Belly Dance East and West

Class Plans

Date	Class Topic and Plan
Sept. 19	Ancient History of Belly Dance. Class goals: to explore the early history of belly dance. Key issues: using our sources (written descriptions, visual representations; ethnological comparison) and what the limits and advantages of each source are; learning factual material about belly dance (or at least, SIDTA) in the prehistoric Middle East, ancient Egypt, and the Roman Empire.
Sept. 21
Sept. 26	Gender in Belly Dance. Class goals: to examine the role of men and women in the history and modern practice of belly dancing, including such issues as what constitutes masculine or feminine art; gender identification and sexual preference in a cultural context; gender roles in Islam; belly dance as women’s empowerment.
Sept. 28
Oct. 3	The Gypsy Phenomenon. Class goals: To learn something about the history and culture of the gypsies, in particular the Rom who influenced Turkish dance and music, and the Ghawazi who worked as professional dancers in Egypt; to examine portrayals of the gypsies in Western dance from the 19^th century on; to examine the mystique of the gypsy in the modern belly dance world.
Oct. 5
Oct. 10	Break
Oct. 12	Filming Belly Dance. Class goals: to examine some of the ways feminist critics have interpreted film, and how these models apply to belly dance; to learn the cultural and economic forces behind the making of filmed belly dance in the East and in the West; to examine various Eastern and Western belly dance videos for subtexts and effect.
Oct. 17	Orientalism in Art. Class Goals: To see how the West represented the Orient in the 18^th-20^th centuries, defining the phenomenon of Orientalism; to see how paintings and photographs of dancers reflected and influenced the image of belly dance in the West. One class will focus on painting; the other will center on photography.
Oct. 19
Oct. 24	MIDTERM
Oct. 26	Western Travelers on Eastern Dance. Class Goals: To interpret the responses Western travelers to the East had toward belly dance, as recorded in their descriptions of it; to determine themes that made their way into the Western reception of the dance.
Oct. 31	Development of the Female Solo Dance. Class goals: to look at the forces that led to the development of the modern art of belly dance, with its focus on the solo female performer; to look at the lives of the women who lived by this art during this transitional period in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.
Nov. 2
Nov. 7	Belly Dance in the Islamic World. Class Goals: to examine the ideas about professional dance in the Islamic world; to examine the aspects of Islamic society that lead to these interpretations of public dancers; to study strategies of dancers in dealing with these interpretations of their art.
Nov. 9
Nov. 14	Satin Rouge: A Muslim Woman Filmmaker’s use of Belly Dance. Class Goals: to view the film “Satin Rouge” and discuss it with reference to the issues we have studied in this course.
Nov. 16
Nov. 21	Belly Dance in the West I. Class goals: to examine the phenomena of both cultural exhibitions and sensationalistic presentations of belly dance in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, with an emphasis on how they defined the performance contexts of belly dance in the 20^th century West; to look at Western women dancing Eastern themes onstage.
Nov. 23	Thanksgiving
Nov. 28	Belly Dance in the West continued.
Nov. 30	Belly Dance in the West II. Class goals: To look at the factors that led to the resurgence of belly dance as a popular pastime for women in the 1960’s and 70’s, with some attention to its recent popularity.
Dec. 5	Body Image and Belly Dance. Class goals: to examine the ideas of the body that are incorporated in the Western reception of belly dance, including differing ideals of the body, differing ideals of beauty, the body as a site of cultural forces, fitness as a mediator for belly dance’s “dangerous” aspects.

Goals and Requirements

Welcome to “Belly Dance, East and West.” This syllabus explains the course outline, requirements, and goals, as well as class policies. Read it early and often.

Course Goals:

To learn the history of belly dance, both as a cultural art of the Middle East and in its modern manifestations in the West;
To develop a sense for the aesthetics and/or artistic purposes of belly dance in its various cultural settings, East and West;
To examine the ways in which belly dance is portrayed in visual media, both Eastern and Western, and learn theoretical ways of interpreting these portrayals;
To learn some of the fundamental movements of belly dance in order to get a sense for the movement vocabulary of an Eastern form of dance as opposed to a Western one.
To develop an understanding of the cultural factors that define the role of dance and professional entertainment in the Islamic world;
To explore the nature of cultural interchange between the East and the West in the 19^th-21^st centuries through the lens of belly dance;

Requirements:

Attendance is mandatory. I allow three missed classes in the course of the semester. After that, two points are deducted from your final average for every class missed. Leaving class early or coming in egregiously late counts as half an absence, even if you choose to miss class to meet an advisor or have a doctor’s appointment. More than 8 absences results in an automatic F.
Class Participation (10%). You should come to class prepared to discuss the readings and/or videos, and prepared to move on days when movement is scheduled. If there are specific discussion questions, you should come prepared to discuss those things. If not, you should have thought enough about the material to have questions or observations about it you can bring up in class discussion.
Midterm and Final (40%; 20% each): These contain essays and factual questions.
Quizzes on terms and fundamental facts: 10%. There are four of these, and these test your grasp of the empirical knowledge necessary to support more interpretive work.
Essays (30%). There are three short (3-5 page) essays in the semester. One is a response to and interpretation of a copy of the dance magazine Habibi, based on a set of questions I will give you. Another is an interpretation of a dance or a represenatation of a dancer in the light of one of the critical theories we have studied. The third is an opinion essay based on either a list of topics I will post, or on topics of your own choosing.
Web contribution (10%) . During this semester, our class will be constructing a web page on primary sources relative to Middle Eastern dance. Your contribution will be a passage from an 18^th century (or thereabouts) traveler in the Middle East, with commentary on his (or her) perspective and what practical ideas s/he offers on the subject of Middle East dance or dancers.