The French researcher in dance arts, Suzanne de Soye expressed her hope that an Arab academic body would arrange for creating an encyclopedia on belly dance.
“The European art institutions will not consider belly dance a complete art without a dictionary that includes vocabulary describing its various movements,” Soye told the London-based Arabic daily al Sharq al Awsat.
Soye wrote 14 books on various dancing styles including five ones on belly dance in particulars with pictures of belly dancers in Europe and the schools that give lessons in it. She said there were 50 male and female teachers in France alone who teach thousands of French ladies and Arab women residing in France.
Despite this boom the researcher thinks this art has slipped due to the decrease in the number of professional dancers and because the classes are managed by European females. She admitted that the European dancers dominated the stage but they lacked the original spirit of belly dance. She believes that this spirit alone cannot make a good dancer without knowledge of the technological aspects of dance.
Commenting on the European ladies who have combined between the two types she gave the German dancer Samarah as an example by saying, “Samara learnt dancing in Germany by an Egyptian tutor. When she dances on Cairo stages, the Egyptian fans think she is Egyptian.”
De Soye began her career as a dancer in the Grand Theater Troupe for Ballet Dance in the French City of Nancy before she moved to Paris to work in acting and classical dance and then became dancing trainer -- Albawaba.com
