Setting the Theme

Happy New Year, my loyal readers! 

As the whirlwind of holiday gatherings, get-togethers and parties settles down, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk to you about something important.  

New Year’s resolutions. 

Wait, did I just see a blood vessel pop in your eyeball? 

If you thought this will be another one of those “new year, new goals, new you” kind of posts, well…Ah, who am I kidding?! You’d be wrong to assume your favorite auntie has nothing better to talk about than this - something that the vast majority of people will fail at without strategically applied accountability, planning, support etc. 

In my opinion, setting new year resolutions is a highly personal endeavor and should, perhaps, be exercised in private. However, I do believe in setting themes, be that for a whole calendar year, a month, an evening or a Zoom meeting. 

What is a theme you wonder? Well, in my downshifter interpretation, a theme is a set of emotions that will be the lens through which I view all the events of the specified time period. A collection of guiding principles, if you will. 

For example, my recent holiday family gathering was themed by “coziness, comfort and kitty purrs”. Yes, kitty purrs are an emotion in my world. As a result, whenever I got an urge to go grab another drink, I had to stop and consider the consequences of disturbing a purring cat on my lap. The outcome? No hangover! A win-win. 

The party that followed a few days later was themed as “excitement, generosity, experimentation”. I made 5 (yes, five) multilayered cakes in 2 days to perfect one single new recipe. The experiment was well worth it and sharing this novelty with my guests gave me plenty of excitement. As you can see, setting the theme also means setting the mood and outlining the goals. 

Now, before looking far into the future, let's recap the most recent events. 

Since the inception of the Feral Dancer Blog I have ranted to you about several topics that are near and dear to my heart. From explicit sexuality in traditional Egyptian belly dance to the recipe for a deviant youth. Trust me, I am by no means done ranting. There will be more angry blog posts, more Myth of the Month posts and, perhaps, even new avenues where I can offload to the interwebs all the belly dance related frustration that is burning in my heart. But, as any cat parent can tell you, a good rant is like a hairball: once it’s out, you feel liberated and as the time goes by a new one starts to build up. You know it is going on that new white rug…you just can’t time it perfectly yet. 

Today’s post is not intended as another rant but rather is an opinion piece. It won’t have a dozen or so hyperlinks to substantiate any of my claims. Treat it like Auntie Helen’s personal wish list for the year to come. 

But dread not, Dorothy! That seat belt will get plenty of use in the new year. For now, I’d like to set the theme for the next 12 months.

May it be “empathy, compassion, respect”!

It’s a great advantage to see any and all events of your life through the triple layer of these emotions. It does seem to require superhuman willpower though.   

How many times have you heard the phrase “be kind to yourself”? There are countless self-care gurus and wellness coaches that are shouting exactly this from every corner and soapbox in the world these days. Maybe it’s just me, but I always feel like they come out of the woodwork around the beginning of the year in greater numbers than before. Be kind to yourself, be compassionate to yourself, take time off for yourself, be patient with yourself, respect yourself. All valid advice. Empathy, compassion and respect are necessary components of kindness - there are no substitutes for any of them. So, yes, a good theme albeit a bit broad. 

I’m generally not the one to tell you what to do as I, myself, run on the principle of “don’t tell me what to do and I won’t tell you where to shove it” (makes learning group choreographies extra fun!), but this time I’d like to ask you to occasionally put aside the whole “be kind to yourself” trope and just be kind. Pithy advice, eh? I can totally see this causing a major eye roll. 

Please allow me to demonstrate what I mean by sharing with you the vision I have for this year’s theme.  

I imagine myself not as a dancer and performer, but rather as a member of the audience at non-professional dance events. I’d like to attend as many dance student recitals this year as I possibly can. I want to go see all the performances by all of my dance friends, no matter the style or genre. I hope to be at every summer street festival that has a stage and includes dancers. I will be there watching, smiling, clapping, cheering and admiring. You will hear me from a few blocks away roaring in excitement for my peers.  

This is what gazing through the lens of empathy, compassion and respect is to me. Neither judging nor evaluating, never nit-picking or comparing, just being there and watching with open heart and open arms (for a post-performance sweaty hug, of course).

I remember the jolt of adrenaline that makes your knees wobble when your toes hit that stage. The awkward face muscle paralysis that replaces your smile when you make eye contact with people in the audience. The 181 bpm heart rate that is louder in your own head than the music on stage. The fear of messing it up for everybody in a group choreo. The nightmares of a costume malfunction. The horror of mixing up left and the other left.

I remember all of this and more.  I want my fellow dancers to know that no matter what happens on stage, there will always be a pair of friendly eyes watching and a friendly voice cheering for them. 

Will you partake in the theme I have set for this year?

Let’s collectively celebrate each other and be each other’s Emotional Support Camels. 

Let’s go see performances outside of our usual scope of dance interests. 

Let’s, of course, be kind.        

Have something to add to my tedious ramblings? Get in touch: askauntiehelen@gmail.com

Selective Modesty and Repugnant Censorship: a deviant love affair

Have you ever asked ChatGPT a question you know the answer to and then got your knickers in a knot over how unrefined and flaky AI’s answer turned out to be? 

Yeah, me neither, why would I do such a thing? 

But then I get left unsupervised and things happen..

Today I asked the AI chatbot a burning question I hear often from people who are either uninformed on the subject or genuinely looking for reassurance:

   Do I have to expose my belly to belly dance?  

Here is the answer I got, original formatting preserved:

“No, you don’t have to expose your belly to belly dance! While traditional belly dance costumes often include crop tops or open designs that expose the midriff, it’s not a requirement to enjoy or practice the dance. Belly dancing is about expressing yourself through movement, not about what you wear.

Many dancers choose outfits that make them comfortable, such as:

• Fitted tops or shirts: These can be long-sleeved, short-sleeved, or sleeveless.

• Scarves or sashes: Wrapped around the hips, they help highlight movements without exposing the midriff.

• Flowing dresses: Some belly dance styles, like Egyptian raqs sharqi or folkloric styles, often include full dresses.

• Workout attire: Leggings and tank tops are great for practice.

The most important part of belly dancing is your confidence, enjoyment, and connection to the art form. You can adjust your costume to suit your personal style and comfort.”

Looking almost a decade back when I was not even a baby dancer, but rather an embryo of a dancer, this kind of reply would probably have provided some comfort and reassurance we all need when embarking on a new journey. However, the Auntie Helen you know (and undoubtedly love) today is discontent with what ChatGPT had spewed out. 

I will refrain from going into my favourite rabbit holes of what constitutes folkloric style within the belly dance framework, what the difference between raqs sharqi and belly dance is or isn’t, and why the hell the dresses are so specifically “flowing”. Also, keeping in mind the great principle of “garbage in - garbage out”, I shall make no further comment on practice wear or what makes “traditional belly dance costumes” traditional.  The answers you get from Artificial Intelligence are about as intelligent as your questions.  

There is one item missing from the suggestion list that I feel is of high importance. No, it is not the infamous belly button pasty/navel jewel. It is…drum roll…mesh belly cover! 

You can watch the wonderful Fifi Abdou wearing her mesh belly covers.  Each one matches every costume colour variation she goes through in the course of performing for the royal court.

Mesh belly cover or bodysuit, called “shabaka” in Arabic ( شبكة ), is by no means a modern invention. It has been around since at least the early days of the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema. At some point it became a state mandated costuming piece, required by the Ministry of Culture and its subdivision of The Department for Censorship and Supervision of Theaters, Films, Music, and Dance. That requirement for performers in Egypt to wear a belly cover is still in effect but, according to some sources, no longer enforced. 

For the sake of brevity, I will forego quoting all the revisions that the 1955 law on the censorship of all kinds of “artistic products” has undergone, but here’s an excerpt from an article by Nehad Selaiha that pertains to 1976 ministerial decree laying out the rules and a list of prohibitions:

Article 1 of this decree states that "censorship on artistic products as defined in law 340/1955 seeks to raise their artistic standards and to ensure they contribute to the consolidation of social, religious, spiritual and moral values and to the development of public culture, to unleash creative energies in art, as well as maintain public morality and public order so as to protect the young from deviancy" (Egyptian Civil Code, 340/1955)

(Selaiha, N. The Fire and the Frying Pan: Censorship and Performance in Egypt)

Article 2 of the same decree specifically lists the following:

 7. Showing the human body naked in a manner inconsistent with common values and social traditions. The actors should not be dressed in clothes that reveal physical details that may embarrass the spectators or run counter to what is socially acceptable; the clothes should not give prominence to or scandalously stress the joints connecting the different parts of the body.

9. Immoral scenes or dance sequences that are sexually exciting or counter to decorum and decency in the movement of dancers and actors of both sexes.

Not surprising to anyone familiar with the Hays Code. As you might be aware, in the previous blog post I argued that Egypt had so much going on in the early decades of the twentieth century that it hardly had the time to study or copy the aforementioned self-regulatory code from the Hollywood’s film industry, but rather had its own set of regulations arise from the moral turmoil Egyptians were facing due to the new and fast changing social environment. 

The July 23 Revolution of 1952 brought in a whole new flavour of political agenda that was never seen before in Egyptian arts. Closely aligning itself with the Soviet Union, the new republic set its course for nationalization of traditional arts with a goal of creating a coherent image of Egypt on the world’s political arena among the biggest players of the time. Add a layer of ever-present religious views on decency and value of modesty, and you get a concoction that is stifling the evolution and advancement of the arts in the country to this day.

I get it, Dorothy, this yellow brick road is much too long and falls way outside the scope of this post. Censorship in the Arab world is a fascinating topic. However, what I want you to see and ponder today lies slightly off the main path. 

It is the strangely selective yet inconsistent censorship of female belly dancers’ bodies in the Egyptian film industry, before the Revolution and well after. 

Here is a clip of one of the raqs sharqi’s greatest dancers ever, Tahiya Carioca in the 1952 movie called “Ala Kaifak”.  Notice the gaudy belly button pasty. It is obviously such a scandalous body part the public sensibilities will be horrified if they see it! And now look at her skirt. Not only is it made of semi-transparent fabric but the slit on the leg goes all the way up to the belt base. If you watch to the end, you will see Tahiya spinning right before the music stops. That skirt is way up there showing plenty of bare skin yet the belly button exposure is non-negotiable... 

More of the see-through and low-rise skirts, but no belly buttons! The dancers are Lola Abdou and Nadia Gamal, the year of release is 1954. 

This clip is sure a sight to behold! So many dancers, so many different ways to hide the belly: you will see pasties, jewels, strategically placed fringes, sashes and shabakas. Must’ve been a censor’s delight! Naima Akef is the star of this 1955 film. 

Slightly older film, but one of my personal favourites in an academic sense. Watch Naima Akef perform in all sorts of dance styles in one short clip from 1949. At the 1:53 minute mark you see the dancer in the middle wearing not only a shabaka but also a rectangular pasty over her navel. I no longer have to point out the see-through fabric, enormous slits and rather skimpy bras of all the dancers, right? 

Here’s a couple of clips featuring Soheir Zaki, another Golden Era superstar. The first one is undated and I am not familiar with this particular film so cannot tell you the release year. The second is from 1970. You can also date the movie by her hair style! In both clips the impeccable Zaki wears the shabaka, semi-transparent or mesh belly cover.

And last but not least, Naima Akef again in this undated Golden Era film. Oh, what a talent and charisma! Singing, dancing AND playing finger cymbals! It just doesn’t get better than that. Her costuming is quite remarkable in this clip: sheer dress over what can be compared to a two-piece bathing suit while her midriff and the you-know-what (yeah, the navel) is very carefully and deliberately censored. Kind of reminiscent of what we see on the modern day dancers! Farawla’s shorts in this video do look a tiny bit longer than Naima’s though. 

So, let me refresh your memory from before you were mesmerized by all the beautiful dances. The mission statement of the censorship authority of Egypt states, among other things: “maintain public morality and public order so as to protect the young from deviancy”. 

It is logical to assume then that uncensored belly buttons promote youth deviancy. 

I feel like this is one of the most twisted and egregious offenses on a very small and, to be honest, insignificant body part that I’ve ever seen institutionalized. Someone please put it on a t-shirt! “Warning! Exposure to bare navels causes youth deviancy” sounds about as legit as “chemtrails cause autism”. 

It will always be your personal choice whether to expose your belly and the navel fully or partially when you dance or to cover them up completely. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do, including and especially ChatGPT. Listen to your inner deviant younger self and make having fun and enjoying the moment the primary goal of your dance. 

Have something to say? Get in touch askauntiehelen@gmail.com 

Navel Jewels: a brief history of the belly button pasty

“Your navel is a rounded goblet

    that never lacks blended wine.”  

Song of Songs 7:2

Whatever translation of the Old Testament you prefer (I am using New International Version® here), you have to agree that Solomon's Song of Songs is splendid in every word. It is a titillating celebration of the female body, among other things. So, how did we go from cheekily calling out the navel as something extraordinarily beautiful to navel jewels meant to cover up - specifically - female belly button?

Well, Dorothy - you know the drill. That seat belt ain’t going to buckle itself!

Context is everything, so here’s more than just one verse of the Song of Songs:

How beautiful your sandaled feet,

    O prince’s daughter!

Your graceful legs are like jewels,

    the work of an artist’s hands.

Your navel is a rounded goblet

    that never lacks blended wine.

Your waist is a mound of wheat

    encircled by lilies.

Your breasts are like two fawns,

    like twin fawns of a gazelle.

Song of Songs 7:1-3

The text continues by going up the human body and talking about neck, eyes, nose, head and hair.

Could the navel in this poem stand for something other than the umbilical cord connection point? It is very likely to be the case. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that the poem is referring to female reproductive organs. However, this only applies to belly buttons of the female variety! Men can flaunt their innies or outies all they want (unless it’s Football though!).  Nobody will write a poem about them that would survive millennia, or think of them as something even remotely sensual and evoking. The fact that females of human species are placental mammals too is obviously a controversial topic, ‘cause ya know… a hole is a hole!

Now we shall take a journey backwards down this yellow brick road. You might be wondering what the heck navel jewels are and why I started this post with a screengrab from a 1967 British adventure rom-com called “Follow That Camel”. In one of the scenes of this movie, the heroine is distracting a bunch of officers with her supposedly seductive and exciting belly dance routine. Take a look at the screengrab below to get a better idea of her outfit. (The full movie is available on YouTube. I have to warn you that the belly dancing piece - starting at around the 29 minute mark - is hard to watch as the cringe factor is dialed to 11.)

 “‘Those were the times” you might say and I’d agree with you wholeheartedly. The key word here is “were” - may those times never return from the past tense into the present. You might also say something along the lines of: “That puritan West with its sanitized female body image!”. And you might be right. Especially if you evoke the Hays Code, which is the reason why actresses in Hollywood movies had to have their belly buttons hidden. The Hays Code governed the content of the motion pictures from 1930 to 1968 when it was replaced in the US by the rating system we are all familiar with today.  Foreign films imported into the USA during this time period were subject to the same rules.

However, if you go as far as to argue that this jeweled belly button pasty is a western creation and could only be seen in western movies, I’d have to strongly disagree with you.

Taking a few steps back again, we land in the early decades of the twentieth century. Ah, the times of progress, innovation and sharing of ideas! Also, colonialism, chemical warfare and Spanish flu. Egypt is about to become the Hollywood of the Arab world.  But with the great power of cinema to strike a chord with people’s emotions and embed ideas, comes the great responsibility. It is quite shortsighted to say that Egypt simply adopted Hollywood's model of censorship in movies to pander to its occupiers' sensibilities.

Egypt had a lot - and I mean a hell of a lot - going on in the early twentieth century. World War I had a tremendous effect on the quality of life of an average Egyptian, with economic uncertainty and rising inflation. Not surprisingly the growing dissatisfaction with the king and Britain's rule led to the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Political and economic turmoil weren’t the only concerns of the time.

“Taqâ‘ïq, ostensibly ‘light’ entertainment, in fact addressed such

serious themes as the reconstitution of family around the nuclear model,

the dangers of polygamy, the right to get acquainted to the bride or the

groom before marriage, the dangers of girls’ autonomy for a family’s

wealth, the minimum age of marriage, the way spouses should deal with

their husbands’ misconduct, working women and women in the police

and the army.” (Lagrange F. 2009. Women in the Singing Business, Women in Songs. History Compass)

As the world was changing at unprecedented rate, the highly patriarchal Egyptian society had to find its own vision for the arts and media.

Here I am quoting Dina Mansour-Ille’s article from December, 2012. I highly recommend reading it in full as it will provide greater understanding of the approach to what is acceptable and what is taboo in the arts and entertainment of Egypt and the Arab world in general:

Film censorship in Egypt, which was officially instituted in 1914 by the Palace and the English Embassy, while being administered by the Ministry of the Interior, was not entirely aimed at maintaining public norms and values, but was justified as a military and political necessity regarding matters of national security, which is why it was first administered by the Ministry of Interior. This continued until the establishment of the Ministry Of Social Affairs in 1938, which took over this role and added “safeguarding social order and public morals” to its aims.

(Mansour, D. Egyptian Film Censorship: Safeguarding Society, Upholding Taboos)

Behold, Dorothy, here we swap the yellow brick road for the one made of screengrabs and good intentions of Egyptian Golden Era movies. Do not fool yourself by thinking that the primary market for these films was the western audience - thus the belly button pasties. These movies were made for Egypt and the neighboring Arab countries.

As a side note, the quality of the recordings and, subsequently, screenshots I was able to take, leaves a lot to be desired. However, it’s not hard to see the navel jewels when they’re reflecting light and shining like little belly stars. It is especially amusing to see them under a see-through belly cover or beaded fringe, almost as if the film producers thought “you can never be too careful” and went the extra mile not to upset the censors. Also note the sheer fabrics and the rather high slits of the skirts worn by performers.  

It would truly be a disservice to you if I did not include screengrabs from, perhaps, one of the most known non-Egyptian films starring the one and only Samia Gamal.  “Ali Baba et les 40 voleurs” (English: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ) had not only Samia Gamal bejewel her belly button but the other two bedlah-clad female characters as well.

One can never watch too much of Samia Gamal, so here’s another film starring the beloved queen of belly dance. Akher kedba was an Egyptian movie produced in 1950. In this originally black & white short clip of Farid Al-Atrash singing and Gamal dancing you can also observe a large group of dancers with all sorts of belly button covers!  This is about to change, as after the 1952 Revolution and creation of the Ministry of National Guidance, a unified standard for belly dancers and their navels was established. However, that is a story for another time.

In conclusion, I hope I have demonstrated that Egyptian society had a will of its own in regards to what kind of nakedness is acceptable on the silver screen without the Hays Code’s “guidance”. Censorship in arts, entertainment and broadcast remains one of the many issues plaguing the development and innovation in Egyptian movie industry.

This post was inspired by my latest experiences dealing with contentious topics of Egypt's orientalism-skewed heritage and how it affects current public views all across the world.

As recently as this year (2024) I found myself facing the navel jewel question. An acquaintance of mine asked whether or not I dance with “a sparkly gem in the belly button”. As some of you might know, I have no poker face: what you see is what you get. I was caught so off guard by that obsolete and loaded question that the “Auntie Helen” face came out and the person inquiring quickly moved on to a different subject. My partner, a witness to the whole conversation, later pondered why anyone would ask about something as private as body piercing out of the blue. I had to explain the difference between the navel piercing and the “a hole too close to the unmentionable” navel jewel while trying not to combust into flames. Telling a belly dancing friend this story while still fuming and showing some of the “gem-filled” footage from Egypt-made movies, I got the typical “Oh, self-orientalism!” comment. To me this sounds like “Egyptians had no self-awareness and no agency to conduct themselves in a way that would safeguard their own vision of the land, culture, history and heritage they belong to”. Lets stop stripping people of Egypt of any semblance of self-identity and free will in historical or any other context.

Have something to say? Get in touch askauntiehelen@gmail.com