Raqs in the City

In the city of Cairo, certain spaces bear strong historical associations with belly dance, belly dancers, and professional entertainment in general. Azbakiyah, Imad al-Din Street, and Muhammad Ali Street were all staging grounds for innovations in Egyptian belly dance, as well as in Egyptian music, song, and theater, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in the Egyptian popular imagination, these places continue to be linked to entertainment and entertainers. However, research reveals that the ties binding these spaces to entertainment extend much deeper: in some cases, this relationship can be traced back to the Fatimid era. The longstanding associations between belly dance and certain Cairene spaces demand a more in-depth investigation into the nature of this historical interconnection.
In this work, the author examines the relationship between belly dance space and belly dancer in the Cairo landscape over the course of the city’s history, relying on a theoretical framework informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque. This analysis reveals the mutually constituting relationship between dance, dancers, and the Cairene landscape and explains why and how certain Cairo spaces have retained their centuries-long historical associations with belly dance and its professional practitioners.

Heather D. Ward is a Middle Eastern dance instructor, performer and researcher based in St. Louis, Missouri. She specializes in Egyptian belly dance, and has conducted in-depth research into primary textual, photographic and pictorial evidence as well as on-site investigations in Egypt of this fascinating dance form.

Heather D. Ward
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 259
Bibliographic Info: 27 photos, 6 maps, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9030-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5348-8
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Notes on Transcription and Translation 7
Introduction 8
One—A History of Belly Dance and Its Professional Practitioners in Egypt 39
Two—Fatimid Beginnings 88
Three—Ottoman Elaboration, Khedivial Change 122
Four—Entertainment Halls and Occupation 164
Five—Revolution and Restructuring 200
Epilogue 232
Bibliography 237
Index 249

“The strength of Raqs in the City: The Belly Dance Landscape of Cairo in comparison to previous publications is the author’s in-depth knowledge of Cairo that is the result of long-term engagement with the city. The depth of experience is the background for seamlessly describing the relationship between the dance’s past and present in Cairo.”—Barbara Sellers-Young, senior scholar and professor emerita, York University