Bring on the Dancing Boys

Articles on the Middle East appear quite frequently in National Geographic magazine. An article with photographs showing dancing boys entertaining guests describes their dress: “Khotan silk coats and long braids of hair from Kashgar. They performed several graceful dances which, since the artists were really young boys, seemed highly effeminate. ⁴ Further references indicate that when the danse du ventre was performed in certain areas, even though it was performed by both sexes, they were always dressed as women. ⁵ One of the most beautiful and naïve descriptions of a performance was written by Madame Jane Dieluafoy in her narrative of travel through western Persia in 1886.

Recently we saw a troupe of dancers, placed under the direction of an impresario of harsh appearance, advancing toward the tomb of Daniel, where they were to make a halt before reaching the tents of Sheikh Ali. The cries of musicians resound, the cylindri-conical drum rattles, the monochord violas grate ragingly. Young men, with long hair, put on female skirts, loosen the interminable sleeves of their chemise, and seizing the castanets of metal, improvise a lascivious dance, interspersed with the most unexpected pirouettes. The sleeves sweep the ground with their tapering ends, then spread the white wings over the head of the dancer, the skirts whirl, the hair flies over the face; behind the clouds of dust the boy disappears sufficiently to give the willing spectators the illusion of a danseuse. ⁶

In a 1970 publication, the authors describe a dinner party given by a devout Muslim businessmen who, because of his religious persuasion, would only hire what is conventionally acceptable: male performers, musicians, and dancers; this is an accepted tradition, much the same as in Indian Kathakali, Japanese Noh plays, and Shakespeare. The article describes the bearded dancer veiled as a “female impersonator” who performed a sinuous acrobatic dance while balancing a tray of drinks on his head ¹. Why should he enter veiled as a female impersonator? An edict issued in Egypt in the year 1823, and still adhered to in tradition, accounts for the preference of the male dancer by many devout Muslims. In 1823, Edward William Lane wrote:

Many of the people of Cairo, persuading themselves to consider that there is nothing improper in the dancing of the Ghawazee (belly dancer) but the fact of its being performed by females, who ought not thus to expose themselves, employ men to dance in the same manner; but the number of these male performers, who are mostly young men, and who are called “Khawals” is very small. They are Muslims and natives of Egypt. As they personate women, their dances are exactly of the same description as those of the Ghawazee; and are, in like manner, accompanied by the sound of castanets; but as if to prevent their being thought to be really females, their dress is suited to their unnatural profession; being partly male and partly female, it consists of tight vest, a girdle, and a kind of petticoat. Their general appearance, however, is more feminine than masculine: they suffer the hair of the head to grow long, and generally braid it in the manner of the women; the hair on the face, when it begins to grow, they pluck out; and they imitate the women also in applying Kohl and Henna to their eyes and hands. In the streets, when not engaged in dancing, they often veil their faces; not from shame, but merely to affect the manners of women. They are often employed, in preference to the Ghawazee, to dance before a house, or its court, on the occasion of a marriage fete, or the birth of child or a circumcision; and frequently perform at public festivals. ²