Couple tries to shake stigma attached to bellydancing
Photo:Noha El-Hennawy
Sami Abu Shumays performs with his wife Robin Dameshe Shumays
By By Noha El-Hennawy December 09, 2009
Some Arabs might call Sami Abu Shumays a pimp. He prefers the word “artist.”
The Palestinian-American violinist has for the past four years taken to the stage along with his wife as she bares her midriff and shakes to the beat. The performers say they want to promote belly dancing beyond its erotic connotations to a classical dance form.
Shumays acknowledges that many people back in the Middle East might view this pursuit as little better than prostitution. He aims to change that.
“There is always the need to create scandals around it,” said Shumays, 33, who lives in Long Island City. ”There is never this sense that we can just treat it as art form and allow it to exist as such.”
Besides Shumays and his African-American wife, Robin Dameshe Shumays, the couple’s Zekrayat ensemble, taken from the Arabic word for memories, includes six other musicians and two dancers.
He describes his shows as a reconciliation of Arab classical music and dance after years of rupture due to the rise of religious conservatism. Shumays, who was raised in Pittsburgh but studied classical Arab music in the Middle East, takes his inspiration from Egyptian musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Clips from these musicals, with scenes of belly dancers, play on a giant screen while his real-life group plays along.
“The music was great, and the dance was great,” he said. “Everyone who was a big name in singing and composing was working in films. The same thing with dancers. There was this period in film where classical music and dance appeared together.”
Shumays explained that showing these clips helps his group gain legitimacy in the eyes of an often conservative audience, which still looks askance at belly dancers.
“They come to our show and enjoy the belly dance because of this element,” he said referring to the movie component.
Taoufiq Ben Amor, a prominent New York-based Tunisian musician, said the degradation of belly dancing stemmed from an emerging religious fundamentalism that had dealt a blow to many forms of art in the Middle East.
“The extremists have been around in the Arab world trying to decide what forms of arts are fine,” he said. “Actually most of them are against music all together, let alone belly dancing.”
However, Shumays and his wife say they are trying to present this dance form as a genuine art rather than a cheap cabaret act, added Ben Amor
“They are trying to actually incorporate dance into a meaningful project,” said Ben Amor.
On average, the ensemble holds two shows a month at places ranging from Middle Eastern cultural centers to the Joe’s Club jazz venue in the East Village. Shumays believes his wife can have an easier time winning respect from an Arab audience by virtue of being a Westerner.
“It is very difficult for any Arab woman to perform dance on stage, no matter the context, for family and social reasons,” he said. “That is certainly true of Arab-American women here in the US.”
However, his wife contends that it is not only Arabs, but also Westerners, who frown on belly dancing.
“[Westerners] sort of get this image like it is stripping,” said Shumays, who has been dancing since 1997. She paused and added, “I wish it just could be accepted as an art form.”
