Puritan Morality & Repressed Sexuality In Western Bellydancing?

"Do most women come to this art form in order to heal or 'redeem' a lost sense of sexual power?"

I'm not sure, I suspect everybody has their own reasons for taking up this dance. I didn't, I just thought it looked like fun and I liked the costumes. It also looked like a dance form that I would be accepted into as an adult. I don't feel like I have lost my sense of sexual power and so I don't need to reclaim it
The bellydance community in the West walks a difficult line because of the history of the dance. Firstly this is a dance that has it's roots in another area of the world, and in that area of the world there have been major cultural and political changes which have altered the way that dancers are percieved in the dance's area of origin and in some areas have rendered it an illegal activity. This poses two problems to Western dancers, firstly there is the idea of being respectful to the roots of the dance and secondly being mindful of how the general population in the areas where this dance originated now perceive bellydance. Both of these lead bellydancers towards trying to stay away from sexual connotations in their dance because they could be pereceived as being disrestpectful.

Secondly there is the problem that in the West bellydance is often seen as something akin to erotic dancing and stripping and this means that bellydancers to get hassled by ignorant members of the public, and there have also been cases of people's professional reputations being marred when other people find out they bellydance. There is also the orientalist notion of 'loose exotic non-white woman' that goes with bellydance and even if people don't think that bellydance is the same as stripping they still think of it as something that can be consumed in a sexual way by the observer because of this. The response of dancers to this is to try to distance themselves from everything that is linked with erotic dance and stripping and this means that the sexual element of the dance is often lost. Also the history of the dance is amended to be non-sexual, and people talk more about it being empowering, being about sisterhood, for women, by women and so on, despite there being no historical evidence of this being a female only empowering dance. Tribal bellydance in particular, in it's traditional ATS format is very female focussed and the costuming is less sexual than beldah and the movements are less easy to see as 'sexual' as well. Carolina Nericcio herself has said that for her what is sexy is a powerful woman. The notion of sexiness in bellydance has shifted to something that isn't focussed on the body but elsewhere.

Finally, yes there is a puritanical element to some aspects of Western culture. I notice it a lot in the concerns that American dancers express on the internet about how their dance is perceived. Certainly here in Europe people are far less prudish, the country I live in (the UK) does not have a government that overtly expresses a wish for almost biblical laws and morality, Gay couples can marry, it is not trying to ban abortion, preaching abstinence as the only form of contraception and evolution is still part of the national science curriculum, and this is despite the fact that our Prime Minister is a practicing Christian himself. There is a vocal and politically powerful extreme conservative movement in America that we don't seem to have in Europe. I don't think the dancers themselves are guilty of being puritans though, I think they are just having to promote their dance in a way that is conservative culture friendly and this means that they don't feel that they can be sexual in their dance, that they can't discuss any elements that to them are sexual when talking to the press or general public because it will get misinterpretted. It is unfortunate as bellydance is undoubtly highly sensual, as I personally believe, all dance is.

"Is there some 'distinct' difference between Western/Anglo concepts of the erotic and sensual - and those of other cultures? "

Yes, inevitably. Humans are vastly varied animals socially. Culture is constructed by the people within it in a response to their landscape, climate, resources and other things that interact with them in their daily lives and so every culture is different. As a result what we see as sexual is different to what someone from another culture will see as sexual, and our attitudes towards sexuality will differ. In the West we see bellydance as being sexy because of the orientalist ideas, the scanty costumes (Which are no more scanty that latin dance costumes and some modern as well) and the undulating body movements. In the middle east ballroom dancing is considered incredably riske because it is a partner dance where people touch each other, and that is something quite taboo. I personally find that amusing ;) The West itself is not an amorphous mass of similarly thinking people, different countries have different ideas within it. Another thing to remember is that social dance in the Middle East has a strong fun and play element about it as well which can also be lost in the West in attempts to become a serious artform.

I'm not really sure I can define the words in relation to dance. Everybody's perceptions are going to be different and only a small element can take something from being sensual to being sleazy, and it depends on your location which is the more acceptable.

I don't think we can generalize that women come to this dance to heal or redeem their sexual power. I imagine some do, but most give other reasons. Some certainly discover such healing/redemption through the dance even if they came to the dance for other reasons, but others came to this dance already comfortable in their existence as sexual beings and didn't "need" the dance to help them express it.

At the level of the general public, the U.S. is deeply divided in its feelings about sexuality. On the one hand, pop culture (television, music videos, the fashions young girls wear) is openly sex-oriented. But on the other hand, there is a strong backlash against this from the conservative religious community - let's not forget that conservative religious people (both Christians and Muslims) existed in sufficient numbers to elect George Bush and a Republican Congress. Let's not forget that in some states of the U.S., it's legal for pharmacists to ask a woman about her marital status before filling her prescription for birth control, and to refuse on moral grounds to fill it if the woman is not married. This is the society in which we live, regardless of what our personal feelings may be about sexuality.

In many places, belly dancers still fight misconceptions by people who think it's the same thing as stripping, or people who think its message is "seducing the Sultan".

I know someone who spent months trying to convince the owner of a dance studio that teaches teen-agers to let her offer a teen belly dance class. When recital time came along a couple of months ago, the studio owner imposed more restrictive costume rules on what the belly dance students could wear than what she imposed on students of other dance types. The belly dancers were required by the studio owner to have covered-midriff costumes, while the jazz dancers wore sports bras and hot pants. My friend tried to persuade her to relax this double standard, but she refused.

Several times a year, I receive emails from teen girls who have been forbidden to perform belly dance in their school talent shows because it's "inappropriate". And yet, hip hop dancing is allowed in those same shows. Go figure.

When I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, I had adult students who kept the fact that they were learning belly dance secret from their families because they didn't want to deal with disapproving reactions from their religious family members.

Last year, the city of Norfolk, Virginia imposed rigid laws regulating the performance of belly dance in public places, placing restrictions on costuming, music, acceptance of tips, etc.

As long as belly dancers continue fighting these morality-imposed restrictions on where they're allowed to teach, where they're allowed to perform, what they're allowed to wear when doing so, and so on, they are likely to apply puritanical sensibilities to how the dance is presented by fellow dancers. It's about protecting income opportunities for the pros and protecting amateur performance opportunities for the students.

Since you asked about the distinction between Western concepts of the sensual and others, here are some statements I heard in July from several different Egyptians:

An Egyptian man boasted to me when I was in Egypt in July that his brother had hired Dina to dance at his son's wedding, and it cost 9,000 Egyptian pounds (which is a HUGE amount of money to a working-class Egyptian). He then immediately said that he didn't like Dina because her choice of costuming and dance moves was MUCH too sexual. He said he much preferred Samia Gamal because she was so much more ladylike. In other words, people will hire Dina because doing so allows them to show the world they can afford the very best, but at the same time they dislike her because of her overt sexual come-on style of dance.

An Egyptian woman, now in her 60's, lives here in our city. She was a panelist in a discussion we had when Mahmoud Reda came to our city in July. She told me privately that she refuses to watch belly dancing because it's too sexual, too much of a come-on. And yet she is very, VERY enthusiastic about Reda Troupe. She said Reda Troupe shaped the way her entire generation viewed Egyptian dance.

An Egyptian man from the same generation, an MD, sat at the same dinner table as Mahmoud Reda and told another person sitting at the table, "This man, for the first time, made Egyptians proud of our dance." Reda was so pleased by the compliment that he repeated it to me when I interviewed him 2 days later.

And here's what Mahmoud Reda says about raqs baladi (the name he uses for the folk dance movement vocabulary upon which the belly dance performing art is based): "For some reason, this dance became more naked and more exaggerated. The bad reputation of the nightclub dance in Egypt is due to the nakedness and the exaggeration of the belly and other parts. The dancer has nothing to say, no story, no theme, just sexy movements. It’s abstract."

This is an interesting topic.
I don't want to redeem sexual power but I love a dance that makes the middle of the body move in such an intriguingly beautiful way. It is more interesting than a dance that looks like steps or travelling over ground would be the most important things. And I love the music.

I can't talk about the US. But it seems schizophrenic that professionals have to stress that bellydance is not sensual in order to escape bad labelling or sort of prohibition because it is very sensual. I think our culture is not used to the combination of art and erotism. If a woman looks erotic when dancing it is automatically supposed to be something sleazy. If a latin woman dances she is supposed to be aesthetical-erotical in her moves if not she would not be considered a good dancer - am I wrong, Sarita? The erotical aspect as a part of life and beauty of the human being, natural but artful.

How it would look like depends on the dancer and on the situation. Stage is a different situation than dancing for a small crowd or dancing even for a single person. And the individual dancer will decide with his/her style, expression, personality what notion to give to the dance. Sexual provocation can be quite humourous, playful, ironical and an ok element within the dance. But it is very perceptible if a dancer respects the art or else uses the inherent sexuality of this art just to turn on spectators of the opposite sex.

"If so...then why is it that so much of the bellydancing community/industry is rife with puritannical sensibilities and harsh judgements with respect to the expression of this sexual power in the dance? " –Sarita

The bellydancing "community" appears to be made up primarily of women. The bellydancing "industry" seems to be made up primarily of men.

I'm painting with a broad brush here...But here goes:

The bellydancing community tends to be supporting of a woman seeking to redeem her sexuality. That is generally not considered a threat to another dancer. What may be a threat however is a woman's sensuality -- the beauty that she elicits. One who speaks one moment of "sisterhood" may attack the confidence of another dancer the next moment. She doesn't want sisterhood. She didn't come to bellydance to redeem her lost sense of sexual power. She came to abuse her power with crazymaking behaviors. When the so-called sisters refuse to bow down and walk away, she has no idea why. She always thought of herself as a benevolent dictatrix, after all.

The industry meanwhile tends to be made up of male business managers, shady restaurant owners, male club owners or even drunk fraternity brothers hiring a bellygram dancer. Sadly, the history of bellydance is often that of pimp and prostitute. A smart independent dancer with no sexual hangups whatsoever can even find herself victimized by shady practices, lies and mixed