Educating Cairo ballerinas about oriental dance

Hello dear readers! This will be post with a very positive final results:) I managed to give my foreign ballet friends here in Cairo a wider knowledge about oriental dance.

The other day I were driving in car with my friends, going to a rehearsal and discussing the Brotherhood attack and the motives of the MB. It was me, two spanish ballerinas and one from Armenia. The armenian girl opened the topic of why the attack for the culture and dance has started with the Opera and ballet, rather than the oriental dance - so low and commercial. I was
surprized by her opinion, but suppressed my emotions and waited my moment to set things straight. She explained to us she has never understood the value of oriental dance, already in her home, Armenia, where dancers in restaurants only shake their ass and chest for the fun of male audience. These were her exact words. Before I got a word in the spanish ballerinas protested, that in Spain, its not about "shaking it", women take it as a serious dance art and have opened big studios for it and its very respected. I was pleasantly surprised by their open-minded and well-informed knowledge. I myself added that there are dancers that drag down the image of the dance, in any style, ballet or oriental, because they are poorly or not at all trained and people might take them seriously.

After that the armenian girl explained to us how the oriental dance was traditionally only for the bedroom, for the egyptian wife to arouse her husband. And its a big mistake it has come out to the public because its not decent in the public eye. I then asked her where she got the information and she replied she has a book at home for it. I didn't know the author nor the title of the book and since I have a whole library of oriental dance literature in my Estonian home, her book most probably was outdated or some mainstream literature that cannot be trusted for truthful history and interpretation for oriental dance.
I then shared my knowledge of oriental dance roots, talking about ancient birth ceremonies, traditional woman gatherings and parties and the first roma women (ghawazee) to take the dance to public. I did not exclude the wife-to-husband story, but more importantly I did not only give them one explanation of a dance origins. Truth is never black-and-white! All of them listened with great interest. The armenian asked me how I know this. I answered I too have read a few books and have many oriental dance friends (unfortunately I can't say Im a professional oriental dancer in Europe and have reasearched this style from classes to books, from books to academic research, from research to Egypt;). The ballerinas were all happy with my quick history class and even the armenian seemed happy to learn something new.

I feel good converting three ballerinas in Cairo to believe oriental dance can be art and has also non-sexual origin stories. One person at a time and the world will be a better place!