I haven't actually responded to any of the people on tumblr who were saying stuff. But I do find it troubling that, for example, when one person asked about Caroline Nericcio's tribal style the respondent went on to a tangent about headdresses, when the lineage of bellydance style and the heritage of headdresses are two very different things. I do see a lot of light skin privilege in bellydance, which pisses me off. But I refuse to get into ethnopolicing, because first of all American Cabaret style was influenced by a lot of Mediterranean diasporic cultures - Jamila Salimpour is of Sicilian descent. I also know that bellydance attracts a lot of women of mixed heritage, such as Anasma who is of Tunisian/Vietnamese descent. Not to mention the Latino dancers like Amar Gamal and Saida. Suhaila Salimpour, Jamila's daughter and the innovator behind tribal fusion, has a lot of complicated ethnic issues - her father was an Iranian musician and was abusive towards Jamila, so Suhaila has that issue of living between many worlds. Masha Archer was a major asshole, but Suhaila isn't just some white lady changing the dance as she pleases, she's had to negotiate various lines of identity - without the support of the ME diaspora, unlike desi dancers who can usually count on being the pride of the desi diaspora.
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Date: 2012-02-09 05:10 pm (UTC)I do see a lot of light skin privilege in bellydance, which pisses me off. But I refuse to get into ethnopolicing, because first of all American Cabaret style was influenced by a lot of Mediterranean diasporic cultures - Jamila Salimpour is of Sicilian descent. I also know that bellydance attracts a lot of women of mixed heritage, such as Anasma who is of Tunisian/Vietnamese descent. Not to mention the Latino dancers like Amar Gamal and Saida. Suhaila Salimpour, Jamila's daughter and the innovator behind tribal fusion, has a lot of complicated ethnic issues - her father was an Iranian musician and was abusive towards Jamila, so Suhaila has that issue of living between many worlds. Masha Archer was a major asshole, but Suhaila isn't just some white lady changing the dance as she pleases, she's had to negotiate various lines of identity - without the support of the ME diaspora, unlike desi dancers who can usually count on being the pride of the desi diaspora.