University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2015 Walk Like an Egyptian: Belly Dance past and present practice in England Cooper, Siouxsie http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3361 Plymouth University All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior written consent. 1 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Walk like an Egyptian Belly Dance past and present practice in England by Siouxsie Cooper University of Plymouth in fulfilment of a degree in Doctor of Philosophy University College of Falmouth October 2012 2 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Abstract How Belly Dance practitioners in England construct a sense of self-identity, social-identity and identity-in-practice in a border-crossing Belly Dance ethnoscape is of interest for this research project. What kinds of identities-in-practice do Belly Dancers in England construct in order to authenticate their performance? By applying social theories of education and identity formation, in particular Holland et al’s “figured worlds” (2001), it is possible to critically frame the development of a practitioner’s Belly Dance identity over a period of time. The research presents that case that Belly Dance in England has an identifiable past and present practice, one that continually wrestles with ownership of what is apparently a Middle Eastern cultural export. Drawing from a literature based case study of two pioneering artists in the early 1980s, Hilal and Buonaventura, the research describes a distinctive English Belly Dance tradition and identities. There is an explanation of how the English Belly Dance form has since competed on the global stage. The research also describes how current inheritors of that tradition −Anne White, Caroline Afifi and Siouxsie Cooper are taken as case studies− appropriate and signal Egyptian Belly Dance as the dominant reference point from which to authenticate their dancing practice; whilst at the same time subverting the Orientalist paradigm underpinning the Belly Dance trope. Identifying “narratives of authenticity” enable the current generations of English Belly Dancers to form distinctive Belly Dancing identities-in-practice. Drawing from both social theories of education and identity formation and reflexive ethnographic modes of inquiry, Walk like an Egyptian examines Belly Dance in England as a translocated dance form, and the mechanisms which allow its authenticity are analysed. In answer to the research question it is possible for an English practitioner of Belly Dance to produce an authentic Belly Dance performance through the production of various narratives of authenticity, narratives which both borrow from and resist pre-existing narratives of authenticity. 3 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Contents Copyright statement Title page The abstract List of contents Acknowledgements Author’s declaration and word count 1. Introduction page 7 2. Part I Methodology page 26 Part II Literature survey page 43 3. Quintessentially English Belly Dance page 74 4. English Belly Dance presence in the global Belly Dance market page 111 5. Narratives of English Belly Dance practitioners page 142 6. The performance of an English Belly Dance-Self page 189 7. Belly Dance in England performing around the Orientalist mythos page 238 8. Conclusion page 266 Appendices page 285 Appendix A Glossary of Belly Dance terms Appendix B Methods of observation and generating primary data Appendix C Images from Hilal and Buonaventura archive Appendix D Critical Incidents for all three case studies Appendix E Anne White, Caroline Afifi and Siouxsie Cooper images and publicity Appendix F List of Videos, Wesbites, youtube.com clips, Workshops and Interviews Bibliography page 344 4 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Acknowledgements I’d like to acknowledge the support of A J Dalton for the monumental support and patience he has shown over the last four years, and his tea making. I also wish to thank Dr Pauline Prevett for offering her timely and valuable social science methodologies knowledge and expertise. I’d like to thank my long term supervisor Prof Claid, who has been there for the full duration and to Prof Buckland for her timely arrival and expertise. Finally, my appreciation and gratitude to the many women in the Belly Dance communities found in Egypt, England, Europe and America who have engaged in this research project. A special thank you to Caroline Afifi and Anne White for their engagement with the process, the hours of interviewing and discussion they endured. I’d like to acknowledge their words of encouragement and general support throughout the research project. My thanks to various English Belly Dance practitioners who have given interviews, offered access to personal archives, and filmed performance work. 5 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Author’s declaration and word count At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award Programme (s) of study: M.Phil/Ph.D programme Publications (or presentation of other forms of creative and performing work): Cooper, S. (2013) ‘Quintessentially English Belly Dance.’ Eds. B. Sellers-Young & C.E. McDonald. Belly Dance Around the World: new communities, performances and identities. Canada: McFarland and Co. Cooper, S. (December, 2013) ‘The Africanist Presence in Belly Dance.’ African Performance Review. London: ADAD. Presentation and conference attended: TaPRA, Glasgow University (September 2013), Nottingham BEDA study group (September, 2012), POP/Moves, Kingston University (April 2011), Creating Frictions, Newcastle University (April 2010) External contacts: Dr Pauline Prevett (Manchester University) Format of submission for Ph.D: 100% written thesis Word count of main body of thesis: 79,588 Signed…………………………………………. Date………………………………………………. 6 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper Chapter 1 1. Introduction 1.1 The research question This research project emerged during a changing period in my own Belly Dance practice, one that signalled my shifting identity in the field and, more substantially, the impact closer cultural exchanges I forged with practitioners from the Egyptian Belly Dance community had on my practice. These two factors motivated the development of this research project to understand the changing political and ideological landscape of Belly Dance in England. The issue of being a non-Middle Eastern practitioner of Belly Dance provokes the question of whether it is possible for an English Belly Dancer to create an authentic Belly Dance performance. Not only are ethnicity, ownership and identity key issues emerging from this research question but there remains the contentious feminist issue relating to the search for authenticity through training with “Egyptian” practitioners located in a society with a distinctive gender-separation in the public spheres of Egyptian society (Abu-Lughod 2003). I am suggesting here that the Egyptian cultural context represents an antithesis to the Western femininist search for integration, identity and equality beyond a separatist notion of a conservative heterosexual normative in public life. In effect, the search for authenticity through the representation of a gender-separatist culture found in Egypt could be considered a retrograde step, one in which Western Belly Dancers are complicit in turning the clocks back. It remains that the search for some form of validity through a direct experience of the Egyptian version of the dance has become a common occurrence on the current English Belly Dance scene. 7 Walk Like an Egyptian Siouxsie Cooper The research question is how authenticity in the performance of Belly Dance can be achieved by English Belly dance practitioners. Implicitly, answering this question requires us to analyze what constitutes ‘authenticity’. What kinds of identities-in-practice do Belly Dancers construct in order to authenticate their performance? Why is ‘authenticity’ a significant factor in the establishment of a professional Belly Dancing practice? In order to examine these questions, this thesis specifically considers Belly Dance as performed by English dance practitioners. I focus on three current practitioners as narrative case studies, and analyse the multiple narratives each creates and describes to ‘authenticate’ their practice. It is important to add that a variety of these narratives are inherited from an ‘English Belly Dance’ past. It is therefore extremely useful to identify that tradition and its defining narratives as a prelude to the case studies. The dominant ‘other culture’ to Belly Dance in England today tends to be Egypt, and is indeed the case with each of the case studies. The case studies aspire towards an ‘Egyptian’ form of Belly Dance, and consider it to be an indicator of ‘authenticity’. However, my research reveals that deliberately