Dance in Egypt—an insight into the Coptic experience
One of the most comprehensive documentations of dance and dancers in Egypt, Van Nieuwkurk’s A Trade Like Any Other explores not only the history and anthropology of dance in Egypt and its dynamic relationship to religion and society as a whole, but particularly the situation of the dancer and her paradoxical status: the adored and the shunned. She does this through an analysis of the dancer's relation to religion, society, authority, Orientalism, and popular culture using historical context, participant observation, and a great deal of interviews. A significant theme throughout the book is the liminal position of female dancers and performers in society: a liminality attributed to their existence being a lack of fitting in a binary, they are confusing, unable to be defined and thus controlled. In discussing the important relationship of dancers and dance to religion, Van Niewkurk treats Egypt as an Islamic, monolithic entity, making no mention of the large religious minority, and how possible other ethnic group’s existence come into play. Regardless, she notes that “[dancers] have been especially regarded with suspicion by religious authorities” (3), as their practice “interferes with higher Islamic goals” (12), implying that Islam is the implicit and only religious authority. Rather than viewing this documentation as Nieuwkurk disregarding a comprehensive analysis, it can be understood that the Coptic identity is entirely erased from not only the Egyptian public sphere but general discourse concerning religion in the area. This construction of Egypt having a uniformly Muslim identity is also displayed when Nieuwkerk describes religious opposition to dancers performing for European colonizers “not on account of their impropriety, but on the plea that the profane eyes of the ‘Infidels’ ought not to gaze upon women of the true faith” (31). The tendency to try to create “pure” Muslim spaces is potent evidence as to the seclusion of Coptic society from general Egyptian society and their relation to dance. Even without dancer status they are already liminal, a threat. All of Van Niewkurk’s interviews with dancers relate to their Muslim heritage in some way. Additionally, the nightclub scene which she describes as a 20th century development creates even more exclusivity, as its intimacy would pose a threat to a Coptic person wishing to participate, as they are not welcome in such spaces.
So where do Copts fit into dance? Is there any relationship at all? In asking these questions and in light of the lack of academic matter on the topic, I decided to take an autoethnographic approach, interviewing two Coptic woman who lived in Egypt during vastly different times.
The first is from an interview with a Coptic woman between 65 and 75 years old, who lived in the Said of Egypt in the 1940s and 50s. In discussing her personal relationship to dance, she reveals:
Her mention of the universality of learning to dance in private aligns with Van Nieuwkerk's exact reflection on all girls knowing to dance, but its public expression being reserved for that liminal group.“I was exposed when I was little, to rhythmic dance. We had a group in school who was a dancing group and I was one of them. Every year the school had a party at the end of the year and we would perform our training from the whole year. It wasn’t belly dance though: we called it rhythmic dancing but it was a mix of Egyptian and Latin styles...We had a mixture of Copts and Muslims in the group: at the time this was common, normal, but not anymore. Things change. Now, there would be no dancing in schools. No dancing whatsoever...Dancing was left for professionals to do in public, but I think in private, every girl knows how to dance."
Although she describes there being no difference separation of interaction between Copts and Muslims during her time growing up, she does identify places in which there were differences in being Coptic, which did actually affect her identity and how she experienced community: both on a local and national level:
"In my time when I was growing up, I didn’t feel any difference [between Copts and Muslims.] We were friends, we cared about each other...The Copts definitely had a stricter view on dancing, though the views were kept internal as there was no power to impose. Maybe it was because our identity was so closely tied to the church, that was our only place we existed as a community, so everything became about religion. We all would watch the dancers on TV, but in the Coptic community it was taboo to talk about. We would talk with our Muslim friends about our favorite dancers but never with a fellow Copt. I still have favorite belly dancers: Fifi Abdou, Nagwa Fouad, Tahia Karioka..."
These reflection display that holistically, she was a relatively typical Egyptian woman with a typical experience with dance. Although her identity would make it impossible for her to actually venture to become a public dancer, her experience with belly dancing externally was quite similar to the experiences described in Van Nieuwkerk's book.
In my interview with a Coptic woman between 22 and 27 years old who lived in Alexandria in the late 1990s to early 2000s, a similar theme of a common relationship to dance that stops at participation appears:
"I was exposed to dance through TV, weddings, shows. Also through the streets. When there’s a wedding, everyone who lives on the street will come out, and there will be belly dancers. Also, at family events, there’s belly dancing, but its just the family dancing together...I don’t know anyone who is Coptic that wanted to be or was a bellydancer, but that might be because it’s so much easier to become famous as a Muslim in Egypt. You appreciate that other people are doing it, but you aren’t welcome to do it yourself."
However, in contrast to the first subject's experience of the Coptic church being more strict about dancing, this interviewee speculates that
“In Egypt, the culture is mainly Islamic, and I think aspects of this, like being really conservative, carried over and was absorbed by the Coptic church”
Her experience of censorship and conservatism as an Islamic byproduct is a reflection of the changed political and religious climate of the more recent years. Although religious identity does provide definite barriers to dance and sociality, a certain level of a more general Egyptian experience with dance stills rings true for Copts.
Nieuwkerk, Karin van. A Trade like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. University of Texas Press, 2008.
Anonymous. Personal Interview. 27 October 2019.
Hanna, Mariam. Personal Interview. 8 December 2019.