24 - Post war
European developments
------------ Suriya Helal -----------
Suriya is a vital link in the whole story of belly dance, though she herself believes that the word "Belly Dance" debases the dance, a point upon which a lot of people would agree on. She created a movement vocabulary, set up her School of Dance and performed at prestigious venues in Europe and Australia.
She worked hard to elevate the dance to a high art form. She saw that the ultimate in this ambition would be to perform at the Cairo Opera House. She laid on a presentation to which were invited all those prominent in art circles in Cairo, many high ranking officials and those responsible for the program content at the Opera House.
"dancing at the Cairo Opera House would be a symbolic gesture for the whole Art of Raqs
Sarqi. I can show to the Egyptian people that dance is a fine art," Suriya Hilal
A band was laid on and the intention was that Suriya would dance in order to display the skill of the dance. But of course this was in Egypt, not Europe and promptly some of the women present soon joined in, but Suriya carried on trying to show off her skill and it was really obvious how she tried to blank them off, and tried to carry on in a solo fashion.
A quote from one of the high ranking officials "....There is this very, very deeply rooted tradition of informal dancing and all Egyptian women dance, they dance at home, at weddings, birthdays, celebrations, and to celebrate birth, but I think that is has been associated with the night clubs for so long, but it has been a cultural tradition highjacked by the nightclubs and TURNED INTO SOMETHING ELSE......"
The Theatre Director, Hassan Gritly said
"...Suriya's battle is very important, she does not want her dancing to be mixed up with the degraded standard that the dancing has come to.. but still it is the same dancing, only it is a better more artistic way I mean, Oriental Dancing communicates something, degraded it communicates nothing, but it is the same dancing, it is bad dancing and good dancing, so this battle to ignoble the dance should not make Suriya forget that it is essentially dancing coming out of an audience and that the performance quality is something that does not exist in Egypt. Everybody in Egypt dances, whether they dance badly or well, their energy comes from them to the audience, so it can't be a performance like in the West where everyone is sitting politely or reacting from a distance, they've got to be a part of it and she has to be part of it. ......It is all very well being on a stage, the audience is used to looking at a stage, with somebody being so far away, but this kind of dancing whether it is belly dancing or Sharqi dancing or whatever is so close to people's experience and souls, that I think the audience will feel cut off, in Europe the audience doesn't have to participate, but in Egypt the audience participates whether you like it or not so you might as well use the audience. I think this is so basic that if she doesn't do that, she's going to be like a butterfly in a collection, beautiful but not so alive.
I think these quotes show how deeply ingrained is the idea of dance as a participation sport. The idea of an audience simply sitting there and watching is alien. As the earlier quote said, the Egyptian Cabaret scene highjacked the dance from its original setting and subsequently has become established as a modern cultural feature of Egypt, for example any tourist coming to Egypt will be told about the Pyramids and the Belly Dancers in the clubs. But the way things are going this is slowly going to die out. After all it only started in the 20's reached its peak in the 50's and in some 50 years' time it will be probably be a minor tourist relic.
There is nothing at all wrong with Suriya trying to create a Theatre or Art form of the dance for display on the stage.
As an aim it is really fine. It would be wonderful to see a still further broadening of the Theatre Culture.
But it must be understood that this is NOT TRADITIONAL in any sense or meaning. Maybe you could argue that the Egyptian Cabaret scene with its fine belly dancers has become established firmly enough to be rightly called as a "tradition," but when this is compared scale wise to the tradition of the participatory, interactive style of dance that takes place across the entire Middle East, it is an extremely small element.
So in my mind the determinator of how "authentic" a dancer to "Arabic Dancing" is really the degree to which the dancer gets the audience involved, indeed the true "Arabic Dancer" would be so immersed in with the people that they would not even stand
out (is what I believe!).