The Belly Dancer Project: A Phenomenological Study of Gendered Identity through Documentary Filmmaking by Ramsi Kathryn Watkins A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved March 2012 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Bob Bolin, Chair Michelle Hegmon Hjorleifur Jonsson ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2012 ABSTRACT In this study, the researcher develops a documentary-driven methodology to understand the ways four women in the United States use their involvement in the belly dance phenomenon to shape their ongoing individual identity development. The filmmaking process itself and its efficacy as a process to promote self- understanding and identity growth among the participating belly dancers, are also investigated phenomenologically. Methodological steps taken in the documentary- driven methodology include: initial filmed interviews, co-produced filmed dance performances, editorial interviews to review footage with each dancer, documentary film production, dancer-led focus groups to screen the film, and exit interviews with each dancer. The project generates new understandings about the ways women use belly dance to shape their individual identities to include: finding community with other women in private women's spaces, embodying the music through the dance movements, and finding liberation from their everyday "selves" through costume and performance. i DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the beautiful dancer in each of us. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Bob Bolin, for his teachings, inspiration, and patient guidance since my first day of graduate school, in August, 2001. He taught me to truly critically question the world around me, and more than once forced me to critically question my decision to give up this dream. I thank Michelle Hegmon for showing me the path to become an anthropologist in The School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and for continuing to open doors for me along the way. I also thank Leif Jonsson, who has provided encouragement, insightful critique, and friendship during this process. To all of the wonderful, acerbic, uplifting, and loving friends that I‘ve been fortunate to make in graduate school at ASU, I also owe my gratitude. I will keep the good memories of these days with me forever. I also owe my gratitude to the numerous other brilliant, insightful, and kind faculty members at ASU and at my new home, San Juan College, who have guided my research and cheered me into their ranks – when you read these pages, you will see evidence your influences. I thank my whole family for their love, and particularly my Mom and Dad Jim, for believing in me every minute I do not. I thank my daughter Marlee for inspiring me to complete this even while my intense love for her drew my attention from my work. I thank my new children, Luke and Nikki, for giving me reasons to begin a new phase of my life and to show them that they too can achieve anything for which they work hard. And I thank the love of my life, Matt, for his eighteen years of unceasing faith in my abilities, and for sending me confidence from far or near whenever I have needed it most. I did not do this alone. Namaste. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE BELLY DANCER PROJECT ................. 1 Seeing through a Phenomenological Lens .................................................. 5 Methodology under Investigation ................................................................. 8 Feminist Research and the Shifting Balance of Research Power ............ 9 2 THE GENDERED IDENTITY PROCESS .............................................. 16 Gendered Identities ....................................................................................... 18 Gender Identity and Community................................................................ 27 Gender Identity and the Body ..................................................................... 34 3 A DOCUMENTARY-DRIVEN METHODOLOGY ............................. 50 An Overview of the Documentary-Driven Methodology ..................... 50 Steps of the Documentary-Driven Methodology .................................... 52 4 BELLY DANCE PAST(S) AND PRESENT ............................................. 69 Invented Traditions and Spiritual Belly Dance ........................................ 71 Belly Dance Style ............................................................................................ 77 Phoenix Area Belly Dance Community ..................................................... 79 5 FILMMAKING AS PHENOMENOLOGICAL DISCOVERY .......... 85 Why Make a Documentary? ......................................................................... 86 The Tradition of Documentary and Ethnographic Film ....................... 88 Producing the Documentary-Driven Methodology ................................ 94 iv CHAPTER Page 6 INTERVIEW AS OPEN MICROPHONE .............................................. 106 The Interview Topics .................................................................................. 109 Filming the Primary Interview – Behind the Camera ........................... 112 Editorial Interviews ..................................................................................... 114 Filmed Interviews into Film Plot .............................................................. 118 Exit Interviews ............................................................................................. 120 7 PERFORMANCE AS IDENTITY ENACTMENT .............................. 125 Desire to Embody the Dance .................................................................... 130 Performance Production (Behind the Camera) ..................................... 134 The Stories they Dance ............................................................................... 137 A Note on Performance Music ................................................................. 144 8 FOCUS GROUPS AS SHARED REFLECTION .................................. 146 Tailored Focus Group Composition ........................................................ 147 Tapping the Community ............................................................................ 151 Focus Group Structure and Facilitator Moderation .............................. 154 Organizing Focus Group Data ................................................................. 156 Mahin and Nerissa‘s Focus Group Data – Cabaret Belly Dancers .... 158 Terri‘s Focus Group – Troupe Salamat, Tribal Belly Dance .................. 163 Understandings about Community .......................................................... 167 9 REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS ................................................. 169 Ethics of The Belly Dancer Project .......................................................... 169 Story of Our Stories..................................................................................... 172 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 176 v APPENDIX Page A INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD EXEMPTION AND CONSENT FORMS .............................................................................. 187 B INTERVIEW TOPICS ............................................................................... 193 C THE BELY DANCER PROJECT FILM .............................................. 195 D THE BELLY DANCER PROJECT FILM TRANSCRIPT .............. 196 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Sample Emergent Interview Themes in Film Production........................ 119 vii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE BELLY DANCER PROJECT Belly dance exists at the edge of our imaginations, where the histories we think we know, collide with the exotic images we entertain in fantasy. The promise that a belly dancer can experience this alternate reality with other dancers or with an audience, presents perhaps the most potent draw that the belly dance phenomenon possesses (The Belly Dancer Project Documentary Voiceover). This dissertation research project (The Belly Dancer Project) is designed to examine individual identity development by looking at some of the ways women reflect on their belly dance practices. I employ a reflexive methodology that allows belly dancers to react to their own narratives and the stories of other dancers, in order to add their own thoughts to the developing Belly Dancer Project story. This methodology is dual-layered, in that it also incorporates a critical reflection about my own experience of the research process In this process I guide several featured dancer participants through an exploration of their identities as they are interlaced with the participants‘ everyday lived practices of belly dance. To do this, I begin with an individual interview; then also film each dancer in a solo or group (of their choice) performance of their dance art. The filmed data generated from these methods are reviewed with the dancer in order to generate additional reflections and allow her into the editorial process. The raw footage is then edited together with the three other featured dancers‘ footage into a documentary film. This compiled video is then screened by the dance group/friends each dancer chooses to invite (in the form of several filmed focus groups), in order to capture these belly dancers‘ reactions to the featured dancers‘ stories and