Youssef Nabil's "I Saved My Belly Dancer": An Homage to the Golden Age with Salma Hayek

The Golden Age of Egyptian belly dancing, say from the 1930s to the 1960s, has been an occasional subject of this blog; from the era of Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal to that of Nagwa Fouad and Fifi Abdou. Islamists and state puritanism have soured the art and reduced it to a bump-and-grind shadow of itself at its artistic peak.

Egyptian artist and photographer Youssef Nabil has evoked the period in a series of photographs and a video entitled "I Saved My Belly Dancer." A selection of photos here, and articles reviewing it here and here. To add to the appeal, the photos and the video star actress Salma Hayek. The Mexican actress is, of course, of Arab ancestry as her name reveals.

It's artsy and the Western theme seems a bit forced. The full video doesn't appear to be online, but a four minute excerpt is below. That is, for those who are still reading and didn't just jump to the video when they read the words "Salma Hayek."

"The Haifa Wehbe Defense"

The next part of my "On to Baghdad" series is coming later tonight. Meanwhile: Amid the worsening situation in Syria it may be worth offering a lighter topic. You may recall that last summer Egypt arrested and jailed two belly dancers for "inciting debauchery."

Well, now CairoScene reports, the two dancers, sentenced to six months, have had their sentences reduced from six months to three months, using for their appeal videos of Lebanese singer/actress/diva/superstar Haifa Wehbe. The appeal was successful.

This was apparently one of the Haifa Wehbe videos. Apparently the court was persuaded by "the Haifa Wehbe defense." Judge for yourself. I don't get the space imagery, either. But I must hand it to her, as Lebanese grandmothers go (and she now is), Haifa does it better than the tacky dancers who were jailed for nothing more than dubious taste.

"Khalli Balik min Zouzou" Online

Yesterday's post made reference to Suad Husni's 1972 film Khalli Balik min Zouzou. I have now learned the entire film is available on YouTube. If you know Arabic and have a couple of hours to spare, here it is. Note that the dress of university students at that time would be quite different today.

A Follow-Up on the Reda El-Fouly Case

Here's a follow-up to my Friday post about the arrested belly dancers. particularly the case of Reda El-Fouly. Veteran Egypt hand Jane Gaffney has passed on some additional notes and given me permission to quote them here:

[A mutual friend] was over last night and we caught said "belly dancer" trying to defend herself on Wael Ibrashy's talk show 10PM.  Also present was her accuser, seemingly a member of the public who took offense at the lady's work. She tried to use her government license to practice her trade as evidence that her work was professional, not criminal. El Fouly also claimed that SHE had not posted the videos on YouTube and had no means to have them taken down. As you know, anyone in Egypt can lodge a complaint with the prosecutor's office and if this officer of the court finds that the case has merit, the government pursues a criminal case.  From Yousef Chahine to Adel Imam, many an artist or writer has found him or herself in this predicament.

But here's the kicker: While "Hands Off" was condemned, the real outrage it seems among many Egyptians is her rendition of a song-and-dance number performed by the late beloved Suad Hosny in the wildly popular 1970s film, Khalli Balik min Zouzou, a light-hearted tale of a college girl who captures the heart of the most handsome guy on campus.  Jealous co-eds conspire for him to find out that after school, she performs along with her mother, a professional belly dancer at weddings.  Hosny's song, Ya wed, ya ta'il, was cute and her dancing very modest.  Ibrashy's is also a call-in show, and among the callers was none other than the late performer's sister, who lambasted El Fouly for dishonoring her sister and a song that is emblematic of 1970s youth culture in the form of an innocent love story.

 And furthermore:

I forgot to mention one thing about the good lady [but it is too snarky to put into your blog?][My answer: no.] In addition to her horrible outfit on the talk show, she had blue eyes that looked fake!  Blue or green tinted contact lens are all the rage among Arab entertainers these days [along with hair extensions and bad nose jobs.]  This is likely the latest "Turkish drama" effect!  Turkey, I read somewhere, has the highest rate of green eyes in the world.

The lenses are also, it seems, a big fad among American teens in some places.  They are dangerous, because they are purchased without a doctor's exam/advice.  The worst of them are bigger than the normal eye, which can seriously harm the surface of the eye. I saw one Kuwaiti actress with what were clearly these outsized lenses.  Ah, what price "beauty?"

Now, the Suad Husni/Khalli Balak min Zouzou connection is very interesting. The late Suad Husni was one of the most popular actresses in Egyptian history. I have blogged before about the mysteries surrounding her death in London in 2001. Her 1972 film  Khalli Baliak min Zouzou (Watch Out for Zouzou) is perhaps her most famous film, and the song referenced above its most popular song. So this may account for some of the outrage. Don't mess with the sweetheart of Egyptian cinema. (The film also included the aging Tahia Carioca, in fact.)

Suad's rather restrained dance in Khalli Balak min Zouzou:

A Bad Year for Belly Dancers as Egypt Charges Two More for "Inciting Debauchery"

 It's proving to be a difficult year for belly-dancers in Egypt,  two years after the Muslim Brotherhood lost power.. Late this week two more were charged with "incitement to debauchery" (التحريض على الفسق) (link is in Arabic; for English accounts see here), based on videos they had posted. Just a short time ago (though I didn't mention it here) another dancer and her manager were charged with the same crime, and earlier, the dancer Safinaz (also known as Safinar) was sentenced to six months in prison for "insulting the Egyptian flag"; that sentence was recently upheld by a court.

Safinaz' Flag Outfit

I had posted about the Safinaz case in March; be sure to read the two comments by commenter "anonymous," on the political context.) Insulting the flag is a crime in Egypt, and I guess incitement to debauchery must be, too, though I don't know what the legal definition may be. (American courts would call it "unconstitutionally vague," but in Egypt vagueness may be the intention.)

Earlier this month, dancer Reda El-Fouly was charged with incitement to debauchery, along with her partner Wael Elsedeki (who some reports say has fled the country), posted a YouTube video  that soon went viral; she's facing a year in prison. The video, Sib Eddi (Hands Off) is suggestive but pretty mild by Western music video standards; yes, she shakes her assets in a low-cut dress and teases the viewer, including closeups of bouncing cleavage, but nothing that couldn't play even on puritanical US broadcast TV:

بالصور.. القبض على الراقصتين شاكيرا وبرديس بتهمة التحريض على الفسق http://www.youm7.com/story/2015/7/22/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A8%D8%B6-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%B5%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%B4%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B3-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B6-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-/2273672#.VbKpPPmRbnf

بالصور.. القبض على الراقصتين شاكيرا وبرديس بتهمة التحريض على الفسق http://www.youm7.com/story/2015/7/22/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A8%D8%B6-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%B5%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%B4%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B3-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B6-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-/2273672#.VbKpPPmRbnf

OK, it's suggestive (and the still is focused right down her cleavage), and the cleavage closeups  are meant to titillate (pun intended), but there's no nudity. It's a tease. Mild by Western standards, but is this really a belly dance, or a shake-your boobs-at-the camera-dance? The true Eastern Dance or raqs sharqi is about controlled movement of the whole body, by all means including but not limited to the breasts.The video is not a crime punishable by law in my view (though Egyptian prosecutors disagree) but it may be a crime against a longstanding tradition of genuine artistry and control.

Now, before I discuss the two latest arrests, let me pause to note that to call this "belly dancing" in the land of Badia Masabni and Tahia Carioca suggests the debasement of the art in modern times. I've touched on the classical age of belly dancing before, and posted videos showing the classic works by great artists of the 1940s and 1950s such as Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal (or even better, Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal together) not to mention the masters of the 1960s through the 1980s such as Nagwa Fuad and Fifi Abdou, dancers who really put the belly in belly dancing with amazing muscular control, rather than dancing around bouncing halfway out of a low-cut dress. Reda El-Fouly is weak tea indeed, by those standards. Incitement of debauchery? Nah, not really. (If this is illegal, why is superdiva Haifa Wehbe, who regularly shakes her generous assets, not doing hard time?) El-Fouly is relying on a single (well, obviously double) asset rather than the coordinated skill of her whole body. Compare this video to the Fifi Abdou clips above. There may be a belly dancing Gresham's Law at work here. I don't think either the classics or El-Fouly clips "incite debauchery," but the former are erotic and the latter just suggestive unless you're a horny 17-year-old male, in which case you consider everything, including moss on a north-facing rock, somehow sexy and masturbate to it.

End of rant. The two arrests this week were of two dancers who go by the names of Bardis and "the Egyptian Shakira" (obviously to distinguish her from the international singing star). They were arrested at a club, or two separate clubs depending on the report, in the Giza neighborhood of Mohandeseen, but again for videos posted online. Here's a news clip of them being loaded into a paddy-wagon

They were initially ordered held for four days, but may be sentenced to much longer. It isn't clear what videos produced the objections in these two cases. Some of their dance videos can be found on YouTube, though I don't know if they're the offending ones. You can search for them if you like, but if you;re in it for the art search for Samia Gamal or the others mentioned earlier instead or check out the links above. I may not consider their dancing up to snuff, but I don't really think jailing young women for dancing what was once a respected (if now declining and somewhat debased) art form is really Egypt's biggest problem right now.

Belly-Dancer Safinaz Briefly Busted (ahem) for Wearing Egyptian Flag Colors

If it's so offensive, why did Ahram Online publish it?

I'm sorry: ISIS killings, the destruction of antiquities, Netanyahu's attempt to hijack Congress, etc. have distracted me from other things, such as Egypt's arrest of one of its most popular belly-dancers for dressing in the colors of the Egyptian flag. Since there haven't been any major belly-dancer controversies since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, I should note it here.

The Armenian-born dancer Safinar, better known as Safinaz, was summoned for investigation of charges that she insulted the Egyptian flag by dancing in a costume or the national colors (photo).

It is reportedly the second time she has been accused, the first being last year. I think the photo is from that incident. At the time she apologized and said she had meant no offense; it is not clear if this is a new incident or an arrest stemming from those charges. [UPDATE: See the comments.This seems to be a revival of the original complaint.]

Trying hard not to make "busted" jokes

Since coming to Egypt around 2013 she has been extremely popular. Last year she was the most-searched-for person on Google in Egypt. President Sisi was third.

This would suggest that even patriotic Egyptians may have felt she had found a new way to wave the flag, or at least bounce it patriotically.

One of her videos (from Jordan or somewhere; she'd have to wear more in Egypt these days):

Aswany on Belly-Dancing in Egypt Today for NYT

Alaa Al Aswany, the novelist (The Yacoubian Building) and critic, has a piece at The New York Times on attitudes towards belly dancing in Egypt today. Much of what he says is familiar ground: despite socil disapproval it is highly popular. He cites the famous Tahia Carioca (see my posts here and here for videos)

He notes:

In just one recent month, a video by the Egyptian-Armenian dancer Safinaz was viewed by Egyptians more than four million times. The Lebanese star Haifa Wehbe’s dance video got more than 10 million hits. Oriental dance evidently provides light relief from the general state of tension, but there is more to it.

Oriental dance has always been controversial in Egyptian culture. Egyptians love belly dancing, as it is commonly known in the West. Tahia Carioca, a legendary belly dancer, declared to the newspaper Al Hayat in 1994, “Go to any wedding party and once the music starts up, you’ll see all the girls in the family suddenly get to their feet and dance like crazy.”

The NYT may provide "All the News That's Fit to Print," but it didn't post the videos. Where the NYT fails, I step in. I believe the Haifa Wehbe video is this one (the movie from which it comes, Halawet Rouh, is banned in Egypt at the moment (the censors cleared it vut the PM stepped in), doubtless fueling the popularity of the video:



I'm less confident about which Safinaz video he's referring to, as there are many this year to choose from, but I rather suspect it may be this one, which is, shall we say, one where her, um, bouncy parts, are very bouncy:

How Old is Egyptian "Belly-Dance," Anyway?

During the Muslim Brotherhood year in control of Egypt, I frequently reported on the decline of the art of raqs sharqi or "Eastern dance," what Westerners call the belly-dance, in Egypt, and promised a series on the history of that fine art. I still hope to find the time to do that.

Egypt is often considered one of the true roots of the dance, for reasons we'll consider in detail eventually. That can be documented from the 19th century onward with some confidence. But just how far back does it go?

This is not meant as a serious scholarly post by any means, but I want to present two photographs. The one on the left is one of the earliest human figurines found in Egypt, a terracotta figure of a woman now in the Brooklyn Museum and usually called "Dancer" or "Bird Lady." It dates from the Pre-Dynastic Naqada IIA Period, about 3500 BC or 5500 years before the present. At that antiquity one expects earth mother goddesses, but they would not be covered below the waist. Is she a dancer?

The photo on the right is of Dina, sometimes called "the last Egyptian belly-dancer" due to the influx of foreigners. It's a screencap from one of her performances. She is obviously wearing (though only slightly) more above the waist than her 5500 year-old predecessor, but I was struck by the resemblance. Anybody looking for a dissertation topic?

Just When You Feared Egyptian Democracy was Becoming a Farce, Sama ElMasry is Running for Parliament

So you were basically right. Not only are they jailing journalists for "damaging Egypt's reputation" (hint:  jailing journalists damages Egypt's reputation more than journalists possibly can), but now Sama ElMasry has announced she is running for Parliament, and will "expose" the Muslim Brotherhood, which seems to have more than enough troubles already. (History repeating itself as farce yet again.)

Sama's the One on the Left (Facebook)

You may remember Sama, usually referred to in the foreign media as a "famous Egyptian belly-dancer," but who is better-known as a self-promoter, satirist and foe of Islamists than for her dance. (She is famous though, and Egyptian, and dances, but that's not why she's famous.) She first came to the world's attention in 2012 in what may be the best headline the original Egypt Independent ever ran: "'Nose Job' MP Files Complaint Against Belly Dancer Who Says She's His Wife." That link is apparently dead now, but I blogged about it here. In 2013 she rose considerably above her limited fame as a former news presenter who tried to make it as an actress and belly-dancer/singer, appearing in three films and releasing three songs, none of them hits. But then she began a series of satirical YouTube videos making fun of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and, in her most viral video of all, skewering President Obama, Ambassador Anne Patterson, and America as pro-Morsi. I dealt at some length with the phenomenon here.

But she's ready to heed her country's call in its hour of need. She's going to run for Parliament. She's already started a new show on a new channel explicitly calling itself Fallul ("remnants," the term for the old regime supporters of Mubarak), in which she attacks the Brotherhood. She's a Sisi supporter and plans to run in Sharqiyya Governorate, Morsi's home province.

I don't know why she receives so much attention, but then I can't figure out what Kim Kardashian is famous for, either. It will draw media attention, which otherwise might be concentrating on all those jailed journalists.

Speaking of Mena House: Fifi Abdou Dances There in 1986

The third installment of my series on the First Cairo Conference will be up later this evening. We talked a bit about Mena House, the grand old hotel near the pyramids, in the first post, since it was the main venue of the summit. While digging a bit on the history of the hotel, I also stumbled on some video that directly addresses another topic this blog occasionally has discussed: decline and fall of the Cairo tradition of raqs sharqi, the "Eastern dance" that Westerners call the belly-dance, in the age of political Islam. The few remaining venues for the art in Cairo are luxury hotels or dinner boats where the clientele is mostly foreign tourists and Gulf Arabs priced beyond the reach of regular Egyptians; more and more performers are American or Eastern European, with fewer and fewer Egyptians. Fifi Abdou, one of the last of the greats, was at her peak in the 1970s and 1980s, dancing at several of the most prominent hotels, and was the regular star at Mena House in the 1980s, before shifting to the Sheraton Al-Gezira in the 1990s. She retired in 2006 though she has also had a career in film and is now about 60. Last year she made the news for arguing that belly-dancers should not be taxed for customer tips, turning a tax case against her into an opportunity to defend the profession.

Already in her day the dance was under fire from Islamists and at one point the Grand Mufti barred her from making the hajj to Mecca. She was reportedly harassed occasionally by police.

These two videos show Fifi Abdou dancing at Mena House in 1986; it is a classic performance that shows why they call it belly-dance; rather than the bump-and-grind sometimes substituted in the West the muscles do the work. This is especially evident in the second of the two videos.

At Last, a Pro-Sisi Video I Can Applaud, But Also Some Serious Questions: If Not Sisi, Who?

I have had a reasonable amount of fun ridiculing the over-the-top Sisi cult in Egypt; it has at times verged on the North Korean in its excesses, and the number of respected Egyptian liberals. including a few friends who spent some time in Mubarak's jails, seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid:

s

Say it ain't so, Saad.

Before I give you a Sisi support video I find I can actually get behind, though, let's address a question that's easy to miss as we dismiss the cult of personality: but, if not Sisi, who?

Who indeed. Even if the EU pressures for a political reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood produce results (and I see no sign of that happening), a Muslim Brotherhood candidate will not win again, and I can't envision one even running. Those who despised Morsi will see the Nour Party or other Islamist candidates to his right as equally taboo though they may be allowed to stand. So who then?

An outright fallul like Ahmad Shafiq? An aging diplomat like Amr Moussa, a slightly less tainted fallul? Mohamed ElBaradei, who excites (well, perhaps that's too strong a word) only a few intellectual salons, and the West? Amr Hamzawy? Hamdeen Sabahi. a Nasserist who showed strength in Cairo in the 2012 elections, but no rural support? I can't picture any of those other than Sabahi having a snowball's chance in hell, to be frank. And Sabahi is Cairo's candidate I think.

Even before July 3. I suspect there was already a groundswell, given the lack of security and unending conflict, for a man on a white horse. The Pharaoh habit doesn't die easily. The enthusiasm with which liberals have embraced Sisi, but some did that with Nasser, and after the Terror many French Revolutionaries bought into the Bonapartist fantasy. (As I've said before, this isn't "fascism," but it is Bonapartism with a splash of Nasserism.)

Sisi could most likely win a  free and fair election right now; some Egyptians are ready to elect him Pharaoh. That's not a good sign for democracy, but what's the alternative? Who else can win? I'm not happy with the situation, but you know what? Right now nobody in Egypt gives a damn about what Americans think, and  I surely don't have a vote.

Now, after all this serious stuff, a Sisi cult video that at least is worth watching. I've also lamented, over the past few years, the decline and gradual eradication under Islamist pressure if the Egyptian cultural tradition known as raqs sharqi or, in Western vernacular, belly-dancing. This comes from the Sisi Cult Watch Tumblr I've referenced before, and I know little more about its origins (so follow any links at your own risk), and will merely note that as someone who appreciates Eastern dance it at least gets one's attention. (Though this is more a tacky stripshow sexy bump and grind* without the stripping than the classic gyrations of the real belly-dance.) Still, this should get at least some recalcitrant males to drink the Sisi Kool-Aid:
What flavors does that Kool-Aid come in?

*Or so I've heard second-hand.

Speaking of E.W. Lane: Lane on the Ghawazi (Ghawazee) of Cairo

I noted earlier today that it was Edward William Lane's birthday and commented at some length on his master work, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. As an example of his observational skills, and since the work is in the public domain, I thought I'd reproduce the entirety of his Chapter XIX, "Public Dancers." This deals mostly with the ghawazi, which he spells ghawazee, a separate tribelike group who danced professionally in public and who are often considered an important element in the various dance traditions that came together to create the Egyptian belly-dancing tradition, now seemingly a dying art in the country of its birth.

You can find a modern discussion of the history of the ghawazi (singular, ghaziyya) at Wikipedia; that article places their origin among the Dom or gypsies of the Middle East. Some descendants of the 19th century ghawazi are said to still exist in the Qena and Luxor regions of Upper Egypt, and aspects of their costume (particularly the vest) are still echoed by belly-dancers today. I've often thought of discussing the history of the raqs sharqi or belly-dance on this blog, and perhaps this post can serve as an inaugural post in the series.

Lane's description of the ghawazi remains the classic one;  he also illustrated the ghawazi, but was not primarily an artist. Other, better painters also noted the ghawazi, including the great Orientalist painter David Roberts:

David Roberts: Ghawazee of Cairo

And the later French Orientalist artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, fond of harem scenes:

 Also from Gérôme:

But since Lane's account is widely considered  a classic and is now in the public domain, let me reproduce it here in full (click to enlarge the images to make them more readable):

A photo (postcard?) of a ghaziyya, c. 1906:

About That Sama ElMasry Obama Video: Some Historical Context on Sama

The US image in Egypt has been going through rough times lately, partly through confused messages and the fact that many secular Egyptians still blame us for allegedly backing the Muslim Brotherhood.

But one rather extreme expression of secular Egyptian anti-Americanism has gone viral in Egypt and has made it into the American social media over the past week or so. Many of those who have picked it up are Americans to the political right who, like many on the Egyptian left, claim President Obama is pro-Muslim Brotherhood. The video, "starring" belly-dancer/personality/satirist Sama ElMasry, is crude, rude, offensive, slanderous, and more, so naturally it's gone viral. But it also is being spread by people who've never heard of Sama ElMasry (which was everybody till a year or so ago), who has self-promoted herself into celebrity status by her Anti-Brotherhood songs and dances on YouTube in the past year. I thought I owed it to those Americans who are seeing this out of context to put this entertainer and her shtick into some sort of context. First, though, the Obama video (offensive for plenty of reasons, and no, I don't share her views):



Okay, you probably get the idea: Sama ElMasry is not subtle in her satire. This is getting passed around in the US with captions like "the most bizarre anti-American video you'll ever see" and the like. But what most people on this side of the Atlantic don't know is who this lady (I use the word out of courtesy) is exactly.

Sama has shown up on this blog before, back in March of 2012, when I posted about her using one of the more memorable titles ever to appear in this space: Now, the "Nose-Job" Islamist MP and the Belly Dancer, and the Growing Islamist-Belly Dancer Axis. That, in turn, was inspired by an even better headline in the Egypt Independent: "'Nose Job' MP Files Complaint Against Belly Dancer Who Says She's His Wife."

The story was simply that ... well, actually, there was nothing simple about it:

Former MP Anwar al-Balkimy, who recently resigned from Parliament after covering up his nose job with a fabricated assassination attempt story, filed a complaint Monday against a belly dancer who claims he married her in secret.

In his complaint filed to the attorney general’s office, Balkimy took legal action against Sama al-Masry for the “false allegations,” which he said harmed his reputation as a member of Parliament and a religious preacher.

Earlier this month, the Salafi Nour Party suspended the Balkimy’s membership after investigators discovered he had lied about being the subject of an assassination attempt to cover up a nose job operation he had received at a private hospital.

 Nose jobs apparently being haram under the Nour Party's version of Salafi Islam.

Sama was described as an actress and belly-dancer in most of the publicity surrounding the case, but her career seems to have been stagnating a bit before that 15 minutes of fame. Since then, though, her celebrity has been growing.

As Mahmoud Salem (known in the blogosphere as Sandmonkey) later explained after she released her first satirical YouTube video some months after Muhammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took power:

The 32 year-old El Masry was briefly a television news presenter before launching her career as a singer, actress and belly dancer. She released three songs, none of which was a hit, and acted in three films. But then she rose to fame this year when she was rumored to be the wife of Salafi MP Anwar Al Balkimy. Once a member of the ultra-conservative Al Nour party, Al Balkimy was forced to resign from his seat in parliament in the wake of a juicy scandal: He was discovered to have fabricated a story about a violent carjacking to explain away his heavily bandaged face, following a nose job at a private hospital. 

. . .Despite her vagueness regarding the relationship (El Masry confirmed she was married to an Islamist politician but never stated explicitly who he was), when Parliament was dissolved last summer, she went to the building and smashed pottery on the pavement in front of it. According to Egyptian tradition, the act of smashing pottery symbolizes the permanent sundering of a relationship. El Masry then disappeared from the news, until this song came out on YouTube.

Act Thuggish [the name of her first YouTube video] did not amuse the Islamists, but their responses varied. Brotherhood leaders Mohamed Al Beltagy and Mahmoud Ghozlan complained that the freedoms won in the revolution were being abused by the secularists in a dirty war against the Islamists, but refrained from proposing any punitive action against El Masry.

Salem's links to the video no longer work, but he explains the approach:

Last week Sama El Masry, a famous Egyptian belly dancer, uploaded a home-made video to YouTube; it shows her in a skin tight outfit, swinging her hips seductively to a song rife with anti-Muslim Brotherhood political innuendo. The sexy little number set the Egyptian social media and political worlds ablaze — but not only because it mocked the prudish Islamists with the double whammy of gyrating hips and no-holds-barred criticism of the Islamist party. In a bizarre twist that could only happen in post-revolutionary Egypt, the dancer was also famous for claiming to be the ex-wife of a Salafi member of parliament.

Titled "Act Thuggish," the song became an instant viral hit amongst anti-Islamist Egyptians. It openly mocks the Muslim Brotherhood party's failed Renaissance Project, a much-ballyhooed plan to "energize" Egyptian society. It also skewers Brotherhood heavyweights — like Khairat El-Shater and Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of President Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party.

Those unfamiliar with Egyptian politics might find the symbolism in the video a bit obscure, but for most Egyptians it is pure comedy gold. The opening lyrics are derived from chants that were heard at the October 12 anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstration, called the Friday of Accountability; it ended with clashes between protestors and Muslim Brotherhood forces in Tahrir Square. Sama confirmed that the events of that Friday provided the inspiration for her song.

The entire video is replete with satirical images — like dancing with two meat cleavers, in a play on the Muslim Brotherhood's emblem, which features double scimitars crossed protectively over a Koran. Another section of the song is devoted to mangoes, a sendup of Morsi's boast about having kept his campaign promise to lower the price of fruit and other foods during his first 100 days as president.

Egypt’s vibrant and irreverent social media community loved the fact that this heavily satirical song was created and performed by a belly dancer. They immediately created an Arabic Twitter hashtag with tens of thousands of tweets in El Masry's name, with her online supporters hailing her as a symbol of the popular opposition and the revolution — a voice that spoke more clearly than most of Egypt’s secular politicians.

After that, she was off and running. Every month or so, sometimes more often, a new YouTube video went up, with Sama dancing and skewering Islamist politics, usually with references to current events, street humor, and with the sort of unsubtle and lewd (though rarely actually obscene) language seen in the Obama video. There is a fair amount of sexual innuendo, but she's never in a revealing costume and at times dances in niqab for effect. You can find many of the videos on YouTube, though unlike the Obama video most aren't subtitled in English, and even those skilled in Egyptian colloquial will miss many of the contemporary satirical jabs.

Egypt's Two Greatest Belly-Dancers, Tahia Carioca and Samia Gamal, Together

Samia Gamal (l.); Tahia Carioca (r.)

I've posted frequently on the dramatic change in attitude towards raqs sharqi or belly-dancing in Egypt in recent decades and especially since the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. During the bulk of the 20th century, however, belly-dancing was recognized as a major cultural expression, and other Arab countries looked to Egypt to provide the best talent. Egypt's most popular (though not necessarily its most critically acclaimed) films often included scenes with its best belly-dancers performing, either as an integral part of the plot or just to please the audiences. Its best belly-dancers also doubled as actresses; its most popular actresses who weren't dancers often did a dance if the plot required it, as was the case with Suad Husni in Khali Balak min Zouzou. Even Egyptian cinema's first recurring cartoon character, Mish-Mish Effendi, had a girlfriend named Baheya who was a belly-dancer. (You can see a Mish-Mish cartoon and watch Baheya dance at this earlier post.) As Islamist pressures increasingly limit this traditional art and restrict it to expensive tourist venues, I feel a cultural obligation to occasionally remember the golden age.

Most Egyptians and many other Arabs would agree that the greatest dancer and actress of them all was Tahia Carioca (1919-1999). Rising to stardom at Madame Badia Masabni's legendary Casino Opera, she achieved her greatest fame in the late 1930s and 1940s, dancing for King Farouq and beginning a movie career. A supporter of the 1952 revolution, she fell out with Nasser and was even jailed. She continued to act in films long after she stopped dancing, and lived to the age of 80. Unlike modern Western celebrities, she was a firm believer in marriage, marrying 14 times.

There is perhaps less agreement on the second greatest, but many would endorse Samia Gamal (1924-1994) for the title; she too came from Madame Badia's troupe, and was often seen as a slightly younger rival of Carioca.

Though often seen as rivals, one can find publicity pictures like the one at the top showing them together. But there's also this (1940s?) film clip showing Samia listening to an old style gramophone and imagining Carioca dancing on the lid as on a TV screen; then she imagines herself dancing with her. It's not necessarily the only film of them dancing together, but it's one I can play here:
It is neither a high-quality nor a particularly good clip, but it shows the two greats together. Both were enormously glamorous stars in their day: a "pinup" photo of Carioca, perhaps early 1940s(?):

And a stop-motion shot of Samia performing in her prime (1940s/early 1950s):

And both played love interest to the most popular romantic male star of the era, actor/singer/oud player Farid al-Atrash; Samia and Farid were rumored to be lovers though they never married.  Photos of Tahia (first) and Samia (second) with Farid:

If things keep going the way they're going, we shall not gaze upon their like again.

Nagwa Fuad Says Islamists Ruining Belly Dancing; Update on the Islamist/Belly Dancer Wars, Part I

I've been somewhat remiss over the last year or two in keeping you up to date on the ongoing culture wars between Islamists and belly-dancers. Let me catch you up a bit, starting from the most recent developments.

Recently Nagwa Fouad, a superstar belly dancer who dominated the field in Egypt in the 1970s, recently complained to Al-Masry al-Yawm (translation here from Egypt Independent):

A once-prominent Egyptian belly dancer said she has decided to stop dancing, saying Islamists have destroyed art and creativity in Egypt.

“Artists are sitting at home because Islamists destroyed art and creativity,” 70-year-old Nagwa Fouad told Al-Masry Al-Youm. “Perhaps I should look for work in Turkey.”

At 70 (Wikipedia makes her a few years older, but who would be so ungentlemanly as to quote Wikipedia on such a matter?), Fouad continues to perform in films and television (though not on stage), and as this Ahram Weekly report notes, she initially lied about her age, pretending to be older. As the latter profile also notes, one of her television roles, in the series Zizinia, she even played Badia Masabni, the founder of the greatest bellly-dance club of them all, Casino Opera, which produced both Carioca and Sonia Gamal, beginning in the 1930s. (I must write more on the history of the belly dance, especially if Islamists continue to attack this indigenous art form.)

I could reproduce the photo of Nagwa Fouad today from the link up above, but I think she'd prefer a clip that shows her talent in her prime, despite the 1970s clothing on the audience:

As I said, I've skipped over a number of developments on this important cultural front line in the past several months. In coming days, I plan to make up for that with one or more posts on the growing culture clash.

Life Magazine, 1952: Samia Gamal's Contribution to Science

I thought I'd contribute this bit of academic historical research to the ongoing debate between Islamists who want to ban belly-dancing in Egypt, arguably the land that made the art famous, and those who see it as an art. I think we took my daughter to a restaurant with  belly-dancing for the first time when she was about six. As an indication of its mainstream nature, I thought I'd present this piece from Life Magazine from 1952. Older Americans will be aware of the enormous power Life  once had in American life before its weekly existence ended in the 1970s. It was a photo magazine that formed American images of the world before television took over completely. It was as mainstream, white-bread, middle class Middle American as it could be, and never more so than in 1952.

And it ran a photo feature on Egyptian belly-dancer Samia Gamal (1924-1994), considered by many as one of the immortals, second only to Tahia Carioca herself, which not only relates to her dancing but to her important contribution to science, by illustrating via a flashlight how her hips move:















The immediate source of the photo is here; the full article in the issue of March 24, 1952 is here. At the time Samia Gamal appeared in this mainstream American magazine she was also a familiar figure (sorry) in Egyptian magazines as well.

This second photo doesn't have any direct connection to this Life story that I know of, but it is also of Samia Gamal in her prime so I'm sending it out to President Morsi, Supreme Guide Badie, and Muslim Brothers everywhere. If she was OK for Life Magazine in 1952, lighten up.

And a Happy Edward William Lane's Birthday

Today is not only the first day of Rosh Hashona, it is also Edward William Lane's birthday. 

Longtime readers know that Lane's birthday is celebrated annually on this blog. The man born in Hereford, England, on September 17, 1801, gave us the richest anthropological description of Egypt in the age of Muhammad Ali (The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians) and the hefty eight-volume Lane's Lexicon, the fullest Arabic-English dictionary of the classical language, not to mention a version of the Arabian Nights, with extensive cultural notes. Lane was perhaps the first truly great English Arabist, and founded a dynasty that included his sister Sophia Lane Poole, who wrote about women in Egypt, and his nephew, Sophia's son Stanley Lane-Poole (who acquired a hyphen somewhere), who wrote widely on Arab and Islamic history.

I posted on his birthday in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and on the Lane dynasty here,

His contributions to anthropology/sociology (Manners and Customs), literature (1,001 Nights), and linguistics (the Arabic-English Lexicon) would make his birthday worth noting, even if, 146 years after Lane, I hadn't come along to share the birthday.

For much more detail, please see the earlier posts. And let's dance with the Ghawazi (or Ghawazee as Lane spelled it), whose sensual public dances, said to be one origin of the belly dance, so shocked Lane's Victorian (and pre-Victorian) sensibilities, that he wrote (at great length) about them, and provided illustrations. Happy birthday, Ed:

Odds Are This Egyptian Stamp Will Not Be Reissued by the Present Government

The (Arabic) post accompanying this Egyptian stamp posted to Twitter by @Hragy reads: "Egyptian postage stamp from my childhood [not specified when] before Egypt became extremist, celebrating Eastern dance [what the West calls "belly dance"]."

 (It may be a tax stamp rather than a postage stamp, but I think it's real.)

Ah, those were the days ...

In the Land of Badia and Carioca, Egypt Arrests Owner of El-Tet Belly-Dance Channel

There was a time when the raqs sharqi or oriental dance, what is known in the West as belly-dancing, was above all associated with Egypt, with Lebanon perhaps a distant second. Madame Badia Masabni's Cabsrets on Opera Square and in Giza were frequented by British officials, King Farouq, and the elite. The most famous dancer of them all, Tahia Carioca, rose to fame at Madame Badia's.

Tahia Carioca in the 1930s or 1940s

But those days, when Carioca is said to have performed at Farouq's coronation (or wedding; the stories differ; one was in 1936 and one in 1938) as past as the monarchy itself. One of the first targets burned on Black Saturday in 1952 was Madame Badia's on Opera Square, and Carioca was jailed for a time under Nasser for calling for democracy. In the 1960s, Nasser's austere socialism mandated a gauzy covering over the midriff. But belly-dancing has remained popular, though increasingly limited to the nightclubs of the pyramid road and the expensive clubs of the five star hotels, where Gulf and Western tourists spend big money but which the average Egyptian cannot afford.

And now there is a different puritanism on the rise, of course. Yesterday the owner of the television satellite channel El-Tet, which broadcasts nothing but round-the-clock belly-dancing videos, was arrested and reportedly charged with "operating without a license, inciting licentiousness and facilitating prostitution." Baligh Hamdy reportedly sent videos from Egypt for broadcast from Jordan and Bahrain, which were then beamed by satellite back to Egypt, where El-Tet appears to have been quite popular. Other reports of the arrest here and here.

The belly-dance is a genuine folk tradition in Egypt, tracing back to the Ghawazee dancers described by E.W. Lane in his Manners and Customs; the popularity of the TV channel doubtless has as much to do with its being targeted as whatever actual offenses may have been committed.


Of course, even if the broadcasting authorities and the vice squad (apparently both were involved), manage to shut down the channel, it has a life of its own on YouTube. In protest of the latest attack on a genuinely popular art form now in decline, two of El-Tet's offerings, followed by one of the immortal Carioca from 1941.

Two Updates on the Belly Dancing Scene

These two stories only tang3ntially touch on what I jokingly called the "Islamist/Belly Dancer Axis," But they do relate to an undeniably Middle Eastern art form now under some challenge.

First off, Egypt Independent, as part of a series of articles on ordinary everyday Cairenes, offers "A Day in the Life of a Bellydancer." She dances on a Nile boat club. But she's from Argentina. In fact, quite a few of Egypt's belly dancers in the big hotels and other venues are Europeans or North or South Americans, or from elsewhere in the Middle East.

That might explain the remarks of Lucy, one of Egypt's better-known current belly dancers, whom we encountered before when she was donating money to a Salafi sheikh, and who is now quoted as defending her art against Islamist and other critics, and all those newcomers:

The dancer said that she believes that she and belly dancers Dina and Fifi Abdo are the last of the best and all new comers are mere amateurs from places like Argentina:

The dancer said that she believes that she and belly dancers Dina and Fifi Abdo are the last of the best and all new comers are mere amateurs.

Lucy stressed that she has no intention of resigning from her career and wearing the Islamic headdress hijab. She added that she does not fear the rise of Islamic parties to the political scenes and believes that regardless of who comes to power main goal is to provide democracy, justice and freedom to all citizens.

She also defends the virtue of her fellow artists:

Egyptian belly dancer Lucy considers 99.9% of Egyptian belly dancers respectable and honorable, stating that their repeated marriages is better than getting involved in illegitimate affairs. She added that despite the fact she married at the age of 16, she and her husband are still together.

May I, as a historian of Egypt, add some support to her remark about belly dancers' believing strongly in marriage? The most famous of them all, and according to a now-departed generation the greatest Egyptian belly dancer of the last century, Tahia Carioca (1919-1999), who should probably someday have a blogpost devoted to her, certainly agreed. She had 14 husbands.

Anyone who gets married that many times obviously believes in marriage.