Men in Middle Eastern Dance

Have I mentioned how much I enjoyed the workshop I took with Tarik Sultan? A New York dancer, well-known as the protégé of Morocco but an artist in his own right, Tarik taught a choreography to Saad's "Il Abd Lilah" in the Sha'abi style of Cairo. He sold a CD of hard-to-find Sha'abi music, which I have been enjoying immensely. In fact, I was just listening to it on my Ipod. One song is called "Weeka", but to me it always sounds as if they are singing "Weekend!", which is what I'm looking forward to right now!

After that workshop, I looked Tarik up on Youtube and discovered that there are several men working in Middle Eastern dance. Not nearly as many as the women, but there are quite a few. I have had male friends ask me about whether men can belly dance and whether men DO belly dance, so I've created this Youtube playlist to demonstrate that not only do men dance, but they choose to do so in a variety of ways. It must be a challenge for them: finding costumes, finding a teacher when so many belly dancer teachers only teach for women, learning how to adapt the movements into a style that fits their body, and of course, crossing gender boundaries when most people in the Middle East and America think that belly dance is for women, at least in the public performance arena. Folkloric dances on the other hand often involve men. For example, Raks Assaya is derived for a male dance/martial art called Tahtib. Some male dancers seem to stay in the realm of folklore, or become choreographers and teachers, but do not perform Raks Sharki (the traditional bellydance solo performance). I recently took an assaya (cane) workshop with Mohammed Shahin, a former member of the Reda folkloric troupe in Egypt. I haven't found any Youtube performances of his that aren't folkloric. Besides Assaya, I have also seen him perform the sailor role in a melaya leff tableau, and he is also famous for his tanoura (skirt-spinning ala Sufis). I have also taken a workshop with Jim Boz, an American dancer who definitely performs both raks sharki and fusion bellydance. He is a LOT of fun. This playlist includes all the dancers I've mentioned and more.

When I was in Egypt, I was talking to a jeweler there about dance and dancers, and he asked me if I knew about Tito. Well, of course I know about Tito! He's absolutely amazing. This man agreed, and said that in fact he would rather watch Tito dance than a woman. He said to me, Tito is better than any female dancer in this country. Of course, while Tito defies gender stereotypes by dancing professionally, he doesn't defy the societal rules for men. Men are permitted to be in public life. It's not shameful to watch another man dance, and your wife isn't going to be upset about it. Or so I would suppose – I am not a sociologist, but I know enough to know that I can't make statements like this. However, I've read a lot of articles about men and Middle Eastern dance, and my conversation with the Egyptian jeweler seem to dovetail nicely with the sentiments in those articles.