themselves to be fetishized and they danced in a sexualized space, yet they did not engage in any specifically sexualized or provocative behaviors that could further link their dance to sex and gender. This mixed message came up with a conflation of the terms exotic and erotic. “We have some interesting issues with the e-word.” Deirdre said the fetish ball organizer has long wanted to identity Hipnotic in the program as “erotic belly dancers”. Deirdre explained at a practice following the fetish ball performance that the organizer finally gave in this year and did not use the term erotic to describe Hipnotic. He chose the term “industrial belly dancers” instead. They saw this as a victory. By controlling the terminology, along with their own bodily signifiers, they sought to put boundaries around themselves, even within the context of a space set aside for unbounded sexuality. Burlesque. In the course of my field research, I saw multiple fliers for “belly dance” performances in burlesque shows, heard discussion about a “belly dance” burlesque troupe, learned of a single-day workshop teaching burlesque “belly dancing”, and witnessed a member of Hipnotic participate in a burlesque show. Burlesque seems to be an emerging trend in the wider fusion dance world. I draw that conclusion based on the large number of articles, Internet posts and references to “burlesque belly dance” or “triburlesque” that I came across in my field research (O'leary 2006). Faye said she sees irony in taking “belly dance”, which dancers work so hard to separate from the erotic, and placing it into a venue that is teasingly erotic. “If you call it burlesque, it is OK. Just call it a different name and it will be fine. It is still the same thing.”

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It is important to note the difference between “burlesque belly dance” and “belly dance” moves that are altered and placed into a burlesque show. Recall the earlier example of Haven distinguishing between burlesque and “belly dance”. The movement base, she explained, is similar but the “belly dance” steps are much more controlled, kept smaller, and without touching one’s body. Burlesque in contrast is bigger, with more emphasis on forward pelvic moves, widely spread feet and exaggerated touching. So the movement vocabularies are presented differently. One can be a burlesque dancer who only draws on a “belly dance” movement base, or one can be a “belly dancer” who performs in a burlesque show. One is overtly more sexual than another. That said both still place a highly sexualized construction into a highly sexualized space. Cabaret and Tribal Style dancers have expressed mixed feelings about burlesque “belly dance” performances. Those arguing against the practice cite the conflation of sex and Oriental dance. Proponents, however, argue that early burlesque performances included comedy sketches, performance art and adult entertainment. So historically not all performances were meant to be titillating. Also, recall that early burlesque shows featured “belly dancers”. Says Farhana, as cited in Tribal magazine, “Now a days, scholars and cultural commentators agree that performing retro-style burlesque is…faithfully...preserving a form of folk art” (O'leary 2006:21). Her statement is albeit true but misleading. The “belly dance” performances in early burlesque shows were parodies, meant to expose the sexual taboos of the upper classes (Salem 1995). They were highly sexualized and not faithful reproductions of an “other.” Reproducing those images, even in modern times and with the intent of preservation, reproduces the power imbalances in the original performances. One would not reproduce the black face performances from the same time period, which are now recognized as overtly racist, however the burlesque, Oriental dance imitators were no less racist and sexist. The Project of Transgressive Sexuality. In all, these performances were difficult for me. Burlesque and Fetish Ball venues are spaces where sexuality is in one’s face, so to speak, because such performances are meant to be transgressive. They are one of three performance paradigms that Pitts-Taylor identifies as being contextually available for transgressing sexualized constructions. One is to mask the non-normative self. Another is to modify one’s self to signify transgression. The third is to perform an

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“angry self,” in which the body becomes overtly political making the “radical assertion of the right to be noticed” (Pitts-Taylor 2003). The intent is to shock or provoke; such a performance relies upon anger summoned up in certain circumstances and with a political purpose. It is a way of challenging the boundaries between what is considered public and private space, and of challenging the normative construction of most public space. Fetish balls and burlesque shows confront normative sexuality head-on. Although they are not true public spaces, they are open to the public and publicly advertised, thus their existence is a challenge to hegemonic sexual practices. Including transgressive “belly dance” in this context seems to equate. However, as this thesis has repeatedly contended, it is not possible to escape context. The performance venues would be more problematic if the troupe was not so obviously fusion. If the troupe were a cabaret group, if it was an ATS troupe, if it presented itself in “traditional” costuming or with any veneer of traditional authenticity— as would be the case of a “traditional” “belly dance” performance in a burlesque show— these venues would present even more theoretical difficulties. Because Hipnotic’s bodily signifiers are meant to clearly mark the troupe as transgressive, as not trying to reproduce an other, as not reifying gendered and sexualized constructions, their non-normativity is not in question. Their aesthetic and their purpose seem to make sense within the non- normative context of these spaces. Their movement base, however, is inspired by another culture: one that has been categorically devalued and “othered”. Performing dance steps that are reminiscent of that “other” in spaces of sexuality, even with transgressive purpose, creates a link between that other and sex. This reproduces the very link that the project of Tribal Style dance is attempting to interrogate.

Conclusion

Hipnotic in particular and Tribal Style dance in general clearly demonstrate the difficulty in addressing flows and hybridity as a cultural construct. Cyborg cultural creations do, indeed, have great potential to transgress boundaries and to interrogate reified structures that serve to naturalize power relationships. Cyborg creations, with reference to Said (1978), can also have inhumane consequences. As academics study

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cyborgs, they must interrogate them for their destabilizing capacity, and for their potential to reproduce hegemony.

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CONCLUSIONS

No creation is done in a void, and in the global culture that we live in now, we must both acknowledge our influences and honor our inspirations, respect the sources we learn from and interpret them from where we are, in celebration of both our similarities and our differences (Locke 2003:6).

In their introduction to contemporary debates in human geography, Cloke, Philo and Sadler (1991)provide a historical description of postmodernism in terms of architecture. As people grew dissatisfied, they say, living and working in the machine- like structures of modernist architects, builders responded with a new style: The key manoeuvre has been to abolish the homogeneity and the sheer blandness of modernist architecture, and in so doing to replace the mammoth slabs of gleaming white concrete with an accent on variety, colourfulness, attention to detail and the deliberate mixing of building (and ornamentation) styles from any number of sources (Cloke et al. 1991:175).

Like those postmodern architects who abandoned sweeping building rules to construct a new space, Tribal Style dancers—without perhaps consciously adopting postmodernism—are transgressing overarching ‘rules’ about what dance is to create new, spaces for non-normative dancing bodies. The three women credited with laying the foundation for Tribal Style, Jamila Salimpour, Masha Archer, and Carolena Nericco, were all part of the California dance scene and professed a love for Middle Eastern dance, but none felt obligated to teach the steps as they are done in the Middle East. Nericco says “the uniting factor of the three dancers in the lineage is the passion for the essence of the dance form as opposed to representing an exact replica” (Djoumahna 2003c:3). In a move analogous in so many ways to the first modern dancers, but more grounded in Oriental dance vocabularies, the founders of Tribal Style dance chose not to stick to “traditional” Middle Eastern or American dances, but to create a hybrid performance style has come to be a blatant fusion of Western artistic tastes with folk “traditions” of the East. Similarly to modern dance, but unlike other fusion styles that are called just that, fusion, the dance has been adopted and adapted until it has become a force with its own name: Tribal Style. It has become a

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dance form with an identity that is as unique, varied and against the grain as the buildings of postmodernist architects. Tribal Style dance, as a cyborg creation, is bound to space and place at the same time that it is unbound. Because it is temporally and spatially enmeshed within national social constructions and the processes of globalization, dancers are able to pull from multiple cultural sources for inspiration to create identities that have localized meaning. The result is a cultural ensemble that is not “authentic” to any one time or space. While ATS has evolved into a specific genre, Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal fusion dance are not easily categorized. Their newness, and their emphasis on fluidity mean the dance form is constantly transgressing boundaries.

Findings

The intent of this project was to use archival material, interviews and participant observation to determine the deliberativeness of tribal dance as a spatial critique. The research specifically asked just how purposefully tribal dancers use their bodies and what meaning—if any—they are trying to convey to audiences. At root in this line of questioning was an attempt to study one specific performative process of identity and culture formation: the tribal, dancing body as not only moving through space but also as a producer of space. Desexualizing “Belly Dancing” Bodies Oriental dance, as it is perceived, learned and performed in the United States, is riddled with deeply embedded power imbalances. These power imbalances can be reduced to three problematic norms: the devaluation of dance, the devaluation of the “Oriental” other and the sexualization of the female “other.” All three have facilitated the categorization of “belly dance”. All three are intrinsically tied to the formation of ATS, and as a consequence, Tribal Style dance. First, because of the Western distinction between the mind and the body and the privileging of the former over the latter, dance is categorically devalued over more “rational” pursuits. For this reason, dance has been relegated to kinesthetics and history. Dance departments rarely recognize, let alone evaluate dance for its power-laden

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discourses. It is of no surprise then that other departments, notably the social sciences, have neglected dance as a viable area of deep inquiry. In the case of Tribal Style dance, such negligence has kept this dance of another, and the pelvic and torso based movement vocabulary, from entering into mainstream, American dance dialogues, that is, unless the dances are first “Americanized” as was the case with Modern dance and is just occurring with the advancement of Tribal Style. Second, because physicality has been attributed to femininity and rationality to masculinity, dance and dancers’ bodies have been endowed with feminine qualities; classical dance is considered the province of women as normative men do not have the “natural” skill set to dance well. Non-normative men—homosexuals, “primitive” others, the lower socio-economic classes—can dance, but do so with a social stigma attached. Dance has been devalued as a whole because of its gendered construction. That, in and of itself, provides justification for postmodernist inquiries of dance practices. It also makes apparent that any dance interrogation must consider gender as a construct. Tribal Style dance, in particular, is a project aimed at exposing the sexualization of dance, but that falls into the very problematized construction of dance as gendered. ATS dancers, and thus many of the dancers who are studying ATS’s ancestors—Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal Fusion dance—are making the equation between “belly dance” and femininity. Third, Orientalist discourses about the primitive and consequently inferior “Arab” other has led to the creation of imaginative identities for “belly dancing” bodies. Middle Eastern women and the harems—the women’s quarters—are bounded and protected from male intrusion. In contrast, Western fantasy constructions about this female other mark these bodies and living spaces as highly eroticized spaces. The females’ naturalized sexuality “allows” them to be more overtly sexual beings. Thus their bodies are open for sexual exploitation by rationally “superior” others. Cabaret dance, even when it is not understood to be the cultural dance of an “other” due to a loss of context over time, continues to retain these eroticized constructions. In the 1960’s U.S., “belly dance” gained popularity in the nightclubs and restaurants catering to Middle Eastern diasporic communities. Dancers copied the movements and costuming of the dancers in the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Turkish

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nightclubs. What was viewed as iconographic in those countries was considered highly sexual in the United States. Eroticized geographies coupled with social expectations for dancing bodies led to dancers being hired more so for their sex appeal than their abilities. That is not to suggest that all of the cabaret dancers at the time were inept. That is hardly the case, however normative constructions of attractiveness were part of the determinant for who was hired and how those bodies were consumed. Jamila Salimpour, wishing to open dance spaces to non-normative bodies, created the identity of a “primitive” dancing body. That fantastical representation was not authentic to any one person or place and was resentfully called “California Tribal” by other dancers to highlight its speciousness. Her naturalizing and othering furthered reified constructions of “belly dance” at the same time that it accomplished its goal of creating new, non-normative dancing spaces. Masha Archer continued this project by morphing the “othered” dancing body into a de-sexualized dancing body. She took advantage of cultural constructions that naturalize the sexuality of others to create a more natural dancing body that could not be linked with eroticism. She then altered the movement vocabularies to add physical signifiers of power and clothed her dancers to show off their dance moves and not their bodies. Carolena Nericcio, a student of Archer’s, at first reproduced these reified structures due to ignorance. Over time, she became aware of the fantastical construction of the dance and used that to her advantage. Rather than attempt to re-create an authentic dance, she sought to produce a new dance form that progressed the empowerment of women. She was the first to call acknowledge the fusion “nature” of her dance by adopting the oxymoronic name American Tribal Style. Improvisational Tribal Style dancers have inherited the theoretical foundations of ATS. Using available literature to situate my case study troupe, Hipnotic, it is possible to determine that tribal style dancers continue to view the cabaret dancing body as an eroticized, Western construct. They understand that the “belly dancing” body is not an inherent sexual body, but rather one that is sexualized through political discourse. Their project, then, is not to devalue the dance but to deconstruct the identity placed upon and reproduced by cabaret dancing bodies. Tribal Style dancers have kept movement elements—the more erect, lifted ribcage, the more muscularly controlled base, the group

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focus. They have added Western performance elements—theatrical themes, more recognizable rhythms, and Western “street” and sideshow arts. And they have fused all of these onto a Western body. The performances of Hipnotic along with their comments suggest a reflexivity about how identities can be placed onto bodies and how bodies can be used to resist those constructions. Producing Spaces of Difference In creating spaces for bodies that do not have to conform to Western ideals for beauty and for dancers, Tribal Style dance has opened spaces for non-normative, performed identities. Tribal Style dancers can be sexy, attractive, unattractive, thin, plump, blonde or dark-complexioned, these physical attributes are not important. Rather it is through their movements, costuming, and through body modifications—and the reality that they are not attempting to reproduce physical attractiveness—that these dancers reflexively mark their bodies as non-normative. By opening spaces for performed, non-normative identity constructions in the United States, Tribal Style dance has become a cyborg entity that challenges hegemony. Tradition becomes problematized because it is seen as bounded and stable, thus reifying power imbalances. The available literature and the field research provide clear evidence that Tribal Style dancers in general, and Hipnotic in particular, perform resistance to hegemonic constructions of sexualized “belly dancers” and the normative constructions of dancers that are “artificial” and unobtainable by most women. Tribal Style dancers use their bodies to reflexively signify identities of resistance against these reified structures. Globalizing processes not only contributed to the Orientalist construction of the “belly dancing” body, thus giving rise to Tribal Style dance, these processes have opened cultural ensembles across the world as potential sites for borrowing. The objects then combine to create new cultural ensembles and new identity ensembles. Ashley likens the process of fusing to making a quilt. “You know, you are borrowing pieces of fabric from your ancestors.” Those pieces all have meaning to the quilt maker. Ashley says she has a quilt that was made by her grandmother, given to her father and was later passed on to her. “I am like, where did she get all this fabric? Was it part of a dress? Was it a part of a tablecloth or used as a bed sheet? I think of it as that. Especially our costuming, the little bits and pieces, bringing it all together to form a new thing, not necessarily an

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accurate representation.” The final product, the hybrid entity, is about personal, situated meaning, not preservation. Just as temporal and spatial processes contextualize all borrowings, hybridity too is conceived and received differently in different contexts. “Cultures” that see hybridity as a negative wish to preserve current structures (Nederveen Pieterse 1995; 2004). Tribal Style dancers, in contrast, see hybridity as necessary for creating identities that do not preserve the status quo. Everyone constructs and embodies identity differently because it is done within one’s own hegemonic, cultural regimes. “In America, we are very individualistic. This is kind of our mentality. I am going to do what I am going to do and if you don’t like it, screw you. I have that mentality obviously,” says Faye. The ability to choose identity characteristics at a multi-scalar level gives one freedom from nationalistic structures and identity constructions. Thus, Tribal Style dance is steeped in identity politics and embedded within spatial discourses. The cyborg, Tribal Style dance identity is one that seeks to refigure Westernized and sexualized femininity as it is mapped onto cabaret dancing bodies. Tribal dancers reflexively use their bodies politically…portraying the East but doing so in a way that confronts Western, imaginative geographies of the Orient and of the classical Western, dancing body. Tribal dancers, be they trained scholars or not, are aware of the body as a site of social workings and actively using their own bodies for expressing art and a spatially embedded politics of Orientalism; tribal dancers internalize Western cultural norms about dance and borrow foreign elements that they can use to project a body that does not conform to those norms. There is meaning in the fact that tribal dance is transgressive. Even when initial context is lost, the political project of boundary blurring remains. The cyborg meaning, then, is elevated above “traditional” meaning and the project becomes specifically about creating new hybrids that do not fit into traditionally established categories. One performer, Faye was straightforward about her intent of using elements out of context. Referring to the obscene hand gesture that is equated with “giving the bird” in the Middle East, she says, That’s a really good piece of information for me to know if I am dancing in the Middle East, which I probably won’t be. But in the context of being in my own country, dancing

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in my own place, if someone is going to get offended because of a movement that I have done, it is totally, culturally inappropriate for them to do that (Faye).

Her argument is that when she borrows from someone, it is not out of disrespect. It is because she appreciated the borrowing in some way and wants to incorporate it into her own context, and it is meant to be understood in that context. Contextual understandings of “belly dance”, founded on power imbalances, will continue to make it difficult for cabaret dancers to gain societal understanding of their art. Tribal Style dance, however, has the potential to reframe “belly dance” in terms that can be understood and appreciated in the West. Using new formats, Tribal Style dancers can introduce Western audiences to pelvic and torso based movements in ways that undo connections to sexuality and “otherness.” Reproducing Power Imbalances According to Nederveen Pieterse, “as some boundaries wane, others remain or come in” (Nederveen Pieterse 2004:111). In undoing boundaries around the sexualized “belly dancer”, ATS dancers are reinforcing some of the “us” and “other” identities constructed in the Victorian Era. Victoria Pitts-Taylor’s eloquent phrase, “the myth of non-locatedness” sums up the situation. It is a myth that one can neutrally pick and choose one’s identity and cultural affiliations from the vast array of options made available through globalization influences. Those two juxtaposed words, “American” and “Tribal,” highlight the power-laden construction of the dance. The myth of American artificiality is contrasted to the myth of Tribal (or Arab) authenticity. In one respect, those who fuse these two myths are suggesting a new hybrid, or cyborg middle ground outside these two categories. On the other hand, by deploying these two myths (and developing dance moves that resonate with the two myths), ATS dancers reproduce them and their attendant power dynamics. Jamila’s project of de-sexualizing cabaret “belly dance” did not escape “othering” constructions of people from the Middle East. By turning to a more natural, more primitive, tribal being to create a de-sexualized dancing body, she reproduced power imbalances. Those power imbalances were passed along to Archer, who also reproduced nationalist discourses on gendered bodies. Archer attempted to elevate the dance and

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dancers’ bodies by ingraining them with feminine power. Her construction still epistemologically rested on determinist assumptions that men and women are biologically different and that the physicality of dance marks it as naturally feminine. Nericcio has attempted to undo the Occident/Orient binary by acknowledging the purposeful lack of authenticity in what has become American Tribal Style Dance but she has also sought to empower women by retaining the female-ness of this “belly dance” form. The next generation of dancers, the Improvisational Tribal Style and Tribal fusion performers, has the potential to transgress these constructions but they also have to potential to reproduce them. Because American audiences are swayed by lingering perceptions of “otherness” in the Middle East, the dance may be consumed differently than intended. Dancers must be sensitive to the fact that they cannot control the consumption of their dance, and attempt to make artistic decisions that acknowledge the uneven power. That means taking the time to understand what they are borrowing from other cultures and how they are presenting, or representing, it.

Further Research Questions

The thesis focused on the identities constructed by Tribal Style dancers and the reflexive signification of their bodies. Because ATS is relatively new and ITS and Tribal Fusion dance are in their infancy, the movement has only been written about minimally within the dance community and not at all within the academic realm. It was important to explore the power relationships embedded with the temporal-spatial structure of the dance and to conduct a case study to see how some individual dancers are producing or reproducing that structure. This thesis is meant to provide a framework allowing for further investigation of the dance form; this project is the beginning and not an end to possibilities of studying Tribal Style dance. It would be useful to extend the study beyond a case study group to determine more concretely if the reflexive identity project is widespread and to spend more time exploring the Tribal fusion movement. The available literature and the comments of Hipnotic support the conclusion that the dance is a “project” and not just a mélange.

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Field research with other Tribal Style troupes, and polls or questionnaires of large numbers of dancers could substantiate the arguments made in this report. Another limitation in this thesis is a true understanding of how the dance is consumed. A viable next step would be to study audiences to determine if and what meaning they are taking from a Tribal Style performance. This would further the study by determining if dancers are successfully signifying difference with their bodies and what, if any, constructions they are perpetuating. A fuller picture of Tribal Style dance as an artistic movement and a social commentary can only be developed if the production and consumption of meaning are included.

Theoretical Relevance

Studies about a homogenizing world culture are steadily being replaced with ideas about hybridity, cyborgs and third-spaces. Inward looking cultures are loosing prominence as scholars increasingly investigate outward looking, translocal cultures (Barker 2003). Changes brought on by globalization are throwing open the doors to complex discussions about uneven borrowings, cultural ownership, power challenges and identity construction. Dance scholars are only beginning to take up similar discussions. Jane Desmond, for example, is leading a charge that history and migration, and the inter-workings of the two, should be key components of any deep inquiry into dance. Uncovering the changes that occur across time and space serves to uncover shifting ideologies attached to bodily discourse (Desmond 1997). Because of the spatially embedded “nature” of dance, it is important to study not only the transmission of dance but also the physical and ideological changes that accompany the transmission in order to uncover and examine the underlying stereotypes and issues of cultural domination and hybridization. This is especially critical in that the stereotypes associated with dance are often so naturalized as to be transparent. Because postmodernism seeks to investigate the power relations embedded in seemingly natural practices, a geographically sensitive, postmodern study of the stereotypes with regards to dance and dance hybrids can expose hidden layers of power and meaning.

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APPENDIX A

FSU HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE APPROVAL LETTER

198 Florida State UNIVERSITY

Office of the Vice President For Research Human Subjects Committee Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2742 (850) 644-8673 • FAX (850) 644-4392

APPROVAL MEMORANDUM

Date: 11/30/2006

To: Georgia E. Conover 10320 North Possum Run Lane Oro Valley, AZ 85737

Dept.: GEOGRAPHY

From: Thomas L. Jacobson, Chair

Re: Use of Human Subjects in Research Embodiment, Performativity and Identity: Politics of the Body in American Tribal Dance

The forms that you submitted to this office in regard to the use of human subjects in the proposal referenced above have been reviewed by the Secretary, the Chair, and two members of the Human Subjects Committee. Your project is determined to be Exempt per 45 CFR § 46.101(b) 4 and has been approved by an accelerated review process.

The Human Subjects Committee has not evaluated your proposal for scientific merit, except to weigh the risk to the human participants and the aspects of the proposal related to potential risk and benefit. This approval does not replace any departmental or other approvals, which may be required.

If the project has not been completed by 11/28/2007 you must request renewed approval for continuation of the project.

You are advised that any change in protocol in this project must be approved by resubmission of the project to the Committee for approval. Also, the principal investigator must promptly report, in writing, any unexpected problems causing risks to research subjects or others.

By copy of this memorandum, the chairman of your department and/or yo, Jr major professor is reminded that he/she is responsible for being informed concerning research projects involving human subjects in the department, and should review protocols of such investigations as often as needed to insure that the project is being conducted in compliance with our institution and with DHHS regulations.

This institution has an Assurance on file with the Office for Protection from Research Risks. The Assurance Number is IRB00000446.

Cc: Dr. Philip E. Steinberg HSC# 2006.0988

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APPENDIX B

LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT FOR PHOTOGRAPHING AND TAPING

200

Letter of Informed Consent for Photographing and Taping

I freely and voluntarily and without element of force or coercion, consent to photographing or taping by Georgia Conover, graduate student in the Department of Geography at The Florida State University.

I understand the purpose of this research study is to explore how Tribal Style dancers create identities and challenge perceptions of dance.I understand that the researcher's tapes and photographs made in private settings will be kept by the researcher in a locked strong box at a secure location. Only the researcher and her direct academic advisors will have access to these materials and all copies will be destroyed by August 31, 2010. Photographs and videotapes made at venues where the general public will be allowed to take photographs and video recordings will not be destroyed but will be kept in the researcher's private collection. At no time will they be reproduced or disseminated without the prior written consent of the participants.

I understand that my consent listed in paragraph 1 above is totally voluntary and I may stop the use of photographs and videotapes by the researcher at any time. If I chose to stop their use, there will be no penalty of any kind.

I understand there is a possibility of a minimal level of risk involved if I agree to participate in this study. The foreseeable risks are not expected to cause harm or discomfort that exceeds that ordinarily encountered in daily life. I also understand that there may be no direct benefits to me. I understand that the information obtained by the researcher from her review of the documents listed in paragraph 1 above will remain confidential, to the extent allowed by law. I understand that the results of this research may be published and the contents of these materials may be included.

I understand that the researcher will protect confidentially, by concealing names of individuals, organizations and agencies, geographic locations and other identifying information through the use of pseudonyms and fictitious names in the written analysis of this research study.

I understand that the researcher will carefully present any data such as descriptions of individuals and locations to sufficiently disguise them to others, but also to maintain the integrity of the substance of the data. I understand that because the research is being conducted in a small community of dancers, it may be impossible to ensure that insiders will not recognize some individuals, particularly those who hold unique positions in the community. In such situations, even though the researcher has taken the steps to protect confidentiality that are stated in the prior three paragraphs here, confidentiality cannot be absolutely assured.

I understand that this consent may be withdrawn at any time without prejudice, penalty or loss of benefits to which I am otherwise entitled. I have been given the right to ask and have answered an inquiry concerning the study. Questions, if any, have been answered to my satisfaction.

I understand that if I have any questions concerning this research study or my rights, I may contact the researcher, Georgia Conover, at (520) 904-9100 or [email protected], Dr. Philip Steinberg at (850) 644-8378 or [email protected], or the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee at Florida State University, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633.

(Print Name) (Signature) (Date MM/DD/YY)

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APPENDIX C

PARTICIPANT SURVEY

202

PART A

Help me get to know you. Please write your response in the space provided below each question or fill in the oval next to the appropriate response.

1. What is your name?

2. What is your dance name? (If you do not have a dance name, please skip to question 5)

3. Does your dance name have a meaning? 1. No (If no, skip to question 5) 2. Yes

4. What does your dance name mean?

5. What is your age? o Younger than 18 years o Between 18 and 25 years o Between 26 and 30 years o Between 31 and 35 years o Between 36 and 40 years o Between 41 and 45 years o Between 46 and 50 years o Older than 50 years 6. How do you define your ethnic/racial identity?

7. What is your occupation?

8. What level of education have you attained? Ο Some High School Ο High School Diploma Ο Some College Ο Bachelor’s Degree Ο Master’s Degree Ο Ph.D. Ο Other Specify ______

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PART B

This section is to help me learn your dance history. Please write your response in the space provided below each question or fill in the oval next to the appropriate response.

9. List all forms of dance that you have studied (for two months or longer) and how long you studied each form. (Please specify months or years)

10. How long have you studied Tribal Style dance? (Please specify months or years)

11. As a Tribal dancer you…? (Please indicate all that apply)

o Take Classes o Perform for Free o Perform for Wages o Teach

12. Do you perform any other dance styles?

Ο No Ο Yes Specify ______

13. Do you teach any other dance styles?

Ο No Ο Yes Specify ______

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PART C

The next section is to help me learn about your personality and preferences. Please write your response in the space provided below each question or fill in the oval next to the appropriate response.

14. Do you practice any religion? (Optional) o No o Yes Specify______

15. What adjectives would you use to characterize your personality? (Please list three).

16. What adjectives would you use to describe tribal dance: (Please list three).

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APPENDIX D

LETTER OF CONSENT FOR PHOTOGRAPHING AND TAPING SIGNED BY RACHEL BRICE

206

207

APPENDIX E

LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT FOR PHOTOGRAPHING AND TAPING SIGNED BY CAROLENA NERICCIO

208

209

APPENDIX F

CONSENT FOR IMAGE REPRODUCTION, THE DAYTON ART INSTITUTE

210

211

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Georgia E Conover received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Florida State University in 1994. She remained in Tallahassee to cover the Florida Capitol and the State Supreme Court as Bureau Chief for Florida’s Radio Networks, and later as a reporter and finally news director for WFSU-TV/The Florida Channel. While at The Florida Channel she earned several prestigious, journalism awards including the Green Eyeshade Excellence in Journalism Award for business reporting, the Louis Wolfson II Media History Award for Best News Documentary, and the National Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio News Documentary. She was also nominated for a regional Emmy for her documentary work. After spending several years as a full time journalist and part time student, she left the Florida Channel in 2005 so she could devote her full attention to obtaining her Master of Science degree in Geography from Florida State University.

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