Stavros Stavrou
Karayanni

Lecture

Male Performers Of Oriental Dance: Myths, Cults And Politics

This lecture demonstration takes on the controversial issue of men performing folkloric or cabaret forms of belly (or Oriental) dance and examines the various politics that surround such performances.
 

My presentation will focus mainly on two contexts where this dance may be performed by men: informal gatherings with improvised movement from the Oriental dance vocabulary, and, secondly, formal, rehearsed stage performances by renowned male performers.

There will be comments on the varying socio-cultural implications of these performances as well as some speculation about the future for a male involved in oriental belly dance.

Such speculation about the future is useful in that it informs existing concepts on the male dancing body and notions of masculinity and what forms acceptable movement in masculine terms.

Even though my presentation will concern itself specifically with male performers of Oriental dance in a loosely defined “Western” context, my discussion will inevitably open up issues of East and West, globalization, and changing norms regarding movement and ethnic and gender identity.

My lecture-demonstration will begin with a foray into the historical past of male public dancers in the Middle East in order to assess their role as entertainers and cultural purveyors.

It will continue by examining the contribution of some of today’s prominent male Oriental dance performers.

Their male dancing bodies are at once the object of fascination, controversy and tension.

My study of the male Oriental dancer will re-visit issues of national identity and masculinity and assess how the male dancer negotiates his intervention in these politics and how he strategizes his resistance or his acquiescence in the contemporary status quo of dance.

Their performances will be contrasted with improvised dancing from non-professional male dancers in order to study the various spaces created by the male body performing potentially unorthodox kinesthetics.

Stavros is a panelist for our Panel Discussion on Male Bellydance