by Luna

by Luna

Luna

Luna

Blog Intro

Hello, I'm Luna, and I'd like to welcome you to "Kisses from Kairo,"* my blog about living and working as an American belly dancer in Cairo.

Life in Cairo isn't easy for dancers, foreigners, women, or even Egyptians. It is, however, always exciting. That’s why after living here for seven years, I've decided to share my experiences with the world. From being contracted at the Semiramis Hotel to almost being deported, not a day has gone by without something odd or magical happening. I will therefore fill these pages with bits of my history in Cairo—my experiences, successes, mistakes, and observations. Admittedly, my time here has been rather unique, so I want to stress that while everything I write is true, my experiences do not necessarily reflect the lives of other dancers.

In addition to my life as a belly dancer, I will write about developments in costuming, performances, festivals, and, of course, the dance itself. I will also make frequent references to Egyptian culture. I should note that I have a love/hate relationship with Egypt. If I make any criticisms about the country, please keep in mind that I do so with the utmost love, respect, and most of all, honesty. Egypt has become my home, so I want to avoid romanticizing and apologizing for social maladies, as most foreigners tend to do. Nothing could be more misguided, patronizing, or insulting.

I hope you find this blog informative, insightful and entertaining, and that we can make this as interactive as possible. That means I'd love to hear from you. Send me your comments, questions, complaints, suggestions, pics, doctoral dissertations, money, etc., and I will get back to you. Promise. :)~



My Videos

Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Whore on the 4th Floor

My Secret Life as a Belly Dancer in Cairo

This might sound strange, but here in Cairo, I lead a secret life. I’m not a spy or having an affair or doing anything nefarious. I’m just a belly dancer. But I make great efforts to hide this from people. When Egyptians ask me what I’m doing in Cairo, I tell them I’m writing a book about Egyptian art. I keep things vague, but not untrue. I am, after all, writing a book, and its subject is belly dancing, which is an Egyptian art. Never do I mention that I’m a practitioner of this art, however. Doing so would unleash a series of unfavorable consequences, not the least of which is being thought of as a whore.

You might be thinking, So what? Sticks and stones will hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me. Unfortunately, this is true only to the extent that I won’t be stoned for being a belly dancer. But I might…oh, I don’t know… get kicked out of my apartment.

Oddly enough, this is exactly what happened to me last year (in fact today marks the one-year anniversary of my eviction!). My landlord kicked me out of my apartment upon learning that I was a belly dancer.


This is what transpired. In September of 2009, I was apartment hunting for the fifth time in one year. (Yes, you read that correctly.) After weeks of searching, I finally found the perfect flat in a middle-class area called Doqqi, not too far from Downtown. The flat was on the fourth floor. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large reception area, and an extra room that could be converted into a dance studio. Most importantly, the price was right. I told the real estate agent that I would rent this apartment and would like to sign a lease with the landlord. The landlord, the agent informed me, was living in Kuwait, but his sister Wiam would act on his behalf. So I met with Wiam and her two young sons a day later.

My meeting with Wiam was cordial enough. We made it through all the forced pleasantries that usually characterize interactions between Egyptians and foreigners. But then she popped the question. THAT question. “What are you doing here in Cairo?” (Mind you, Wiam had just made a point of saying that she was very religious, and that her whole family was conservative.) “I… um…I’m writing a book about Egyptian art,” I blurted. “Oh, so you attend the American University in Cairo?” she asked. “Um… I guess you could say that,” I answered, hoping my countenance wouldn’t betray my guilty conscience. And then, we signed a six-month lease.

Fast forward two months. I’m hired to belly dance at the Paradise Hotel in a city called Ras Sidr. It’s a three-hour drive from Cairo. Upon arrival, I did my usual 45-minute show with three costume changes. I think it was the first time the hotel hired a foreign belly dancer, and the audience was loving every minute of it—they were clapping, cheering, whistling, and even screaming and throwing roses at me. I left the stage feeling so good about myself…

…until two young boys approached me as I was walking to the changing room. “Excuse me,” they said. “Aren’t you the girl who lives at 22 Doqqi Street?” “WHY YES I!—…am. Wait, how do you know that?!” I asked. “Because our mother is Wiam,” they replied. “She was sitting inside with us watching you dance. She said you dance really well.”

The boys’ words fell upon me like an avalanche of dung. Fresh, hot, Egyptian donkey dung. The joy that I experienced just two seconds before seeing them completely evaporated. Just my luck, I thought. Wiam catches me belly dancing in a random hotel three hours away from Cairo, and now she’ll tell her brother, who will surely evict me from the apartment.

Sure enough, my thoughts materialized. Mohamed came back to Cairo from Kuwait in March of the following year, and the first thing he did was inform me that he would be doubling the rent. When I said I would not be able to pay the increase, he said rather sharply that I must have lots of money being a belly dancer and all. 

So that’s what this is about, I said. You’re uncomfortable renting your apartment out to a belly dancer. He admitted that I was correct—that he did not want a dancer living in his flat because he and his family were “people of God.”

There are a couple of reasons for this way of thinking. In Egypt and the wider Muslim world, public belly dancing is considered a sin. It is not art. This is because Islam, which is the dominant religion in Egypt, places a very high premium on female modesty. It teaches that a woman’s beauty must be reserved for her husband and her husband alone. Displaying hair and skin in the presence of men, therefore, is sinful. As such, the belly dancer (ra’assa in Arabic) is no more than a lowly whore. She flouts Islamic mores by entertaining strange men with half-naked wiggles and jiggles.

The second reason is that belly dancing is synonymous with prostitution. Historically, some Egyptian belly dancers doubled as sex workers. It is thought they most likely used their performance venues to collect customers, including French and British soldiers stationed in Cairo. This behavior became so widespread and problematic that Muhammad Ali, the founder of what is considered “modern Egypt” (1805 to 1848), famously banished all the belly dancers (awaalim) from Cairo—apparently, the dancers were spreading venereal disease amongst the soldiers. Apparently.  

Though I had been aware of this reality since I started belly dancing in New York, I had adopted a “not my problem” attitude toward it. Now that I live in Egypt, however, it has certainly become my problem. This is why I try my best to conceal the fact that I’m a belly dancer. I keep my makeup to a minimum when traveling to and from work. I wrap my sequined Saidi sticks in a black garbage bag, and I play the music low when I practice dance in my apartment. Barring acts of God such as the one I just narrated, these measures are usually sufficient.

Nevertheless, my secret manages to escape from time to time. In fact, more often than not, people find out that I’m a belly dancer. One week after I moved into my next apartment, for example, the entire building learned of my work. That was due to accidentally locking myself out of my apartment and subsequently asking a neighbor to climb into my apartment via our connecting balconies to let me in. To do this, he would have to find the key in one of my purses and unlock the door. Unfortunately, he was unable to find the key in any of my bags, so he turned them upside down and emptied their contents. Out flew the key from one of the bags, along with more than forty photos of me in my belly dance costumes.

Ta-da! My neighbor was newly privy to my secret. No, he didn’t have the authority to kick me out of my flat. But in Egypt, when one person knows something, the whole country knows. Indeed, it wasn’t long before the bawabeen (doormen) started looking at me funny as I entered and left the building. They also started scrutinizing all the men my two female Canadian roommates brought up to our apartment. At one point, they even threatened to call the police on me for having male visitors. In Egypt-think, this is the equivalent to starting a whorehouse. (Amazingly, unmarried mixed-gender households are technically legal in Egypt, however Islamic sentiments vis-à-vis gender segregation always trump legal technicalities.)

As difficult as things have been for me, Egyptian belly dancers have it worse. Not only must they hide their lives from landlords and neighbors, but they have to contend with their families as well; most Egyptians would never accept their daughter/sister/mother working as a belly dancer. My heart goes out to these women. It is only by working as dancers that these unskilled women escape the merciless clutch of Egyptian poverty. But it costs them their dignity. What I’ve learned through my interviews with dozens of ordinary Egyptian belly dancers is that they believe dancing is sinful (haram) and want to quit once they’ve saved enough money to live comfortably. In that respect, their conflict is not just societal, it is internal. It is one that I, as a citizen of the secular West, do not struggle with. 

11 comments:

  1. What makes Egyptians think this way about belly dancers, not cause of their religious views nor any particular faith. It's just norms. All about norms, as you might have noticed during your stay in Egypt, that norms play a great role in our lives here.

    People here do care very much about their reputation and to keep their image clear in front of everyone. You probably meet a liberal open minded guy who believes that belly dancing isn't another form of prostitution and it's a pure art, but he wouldn't approach you in order to avoid rumors, of he being in a relationship with a belly dancer.

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    1. Mohamed, you're right about rumors and reputation. I would just like to add that those "norms" that you're talking about are based on religion. Most of modern-day Egyptian culture is influenced by Islam. Being a belly dancer is considered shameful because religiously speaking, it is haram. Women are supposed to save their beauty for their husbands, not display it in public. So a man who has a dancer as a wife will not be respected, as you suggest. He will be called an "3ars." But let's not deny that Islam plays a big role here. Thanks for reading and writing.

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  2. To close this door of problems coming from neighbors.. I advice to move to Zamalak or GardenCity.

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  3. I think that the Egyptian community wither they are Muslim or christian is very conservative, because religion believes is rooted inside everyone, but i think that no body want to look over the fact from the other side so you can understand the fact with more logical thinking, everyone hear the sound of his desires not the sound of the reality.

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    1. But the reality is that modern Egyptian culture is influenced by religion, particularly Islam...

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  4. I dont understand that its acceptable to watch and both men and women will go and watch, but not acceptable to dance.
    If your landlord's family was such 'of God', then why was his sister and her two sons there?
    I don't get it.

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    1. Exactly. Because they're hypocrits. If they're so religious they shouldn't be seeking out that entertainment in the first place. Thanks for your comment and for reading. :)

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  5. It is an interesting debate. And I also question why it is OK to watch in public (as many Middle Easterners in the USA also enjoy watching), but not to dance in public? Because my understanding, not having been to the country myself, is that EVERYONE dances at home, and at celebrations!

    Sadly, the religious belief that places the blame on the woman for "showing her flesh and 'titillating' men with her sexy jiggles and vibrations" ultimately overlooks the fact that if the man were held responsible for his own self-control, he would be, at least partly, to blame for his own titillation. But this is also a society which blames a woman for her own rape, right?

    As much admiration as I have for the ART FORM of belly dance, and for the beauty of Egyptian culture, I find it very sad that the people of the Middle East cannot embrace the beauty of the dance, both in private AND in public.

    I have only just begun to follow your blog, and I wish you continued success in your quest to live, work, and learn in that country!

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    1. Hi Sheila,
      Thanks for commenting. I too wish that Mid East cultures would accept the public, performance variation of the dance. But alas, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. There are many double standards when it comes to men and women here, but I don't want to get into that. Thanks again and happy dancing. :)

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  6. Well, you're definitely right about almost the whole article. My ex girlfriend was a European belly dancer plus of course the number of the European belly dancing friends I have, and I faced alot of questions about my ex girlfriend profession that time and many people were laughing or wink by the eye as a sign of that I got a hot girl, or in another word "a prost****", It was a long journey to convince people that belly dance is just a pure art, by time it started to work, my family and alot of my friends started to believe the same way as I do, I don't know it was easy for just me cause of my well educated surround I have or my way was the easy one to be felt or understood, I was telling them "Its like ballet in the west guys!" once I say that, I find this spark on the eye followed with "yes, you're right", I convinced many people with that way or example, and I found great reactions from all around me including my family whom loved my ex and all my other friends! But lets be honest, this bad reputation didn't come out of nothing,the bad attitude from many belly dancers is what made the public thought that about anyone take this profession, I've seen by my own eyes many belly dancers (Egyptians) are dealing totally like prostitutes in many night clubs, so those dancers are the ones to put the blame on! And my last point, is that things are changing alot lately in Egypt, people are getting more liberal on several levels and more understanding to many stuff, maybe yes not yet with belly dance, but it eventually it will, it just takes time, am sure many of my friends and family members whom already convinced that belly dance is just a pure art will talk around occasionally, and other people with experiences like me will talk, and the word will be spread all over the country, maybe it will take years, but it will, trust me, it just takes time :)! And my advice is when to be asked again, you can say any profession related to dance, like ballet if its possible or whatever job in theater, like acting or whatever, so if you get caught, "Its a side activity I do or learn" ;)

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