Belly Dance East and West

Final Exam Essays

Write an Essay on ONE of the following questions.  You must finish it within three hours of opening this page.  Email it to deagona@uncw.edu and save a copy in case something goes wrong with the transmission.

 1.  Both the dancers of the San Francisco scene in the 1960’s-‘70’s and the dancers in the mid-1980’s when A Trade Like Any Other was researched, experienced poor working conditions, sexual harassment, and institutions like fath.  What are their attitudes toward their working situations?  What strategies do they employ in dealing with the negative elements of their jobs?  What underlying attitudes specific to each culture support their ways of dealing with these issues?  Use quotes and examples where possible to support your points.  You may focus on some or all of the sub-questions here.

 2.  In this course, you saw two films, one by an American (Belly Dancers of Cairo) and one by a Tunisian (Satin Rouge).  How is belly dance portrayed in both of these films?  As a love, as a transformation, as a trap, as a job?  How are the women who dance portrayed?  As goddesses, as working women, as victims, as sluts, as strong, as weak?  What effect is working as a dancer portrayed as having on women’s lives?  And what accounts for the differences in the role of the dance in these two films?

 3. Compare the portrayals of belly dancers in the art of the period 1834-1925, with the travel narratives that describe belly dancing from that same period.  Discuss at least three painters and three authors.  Do you see similar trends in the art and in the travel literature?  Is one group of creative artists more involved in orientalist ideas than the other?  How do such things as orientalist fantasy, respect or disrespect for dancers, social commentary on dance and dancers, and so forth, manifest in the artists and writers you discuss?  (You may focus on some aspects of this question more than others.)  Use examples and specifics where possible. 

4. The cultural Expositions of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries presented a vision of belly dance as a cultural product of the exotic East.  Meanwhile, Western women dancers were also portraying the East in Salome dances and other "oriental" dances.  Your mission here: (1) Describe an imaginary, but representative, dance by a person of Middle Eastern ethnicity at a cultural  Exposition, then describe an imaginary, but representative, "dance of the East” (e.g. a Salome dance) by a Western woman.  (2) Compare the two performances, using some but not necessarily all of the following criteria: what did the dancers look like, how were they costumed, what was their music like, what was their performing venue, how were they received by their audiences, what sort of status did they have for their Western audiences, in what ways were they controversial, and whatever else you want to discuss.  (You may write your descriptions in a way that makes the comparisons plain, but you should bring out the significance behind the differences in a specific comparison of the two.)