Thank you so much for writing this article.  As a male dancer it struck a very strong chord with me.  My dance form is what most people refeer to as belly dance.  A form that has been performed exclucively by women in public.  What most people do not kknow however, is that this dance is based on the local social dances of Egypt and that they are UNISEX.  Due to the booming tourist trade in the 19th and 20th centuries, Egypt saw a huge increase of foriegn visitors, not to mention that it was also a British protectorate and so there were thousands of young men looking to be entertained.  They also came with a preconceived fantasy image of the seductive harem girl fueled by popular fiction and the Orientalist movement.  Therefore enterprising  Egyptians began opening Western style music halls and night clubs to cater to them.  In the 1930's a well known dancer/actres named Badia opened a club of her own.  What she did was take the social dances of Egypt and theatricalised them, adding touches of ballroom dance to create a new spohisticated version of the dance.  The identifying mark was the two piece costume borrowed from Western "harem fantasy musicals"  This therefore became the image of the dance made famous by Egypt's own growning movie industry.

In recent times more men have begun to join their sisters on the stage, but like all dance forms, we face an uphill battle for acceptance.  The assumptions about our sexuality and fear of redicule has kept thousands of men, who are talented dancers, from taking the satge.

Unfortunately, many of the men who do choses to perform often end up looking like bad effeminate caricatures because of bad costuming and inappropriate gestures and body language.  Even though the movement vocabulary IS unisex, there are subtle differences in the ways that men and women do them.  

I've had many a dissagreement with women who, though supportive of male dancers, (because there are many studios who refuse to teach men), do not understand that the way a man presents himself on stage MUST be in accordance with a man's temperment and essence.  

When all is said and done, A.  We are entertainers for the general public and unfortunately, they are still too intollerant when it comes to the issue of human sexuality that does not fit neately into their conditioned expectations.  We do not have the time to challenge this.  It can make the difference between getting work or not and at the end of the day, we have to also remeber that there is an economic factor here.  They don't call it show business for nothing.

B.  The other issue is the growing number of male participation.  In every dance form men are underrepresented due in large part to the misperception that dance is unmanly.  If all the public ever sees are guys who confirm the stereotype, other guys, (gay and straight), will continue to shy away from the dance arts for fear of being rediculed as being weak.  They need to see as does the world in general, as many ordinary guys dancing as possible.  When that happens then perhaps the sight of an effeminate man won't matter because people will understand that it is only that individual's interpritation, not a reflection of all male dancers and they can decide to take it or leave it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5tGRD9Kjlg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oWHFcPVHd0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCmUyU6Gc8