I agree. I think that if one wants to dance both forms, she should keep 2 different "personas" and keep the 2 separate.

I too agree, some people look at belly dancers as strippers as it is, I don't think we need to add fuel to the fires. I too have no problem in people stripping in dance, but that not what I do and think it would be better to keep them very serperate! xxx

When I read this - all I thought to myself was "Oh Gawd! Not again!" Huge sigh. This just leaves me exhuasted everytime someone mixes the two - because we have to battle so hard against all the stereotypes. When will they learn that it totally screws things up for the rest of us who actually care about not being put into the "I'm a stripper, watch me shake my sequined @$$" catagory?

Sorry - just had to rant and get that off my chest. Really - stuff like that is the reason why I've had stupid drunk guys screaming for me to "take it all off" when dressed completelyy covered/traditional saidi style. Only hands and face showing (not even my hair). And I'm sure I'm not the only one who this has happened to....

Just wondering - who would notice and who would get confused? I am rather clueless about the audience of a stripper, but I would assume that there is not much overlap between the people who see Sheherazade (I just picked a name from literature, not refering to any person) the belly dancer and Sheherazade the stripper. How many audience members e.g. in a restaurant would ever know that dancer's other occupation and stage name?

This really disturbs me!!!!
It takes years for a bellydancer to train her muscles and learn proper dance techniques. Not to mention the other aspects of the dance. unfortunatly, bellydance is such a sensual, and exotic dance we can't get away from that stereotype.

We have strip tease belly dance here in Louisville. I was taken aback a bit when I first read about it in December, but then I met some of them... They are a bunch of jolly youngsters, some of them gym instructors, who are fascinated with the belly dance side of the situation... I met them at a costume seminar and they got more fun out of the backdrop provided for photographs than any other group I have ever met. I notice the recent advertising has been toned down to 'tease' dancing lately-- I kind of wondered how the Catholic-run Clifton center was going to feel about the resident belly dance studio holding strip-tease classes...

Remind me NOT to tell you about some of the things I did in the late sixties and early seventies....

Ditto... they should be separate

Taaj
www.thebellydancetrainer.com

Belly dancers have to work harder than othre dancers at being taken seriously. That dancer that is also a stripper should know this. I think it's not very helpful to the bellydance community to be a stripper and a bellydancer. Especially if you're not going to seperate the two into different catagories. People who think it's ok to mix the two but it's not because it makes it harder for everyone else. We are held to a higher standard. I spend a lot of time trying to educate people and when someone puts an ad in the newspaper for cardio bellydance/poledance classes it sets us all back! gah!
My grandma still thinks I'm some sort of stripper to this day. I think she tells people I do square dancing. One of my aunts pointed to a picture of a red haired square dancer in the paper one day and asked if it was me. blah!

I agree with Jeffery that the public has many misconceptions about art and artists, and that we, the artists, are not going to change most of them no matter what we do. With that being said, I do believe that we, the bellydancers, have a responsibility not to encourage the stereotype of bellydancer as stripper. I don't think we should go out preaching our doctrine of "this is an artform that takes years of practice and an intense amount of skill to achieve" because the general public isn't going to listen anyway. Even though we know the amount of work and dedication involved, that knowledge, isn't going to change people's opinions, but....I do think when we are faced with questions from the general public about what we do as bellydancers, we should answer appropriately and with the most accurate information possible. This is how we are going to change the public's misconceptions about bellydancing and stripping being the same.

The reason I say this is because I witnessed a situation with one of my own troupemates recently that dealt specificially with this problem. The situation made me cringe and it also made me realize that many bellydancers continue to feed the old 'stripper' stereotype. Here's a quick summary of what I saw. I was in my local fabric store waiting to have my fabric cut. One of my troupemates was already being waited on (it was a coincidence that we were in the store at the same time, we hadn't come together). She had MOUNDS of stuff to measure and cut, much of it was sequins trim, chiffon and metallic material. The fabric store employee asked, as they often do of customers, what she was making out of all these items. My troupemate answered that she was making costumes for bellydancing, she said "because I'm a bellydancer, you know, an exotic dancer"!!!! WHAT????? I was mortified. Then she turns to me and says to the employee, "she's a dancer in my troupe too". Wonderful, thanks for sucking me into your world of exotic dancing. I didn't say anything. I wanted to correct her and educate the employees behind the cutting counter, but at the time we were having serious troupe issues with this member and this was the first time I had seen her since a big blowout between her and other members. I didn't want to add fuel to the fire, so I kept my mouth shut, but looking back I should have corrected her. I understood what she was trying to say to the girl, that we were 'ethnic' dancers, dancing 'oriental dance', but she said EXOTIC dancers. To me exotic dancing equals stripping. Maybe exotic can be used to describe bellydance because it is dancing that is not common and of the other, but when the general public hears exotic dance it thinks stripping. She should have chosen her words more carefully. It was her responsibility to accurately decribe the dance she studies, but she blew a great opportunity to educate someone interested in what she does, and she'll never get the same opportunity again.

The best way for us to change the public's perception of us is to represent bellydancing with dignity and respect. When we treat our artform with the reverence it deserves, other's will see it and begin to treat it the same way. As for those crazy religious zealots and the like, well, no one will ever change their opinions, so we might as well not even waste the energy.

I suspect John and Joanna Q Public suspect that every female performer of any kind has a darker side that isn't advertised publically... especially with the media broadcasting the 24/7 activities of every performer of any status, dwelling of course on the sordid. Who is insulated from this? Female singers? Actors? Poets? Photographers, movie makers, scultper? Dancers of any type? (Anybody else read 'Dancing on My Grave?')