Men can figure-eight their hips, too
Men nationwide are learning the once-female exclusive artform of bellydancing
Issue date: 9/12/05 Section: Showcase
By Lauren Smiley
Dallas Morning News (KRT)
You've got to try pretty hard to stand out at Yaa Halla Y'all. Upon entering the Grapevine, Texas, Convention Center for a weekend of belly-dance performance and workshops, women named Phyllis and B.J. become "Soraya" and "Tambra." A guy hawking DVDs suggests the new release "Lights! Camera! Bellydance!"
Backstage, the bellies waiting their turn to shimmy in the spotlight run from smooth to cellulite-pocked, alabaster to cinnamon, surgery-scarred to roll-layered. There are so many you stop paying attention, until you see one that's hairy, sans hips and all man.
Look up and there he is, the one the dancer in the lobby must have forgotten when she called the subculture a "sisterhood."
This is Drakon, what you'd call a male belly dancer. (He's really Danielle barAbba, 54, of Austin).
Drakon wears a fringed skirt, blue shiny pants and has curly red hair down his back.
Minutes before going onstage, he's stressing because a woman dancer before him is using the same drum solo he is. Another performer in a "Star Trek"-style dress assures him: "It'll look different." Different indeed.
When the 6-foot-2 man takes the stage, one hand on hip and the other twirling a cane in a typically female folkloric style, a few chuckles erupt throughout the audience.
Drakon executes some body waves, then throws in a couple of hip shimmies while gripping the cane above his head, smiling widely the entire time.
While two belly dancers from Oklahoma let out a tongue trill of appreciation, a wide-eyed woman in the back row looks as if she is witnessing a jig of the Antichrist.
Dallas Morning News (KRT)
You've got to try pretty hard to stand out at Yaa Halla Y'all. Upon entering the Grapevine, Texas, Convention Center for a weekend of belly-dance performance and workshops, women named Phyllis and B.J. become "Soraya" and "Tambra." A guy hawking DVDs suggests the new release "Lights! Camera! Bellydance!"
Backstage, the bellies waiting their turn to shimmy in the spotlight run from smooth to cellulite-pocked, alabaster to cinnamon, surgery-scarred to roll-layered. There are so many you stop paying attention, until you see one that's hairy, sans hips and all man.
| "Male belly dancers have to get past the stereotype that they're doing something girlish." -Jeff Halpin San Francisco dancer |
Look up and there he is, the one the dancer in the lobby must have forgotten when she called the subculture a "sisterhood."
This is Drakon, what you'd call a male belly dancer. (He's really Danielle barAbba, 54, of Austin).
Drakon wears a fringed skirt, blue shiny pants and has curly red hair down his back.
Minutes before going onstage, he's stressing because a woman dancer before him is using the same drum solo he is. Another performer in a "Star Trek"-style dress assures him: "It'll look different." Different indeed.
When the 6-foot-2 man takes the stage, one hand on hip and the other twirling a cane in a typically female folkloric style, a few chuckles erupt throughout the audience.
Drakon executes some body waves, then throws in a couple of hip shimmies while gripping the cane above his head, smiling widely the entire time.
While two belly dancers from Oklahoma let out a tongue trill of appreciation, a wide-eyed woman in the back row looks as if she is witnessing a jig of the Antichrist.