[Artemisia] Re: Because you can can can!

[Reuben and Arwen]

  What?  Do I hear the myth about "we can't document belly dance in the SCA" resurfacing?  Phooey!  I've got a new class I taught at Kingdom Collegium about that one.  Esther
   
  Metin And’s book, “A Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing”, has been one of the most useful sources for my persona’s Ottoman dance. It contains information on hundreds of Turkish dances (with pictures) and the occasions when the specific dances were performed and by whom.  He says: 
   
    
   “The early Turkish sources offer little information with regard to dancing boys and dancing girls.  This is because dancing was regarded by many writers oft past as an improper and wicked sport, especially when indulged in by professional women and boys.  On the other hand, foreign travelers gave much attention to this topic in their books and, although they emphasized the slack morality and obscene character of the dancing, they could not hide in their descriptions that breathless interest that they took in these performances” (And 138).
   
    
   Professional dancers, known as “Changi” were commonly Rom, Jews, Greeks, and Armenians.  Kochek is another name for the dancing boys who were also female impersonators (And 139).  “Dr. John Covel’s Diary” 1670-1679: “It consists most in wriggling the body (a confounded wanton posture, and speaks as much of the Eastern treachery as dumb signs can), slipping their steps round gently; setting and turning.  Never is there arming, or any figure, or handling
” In 1560 Guillaume Postel describes the Changi’s flirtatious dance using a small silk scarf sometimes held in front of the face and compares it to a “pantomime on amorous relations
”  (both qtd. in And 140).        
   
   

       
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