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Irida, danseuse orientale
  

 

 

 



The oriental dance in France

by Irida


 
 

We are witnessing since a few times the birth of French oriental dance as a popular movement. Like in some others European countries, the recent development of the oriental dance in France is not a passing trend. It is one of the effects of the cultural evolution of the French society under the influence of the oriental culture.

Unfortunately, statistics about the development of oriental dance do not exist, because there is not yet federation or trade association which would bring dancers and teachers together. Moreover, the oriental dance is one the rare activities which is not supervised by the French State, already omnipresent everywhere else. However, all of us can notice some facts which show a recent growth and a future spectacular general craze for oriental dance. I am offering to you this firsthand information. The courses of oriental dance grow in number and the teachers see flocking to them more students each year. There are also more and more oriental dancers who offer their services in restaurants and in parties. Today, what oriental restaurant could take the liberty of not offering a dance show to its customers? The stores that sell dance oriental supplies are going better and better. Let us take for example the two stores in Marseille that offer this kind of products.  A few years ago, they mainly sold oriental wedding and ceremony dresses and supplies. The oriental dance represented a small proportion of their sales. Progressively, this proportion grew and today it makes up the majority of their incomes.

 
 

 

As owner of a site devoted to oriental dance, which was almost always in the first results page of Google, I notice a permanent and steady increase of visits and a more and more intensive use of my forum, which attracts more and more women who want to share information about that dance. We have to know that there are already more than ten French forums of that kind. Similarly, I run advertisement on Google for my online belly dance shop. The sum that I need to spend in order to have my ads displayed for all searches around oriental dance was multiplied by four for the last six months when the cost by click remained almost stable. This means that there are four time more searches in French on Internet about oriental dance.

Why the oriental dance is a long-standing cultural phenomenon and not a fashion in France. France has five millions of persons who are of foreign extraction, that is about 9% of the entire population. This does not include the children of immigrants who were born in France. Most of these immigrants came from North Africa, so they are of Arabic extraction. This immigration started after the decolonization of the Maghreb by France that ended with the independence of Algeria in 1962. In the large towns of today, there are areas entirely populated by Arabs, and the foreign tourists are surprised to discover a real Arabic souk in the center of Marseilles, one the bigger town and one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the country. If you are in Marseilles, be sure and visit “le Marché du Soleil”.

A proportion of the French population was always embarrassed by this migratory phenomenon, but another proportion, whose size grows, accepts it, some of them with resignation, others benevolently, or even with a certain pleasure. Thus, the population accepted progressively some elements from the oriental culture. For example, in the nineties, in the field of the popular song, the music from North Africa had an ever-increasing success, mainly with “Raï”, a success which then got over frontiers and which does not flags today. One remembers, a few years ago only, the international success of Sting’s song “Desert Rose” made with Cheb Mami, one of the most popular Raï singer of France. One has had countless Arabic restaurants in the large towns, which have more and more Western customers. In my opinion, those elements are just the indicators of a deeper phenomenon.

The birth and the development of oriental dance in France fit into the scheme of progressive “orientalization” of the French culture. It is the raison why the oriental dance is certainly a lasting phenomenon which will increase more in the near future. Thus, one can say that the oriental dance is still in its early stages as cultural phenomenon, even if of course a few French women practiced it before. But this practice was marginal.

Because oriental dance is a beginning popular movement, its practice is not structured yet in France. Thus, the State supervises the teaching of all dances with diplomas, but not the oriental dance. The only other dance which is not subject to any control still is “hip-hop”. May I also add that there are not any important organizations which would be able to group together all dancers and teachers.

Oriental dance does not have real stars yet, apart from Egyptian stars, but above all American stars like Jillina and the Bellydance Supertars. Admittedly, we are witnessing the emergence of companies (there are about 30 companies), but none of them has a great sensation, not at the level of the Bellydance Supertars in any case.  The future French stars are certainly among the thousands of anonymous women and girls who learn oriental dance or take part in oriental dance today. This stars will born when the general craze for oriental dance will become more and more extensive, that will happen necessarily within a few years. It will be necessary also that the audience will learn to distinguish between a real oriental dancer who translates the music and a girl who wriggles on Arabic music (some of them even dare teach oriental dance!). For the moment, only a minority of the audience of French extraction is able to tell the difference, and I notice that frequently. But, I think this faculty of discernment will become widespread, at the same time as the general craze for oriental dance, which will lead the audience to be at more and more shows and to compare the dancers. That will be fulfilled also at the instigation of the aficionados of Arabic extraction who are real connoisseurs.

Who does oriental dance in France. One the more interesting characteristics is that the students and the dancers who perform are for the most part of French extraction, that shows the interest of French people in Arabic culture. But, there are in my opinion two main reasons which explain also this phenomenon. First, oriental dance has a bad reputation among Arabic people. Thus, in an oriental wedding one prefers inviting non Muslim dancers who do not offend the most religious persons because they are not in the Submission (name given in the Koran to the Muslim community : Islam in Arabic). Then, the girls of North-African extraction think that the oriental dance is natural for them, not to say innate. This is false of course. To be born in an Arabic background is not enough for being able to dance well. To be a good dancer, one needs to acquire technique, practice often and to learn to choreograph. Thus, one can say that the dancers of French extraction will supplant probably the ones of Arabic extraction and that the stars of tomorrow will be among them, with of course a few exceptions.

The students of oriental dance courses are members of all age groups and of all social groups. There are teenagers, or even children, as well as middle age women, and also older women. But young women make up the majority of students. The courses, which are generally very reasonably priced, are accessible to the women from middle classes. Some establishments devoted to popular culture and financed by state and local authorities allow the disadvantaged girls and women to learn oriental dance too.

I notice also that the oriental dance is not limited to large cities. Even if there is not statistic about this geographical distribution, I can say that 30% of the customers of my online store are from small provincial towns. This demonstrates that oriental dance, far from to be the prerogative of big towns, is a phenomenon that concerns the whole territory, including what we name here “la France profonde”.

As regards shows, we are witnessing an increase in the number of small scale public shows in the whole of France, even if some companies, like “Mille et une nuits”, reach a higher level, without managing to compete with the Bellydance Superstars. The number of private shows increases also. Thus, one invites an oriental dancer, not only for an oriental party, but also on various occasions, like weddings, birthdays, banquets, stag parties or the same thing for girls, diplomas ceremonies, corporate parties, parties in casinos, etc. We notice thus that people like to see oriental dancer on all occasions which have nothing to do with Middle-East and even without organizers being of Arabic extraction. However, the most common place where dancers perform is the restaurant, either an oriental restaurant, or a classic restaurant which organizes an oriental party.

I think that this heralds a development of large scale oriental dance shows which will have a wide audience in large auditoriums. It is obvious that the emergence of French stars will strengthen this trend.

I would like also to mention another side of the interest in oriental dance in France. French people have a high standard of education and because of this many of them are interested in the cultural dimension of the phenomena. Thus, the interest in oriental dance itself is often coupled with an interest in its cultural aspects and in Arabic cultures. Often, a woman who is interested in oriental dance, by taking classes for example, tries to know more than is needed in order to dance. That led already, notably, to the recent creation in France of a magazine devoted only to oriental dance, “Passion orientale”, when there was already a well known Quebec magazine in French about this theme, Papyrus.

The dancers who got over the years a real recognition of their talent are also sometimes real specialists of the cultural dimension of oriental dance and of the cultures of the countries where it was born. Near here, in Marseilles, we can cite Marila Erevane, who is not only a talented dancer and choreographer, as well as a recognized teacher, but a specialist of oriental dance and culture. Perhaps, the future stars of oriental dance in France will be not only great dancer but “intellectuals”.

It is highly probable that the development of oriental dance reinforce the interest of the French people in the culture of North-Africa and Middle-East, making the penetration of oriental culture into France easier. We can conclude that in France oriental culture in general and oriental dance reinforce each other and this dance is thus destined to play a major part in the future evolution of the French society.

 

Marila Erevane
Marila Erevane