The word 'belly dancer' came about from French Orientalists,
'danse du ventre',
'dance of the belly'.
In Arabic, it's called, 'raqs sharqi'.
That translates to 'oriental dance'.
Basically, the perception of the belly dancer in the West is that she's exotic,
she's from the harem.
That started when the dancers
were coming over from Egypt to the U.S.,
white dancers were mimicking, putting on Arab-face, putting on Asian-face,
putting on a costume of that culture. That legacy kind of continues
now, even in the way that we teach dance, the way that we perform dance,
it's a challenge to try and peel back those layers and understand the culture
and understand the depth of the movement, the depth of the music,
the history.
My Mum was a belly dancer in the '80s in Sydney.
When I was around three or four,
I used to get really upset when she was performing and I couldn't be involved
and so, I would cry until she let me dance with her on stage
and that's how I learnt how to dance.
All my basic technique and understanding of the dance I learnt on the job.
I basically learnt it through improvisation and copying my Mum.
And so, I grew up performing with her,
we were sort of like a duet...
sort of...
I used to just follow her around the stage.
She's not of Arabic background,
she's Polish-Ukrainian-Belgian-English,
but my Dad is Syrian.
For my family, it wasn't a respectable profession,
it wasn't respectable for my father to marry a belly dancer.
They knew I was dancing for fun and everything,
that's not a problem to dance in the culture,
but once you want to dance professionally, it becomes a problem.
So I was strongly told that I should become a ballet dancer instead.
Even though my Mum taught me,
I have since travelled to Egypt
a couple of times to learn there,
paid for multiple workshops and classes.
I'll tailor my show and the style of dance
I do depending on where I'm dancing.
At the Turkish restaurant, I just dance Turkish-style.
At the shisha bar, it's a younger crowd,
I choose more upbeat music, mix it up a little bit,
I put some Egyptian in there, some Lebanese.
There's usually a specific structure of how you put a show together.
We do an entrance piece that shows off what you can do, your ability,
usually that is choreographed.
It displays different Arabic rhythms and styles of dancing within it.
Then you might go on to doing a classic song,
some folklore, and then a drum solo.
I still enjoy performing for everyone, but it's quite draining
when you're performing and guys make lewd jokes, they'll make racist jokes,
I don't know, some ‘Aladdin' comments or something.
I would rather perform for an Arabic audience than a Western audience,
just because they understand what the dance is about.
Even though there's a double standard, they don't want you to be part
of the family necessarily,
but when you're dancing they will truly appreciate the music, the movement,
there's a real connection that happens.
My Mum passed away in 2019.
She got cancer quite unexpectedly.
Throughout the time that she was ill,
we were dancing together,
we made some videos together.
It's always been something that we've connected on and shared.
Yeah, I mean, I miss her a lot.
I love this colour,
this is my favourite colour and it was my Mum's favourite colour, actually.
Got it made in Egypt,
I went there after Mum passed away.
This was made with her in mind.
People often say, why do I have to pay you this much money?
You're only dancing for 20 minutes.
And to them I say,
it's not just the dancing.
It's the hours it takes to put on my makeup,
the cost of that makeup,
the music I pay for and put together,
my beautiful costumes
and the training.
When you pay for a dancer, you pay for all of that also.
Belly dancers are meant to make people happy and bring joy
and it's a really beautiful dance to learn,
to get in touch with who you are.
I feel like I'm helping to pass on the culture
and there's more of a celebration involved there
and it gives me something back as well.
I couldn't imagine myself living without dance.