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Chapter 1 “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate”: The Multiple Parallel Traditions of Belly Dance

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Ethno Identity Dance for Sex, Fun and Profit

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Abstract

Shay introduces belly dance as a sexy ethno-identity dance. He looks at the genre both in Egypt and the United States, and writes that it is sex which draws the viewer, particularly the heterosexual male viewer. Belly dance was introduced to the West at nineteenth-century world fairs, particularly the Columbian Exhibition in 1893, where it was considered to be scandalous because of the dancers’ race and their lack of corsets. He addresses the terminology of belly dancing, its movements and aesthetics, and its history from the ancient world to the present. Shay refers especially to cabaret belly dancing, its acceptance in the 1970s by American women who were eager to learn it, and issues of orientalism that surround it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pomona College, Claremont, USA

    Anthony Shay

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Shay, A. (2016). Chapter 1 “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate”: The Multiple Parallel Traditions of Belly Dance. In: Ethno Identity Dance for Sex, Fun and Profit. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59318-4_2

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