Q: How did Middle Eastern Dance enter mainstream American entertainment?

M: Whenever there were generic Middle Eastern - North African immigrants, they had their dances within their homes, but the first time recorded was at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1886, the 100th anniversary of the American Revolution, when they had a big fair and performers from lots of different countries. They had performers from Turkey and what was them called "Syria," which included Lebanon, Syria and Jordan at the time, and from Egypt, and other places, and it was presented as "ethnic dance" so nobody really noticed it.

So it wasn't until 1893 at the Columbian Trade Fair and Exposition where Sol Bloom's job was on the line: he had to come up with something that would make the Midway Plaisance turn a profit, and he invented the misnomer "bellydance," by translating the French "danse du ventre," and when people are hypocritical about something, they really, really, really want to see it. And as he noticed, the title "ethnic dance" did not attract flies. It was the era when even the word "leg" was considered a dirty word. You couldn't say "leg" even when it came to the chicken! --> " drumstick." Leg of a chair: you had to say "limb." Chairs wore those big ruffles, because you were not supposed to see that chairs had limbs, leave alone people.

So, in translating the French racist and dismissive term "danse du ventre," for Oriental Dance, he got a lot of publicity. He even got himself arrested for putting up "indecent" signs where women and children could see them. This man was a very smart promoter, very smart businessman. He then said: these dances are too much for women's sensibilities; women are too sensitive, they can't see these dances! No women will be allowed in. The women had to go to the coffee shop and drink those little cups of Arabic and Turkish coffee, smoke water pipes, the hookah, the nargile, the shishah when that stuff was still legal. I think they got a better deal for their dollar! It was a $1 to get in at a time when 25c could get you a full steak dinner from soup to nuts.

But Solly was the one who go the publicity on the misnomer: it was a shock value. Sol had his dancers and his musicians for publicity photos in the newspapers. It was the only medium at that time: there were no radios, no telephone, no tv, no internet....NO EMAIL!!!.... He had journalists there, and he had photographers, where you had to stand for a full minute. The journalists wanted to see some of the dancing. And the musicians hadn't brought their instruments. They had only brought themselves -- under protest! So Saul sat down at the piano and picked out the tune he had heard them play, that later someone else published as sheet music (a the time when there were no records you made money on the sheet music.)

They published it as "Cairo Street Walz," and then under other names. As a child, it was the song I head as "O they don't wear pants in the Southern part of France; But they do wear pants when they do the hula dance." That was the dong he picked out on the piano. And when I became a Middle Eastern dancer I thought: "Oh, it's a horrible cliche, Hollywood fantasy!" And in the late 60s I am in Iraq, in Baghdad, and I am with the family where the grandmother plays the oud. She picked up the oud and she was playing some songs for me. And she played this song. "Where did you learn that?" And she said, "Oh, I learned it from my grandmother, my grandmother used to play it all the time." It turns out, it was, in its origin, a real Middle Eastern song! People began thinking: oh, this is a good way to make money. They hear the misnomer, they get a mis-impression, and they figure "I can make a quick buck." So, of course, all kinds of charlatans and wannabees came. And then, there were some legit performers.

You can download archive film clips of a 14-year-old dancer in a vaudeville named "Ella Lola" who was doing a little Turkish dance in her act. She was American, and did a pretty good dance. And then there is another film clip of a woman called "Princess Raja" - she is legit, doing something I saw done in Luxor which involves a prop we wouldn't think to use, - a chair! And what she does with the chair is quite interesting........NOT THAT! And then there were the charlatans who would take it to the side shows that made it into something that was raunchy. It's not. This is a folk dance. This is the dance which, in its areas of origin women do with, for and among other women, or within the family. Men do it with, for, and among other men, or within the family.

Q: Talk about Hollywood.

M: Oh. Hollywood... Harem-scarem- banana-oil. And the whole "Vamp" (which was "vampire") - the woman whose whole attraction was fatal: Theda Bara - her name was supposed to be an anagram for "Arab Death." And the "Son of the Sheikh"? Oh please. Get real. Male sexist racist fantasy, It's Orientalism in the negative sense that Edward Said defines. There was Orientalist art that was positive - the kind of beauty the imagination can create around this, but there were also fantasy paintings, and the Western male fantasy of what the Other is, especially the women.

And you'll even find it in supposed respected and legit publications like National Geographic. The National Geographic was the "Penthouse," "Hustler" and "Playboy" of its day. It was the only magazine where you could see the naked female flesh if it was black or brown. There is a really good book out now -- all disclaimers, I get no money for this in any way, shape or form -- it's called "Veils and Daggers" by Linda Steet, and she documents the way national Geo had their agenda in dealing with the generic Near/Middle East and North Africa -- the women as confined harem slaves and sexual objects:get real! these women work like horses... and the men as savage, unpredictable victims of their own emotions, and not in control, not cultured, not civilized...

Q: The American, mainstream public -- do they know what Middle Eastern dance is actually about?

M: The majority of any public doesn't really know because it never crosses their mind to ask. If they are being entertained, they are happy. They usually believe what they are told, until they are told something different. For the people learning the dance, for the 40 years that I've been in it, the public perception has undergone a fabulous transformation for the most part, and the people who are coming to the dance and what they get out of learning it and doing it , have increased and improved fabulously. We have come a long way, baby, but there is still a long way to go. The good news is that there are people who cater to the lowest common denominator, and there are people who reach for the highest possible standard. And you have those who push the envelop, or want accuracy, and are really creative. You have the negatives, you have the positives, and every variation in between. And so as it becomes more and more widespread, there are those who want the fantasy, and there are those who want the reality. And it's been my experience in just about everything that the reality is much more complex and gives you more leeway for interpretation and for expression than the fantasy. Fantasies always have very finite borders. Reality has the borders that are much wider.