The Salome Dancers
From 1895-1920’s, Salome’s stories was danced thousands of times on
Western stages.
The Salome dancers, together with the hoochie-coochie dancers of the dime museums and midways, contributed immensely to the
American phenomenon of belly dance.
We are still affected by them today.
Lydia Borelli in Wilde’s Salome, 1910’s

The Salome Dancers
•Dancing the East as escaping society’s limitations
•Dancing the East as personally fulfilling
•Dancing the East as spiritual – as integrating body and soul
•The femme fatale in dancing the East
•Veil dancing – as revelation
•Bedlah

The Biblical Salome
The dance of Herodias’ daughter is described in 2 of the gospels: Matthew and
Mark??
Fontana Maggiore, Perugia, 1277 - 1278.
But on Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod, so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Instructed by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.”
Although it grieved the king, because of his oath and the dinner guests he commanded it to be given. So he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. (Matthew 14.6-
11)

The Biblical Salome
When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.”
He swore to her, “Whatever you ask
I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” So she went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” Her mother said, “The head of
John the baptizer.” Immediately she hurried back to the king and made her request: “I want the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately.” Although it grieved the king deeply, he did not want to reject her request because of his oath and his guests. So the king sent an executioner at once to bring John’s head, and he went and beheaded John in prison. He brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.
(Mark 6.22-28)

The Biblical Salome
The name Salome occurs in the historian Josephus
(37-100 CE).
Scholars made the connection very early in Christian history.
Salome’s dance is not portrayed as
“Eastern” or foreign in early representations.
On a panel of the Rouen Cathedral
(1063), it is acrobatic.

The Biblical Salome
In Benozzo Gozzoli’s The Dance of Salome (1461-62), it is portrayed as nondescript Western dancing, and Salome wears Western clothes.

The Biblical Salome
Salome appeared on stage in morality plays from the medieval period on, as a model of sinful behavior.
Some early moralists use her dance as a “talking point” in their condemnations of all dancing.
But she is not portrayed as an
Easterner – just as a harlot.

19 th Century Salome
In the 19 th century, two things happen hand in hand:
1. The motif of Salome explodes in popularity, and
2. Salome begins to be portrayed as an exotic,
Eastern woman.
This coincides with French and
English political involvement in “colonizing” the East

19 th Century Salome
Gustave Moreau’s Salome paintings were very influential, sparking the imagination of many other artists and writers.
They drew on the descriptions of the Orient in Gustave Flaubert’s
Salambo and other Orientalist writings.
They are part of a tradition of
Orientalist painters and writers.
Salome 1874

Orientalism
Edward Said describes orientalism as a strategy for political domination of the
East.
In the West, the “exotic East” is interpreted as the opposite of Western reason. It is portrayed as:
•Timeless and unchanging
•A place of great degeneracy and also great repression
•Full of irrational violence
•Full of ancient wisdom but also foolishly improvident

Salome was a popular theme in literature and in art. She was portrayed as:
•A femme fatale – a woman whose seductive power was inherently destructive
•A cold-hearted, ignorant child
•An innocent girl caught up in a terrible situation
•And many other variations
Salome had become a figure whose versions encapsulated her culture’s tensions about key issues: women’s changing role, sexuality, women’s selfdetermination, religion …
19 th Century Salome

Wilde’s Salome
Oscar Wilde wrote his Salome in 1891 in an all-night creative frenzy. He had been thinking about it for years – including speculating how Salome’s dance would be performed.
In his stage directions he simply wrote, “Salome dances the dance of the seven veils.”
Although there are many mystical references to veils and sevens in 19 th century thought, the dance of the seven veils was apparently invented by Wilde.

Wilde’s Salome
Wilde’s Salome was an innocent young girl whose passion for
John the Baptist led her into perverse, frustrated longing.
He envisioned the Dance of the
Seven Veils as in part metaphysical, involving revelations of hidden truths.
His friend Pierre Louys envisioned it in a more colorful way:
THE FLOWER DANCE
Anthis, the Lydian dancer, has seven veils about her. She unrolls the yellow veil and her jet-black tresses spread upon the air. The rosy-veil slides from her mouth. The white veil falling shows her naked arms.
She frees her little breasts from the opening scarlet veil. She drops the green one from her round and double croup. She draws the blue veil from her shoulders, but she still retains the last transparent one, pressing it upon her puberty.
The young men plead with her; she shakes her head. Only at the music of the flutes she tears it off a bit, then altogether, and with the gestures of the dance she plucks the fresh young flowers of her body,
Singing: "Where are my roses, where my perfumed violets! Where are my sprays of parsley! --Here are my roses, and I give them to you. There are my violets, do you care for any?
There are my lovely curling parsley wisps."

Wilde’s Salome
A production was planned which would feature the day’s leading actress, Sarah
Bernhardt. But before it could be staged, it was banned by the
British Censors.
His play was published in
French and later in English.
Two years later Wilde was convicted of sodomy and in disgrace. The play languished.

In 1895 Loie Fuller, whose technical innovations in lighting supported her impressionistic approach to dance, did her own version of Salome, perhaps influenced by Wilde. Her
Salome was more innocent than Wilde’s.
Like an earlier opera version of the story, Fuller presented a suite of dances rather than just the notorious one.
She was the first solo dancer to present a Salome piece.
Fuller’s Salome

Wilde’s Salome
Wilde’s play was finally performed in Germany in
1896. From prison, Wilde wrote that he didn’t want the Dance of the Seven Veils to resemble Fuller’s dance!
The German version was a controversial success. A few other productions followed.

Wilde’s Salome
Not long after, it was performed in Paris, despite concerns about Wilde’s legal
(and “moral”) problems.

Strauss’s Salome
Although Wilde’s play had been banned in London and was controversial elsewhere, composer Richard Strauss created his operatic Salome
(1905) around Wilde’s play.
Strauss’s opera took Salome, and the controversy surrounding her dance, into the mainstream.

Strauss’s Salome
The opera diva Marie Wittig sang
Salome in the title roll, but her dance was performed by a stand-in ballerina, causing some comments on the transformation of the zaftig soprano into the lithe dancer.
The opera, like the play before it, was a controversial success.

Strauss’s Salome
Strauss had written of the dance, that is should be done with great solemnity, “as if on a prayer mat.”
But what people remembered was the veils, and the head.

Operatic Salomes explored “Eastern” motifs in their costuming
Costuming the East

Costuming the East
Stage costuming for Orientalizing plays like Sarah Bernhardt’s
Cleopatra (1892) had already explored a range of Middle
Eastern fabrics and jewelry.

Costuming the East
For Cleopatra, Bernhardt’s costumers drew on Eastern dance costumes, but added jewelry in the vest and belt for a rich, exotic look
Turkish dancer, 1890’s

Costuming the East
Bernhardt as Iseyl (1903) continues the Oriental line of costuming

Moreau’s fantasy of bejeweled nakedness influenced their costume choices as well.
Two trends in theatrical presentations of the East were emerging:
•Operatic and theatrical portrayals of fictionalized
Eastern women like
Cleopatra and Salome
•Performances of danse du
ventre in popular venues like dime museums and midways
Costuming the East

Eastern Dancers in the West
“Dancing girls” at Cairo’s Eldorado perform for tourist audiences in
Egypt in what had become a
“standard costume” by the 1890’s

Eastern Dancers in the West
Performers from Algeria, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries performed at cultural exhibitions in the West, by 1878 in Paris and by
1876 in the United States.
Their authentic costumes (and movements) were adapted to
American tastes for further performances in the United States in midways and other popular venues.

Eastern Dancers in the West
This dancer wears the costume of the Egyptians who danced at the
Midway Plaissance at the Chicago
World’s Fair of 1893 ….

Eastern Dancers in the West
… while this photo card of “Little
Egypt” reveals the costume changes of a show adapted to perform
“hoochie-coochie” for the American audiences of risqué or burlesque performances: a split skirt and garter, a transparent veil, and a fringed vest.
Note: In France, generic “belly dancers” were usually identified as
“La Belle Fatima.” In the United
States, “Little Egypt” is the name of choice.

Eastern Dancers in the West
Here a dancer identified as “Little
Egypt” performs at the Barbary
Coast in San Francisco in 1890 http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/womens/duncan/index.html

Eastern Dancers in the West
Eastern dancers in the West, and their American imitators were first presented at Cultural
Exhibitions and World’s Fairs.
•They appeared as “Others” – as representatives in re-created scenes of foreign cultures at Fairs
•Their customs were presented as examples of less advanced cultures

Eastern Dancers in the West
•They were presented as amusement, away from the more serious scientific and cultural exhibits

Eastern Dancers in the West
<>
Later they appeared in midways and dime museums:
•Still as foreigners and others
•Still primarily as amusement not fit for true theatrical performance
•Often sensationalized
•Habit arises of defining their dance as lewd and suitable for
“prohibited” or “chaotic” environments
•Not the sort of woman a Western woman would want to imitate

Dancing the East
Western women were already portraying the East on stage, though.
Otero, a notorious dancer/ courtesan who often featured in the Folies Bergere, presented herself in an “Eastern” costume in
1901.
She was already famous for wearing her jewels onstage …

Dancing the East
Her rival, Hero, performed in similarly sketchy costume.
La Goulou, a cancan star from the
Moulin Rouge, also did an oriental dance, and eventually opened up her own “belly dance” club.

When Strauss’s Salome was shut down in New York, the dancer who was performing Salome’s dance began doing her dance as a solo in local theaters.
Variety theater, often called generically “Vaudeville,” was the popular entertainment of the day.
It catered to a general audience with programs that involved short sets by many different sorts of performers, from comedians to animal acts to acrobats to plays to dance of all sorts.
Dancing the East

Dancers like Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis were changing the face of dance:
From male-authored ballets
(which featured female dancers, who were often the object of adoration by their fans)
To female-authored, expressive dance
Often these dances challenged propriety
But the women who did them had a strong female fan base and female patronage.
Dancing the East

Dancing the East
Their dances were liberating.
Across America, amateur dancers created their own dances.
Dance became a grounds for feminine self-expression.
Feminine self-expression became a legitimate grounds for art.
The ancient past – Greek dances in particular – and the Orient were frequent sites of inspiration for women’s dances.

Dancing the East
Maud Allen was an American musician who began a second career as an aesthetic dancer in Europe.
She created “The Vision of Salome” in which she portrayed Salome as a young girl who dances her passion for John the Baptist, then wakes to horror at what has happened.
It was a huge hit, and controversial for many reasons:
Notably the costume and the head.

Dancing the East
American dancer Gertrude
Hoffman brought back the
Salome dance to America.
Between imitators of Allen, and imitators of the Operatic
Salome, Vaudeville theaters in
America and Europe were flooded with Salomes.
There were many interpretations.

Dancing the East
The women who danced Salome felt free to use her dance as a vehicle for exploring the tensions surrounding :
•women’s bodies ...
•women’s use of sexuality ...

Dancing the East
•women’s use of power ...

Dancing the East
•youth as opposed to age ...

Dancing the East
•the boundary between sacred and profane …

Dancing the East
There are even reports of women-only Salome parties, where women dressed in
Eastern apparel and dances sensuously …
Salome had become a figure representing women’s power in the face of patriarchy …
A figure representing women’s ownership of their sexuality,
And their potential to use it for purposes of their own.

All the same, Salome came to a bad end in most versions of the story …
Did women inadvertently support patriarchal readings of women’s power by embracing a story where it was punished?
In embracing the femme fatale, did they participate in an orientalism that obscured the true nature of the Eastern world?
The femme fatale is one element of the
Western reception of Eastern dance that still remains, obscuring the cultural meanings of raqs sharqi sometimes even to those who perform it …
Dancing the East

Dancing the East
Adolphe Gaussen: At the Costumier Souplet’s
A standard costume for performing Eastern dance arose…

Dancing the East
In the 1910’s, Mata Hari, a dancer/courtesan who presented herself as a former temple priestess from Java, wore it for her oriental dances …

Dancing the East
By the teens, the costume was also being worn by dancers or
Eastern ethnicity who performed in the West, like La
Belle Zerka, who performed in
Paris …

Dancing the East
And by this unnamed dancer performing in Europe.

Dancing the East
Veil dances had been done on stage before Salome. Loie
Fuller’s fabric dances were an extreme example.
The veil has a long Western history of representing meanings, from mystical revelation to innocence to vulnerability to unknowability.
In women’s expressive dance, it could represent the woman’s feelings.

Dancing the East
The veil, so long an element in the
West’s visual images of the East, now became a key element of the portrayal of the East in dance.

Dancing the East
In the 1910’s, Mata Hari manipulates a veil …

Dancing the East
In the 1920’s, a dancer performs an Eastern-themed veil dance.
The veil remained a key element of the portrayal of Eastern dance in the West, though it never really caught on in the East.
Western women today often comment that the veil gives them scope for self-expression …
While in the East the creator of emotional expression remains the body.

Staging Salome
Wilde’s Salome and Strauss’s operatic Salome continued to be performed, with many different stagings of the Dance of the Seven
Veils – some formal and metaphorical, some wild and sensual.
They continue to this day.
Lydia Borelli , teens

Staging Salome
Salome was portrayed in a number of movies, including the versions of Theda Bara …

… and Alla Nazimova.
Staging Salome

Dancing the East
Many Salome performances also bridged the gap between polite theater and burlesque, which was gaining in popularity in the
1910’s and ’20’s.

In burlesque theaters, the “Eastern” techniques of the hoochie-coochie dancers, and the costume and the unveiling of Salome, conflated.
Dancing the East

Dancing the East
The orient offered a range of stances, from voracious sexuality to naked innocence …

Salome’s Impact
The Salome craze died by the mid-
1920’s.
Salome’s many interpretations had played their role in dramatizing women’s emancipation, both for the women themselves, and for the men whose complacency was challenged by women’s changing roles.

Salome’s Impact
New dances, created and popularized by
African-Americans, were taking the lead in participant dancing in dance halls all over
America.
Aesthetic dancing had transformed from the expressive art of a single woman, to the work of companies and troupes.
The image of the Eastern dancer stayed alive in the public’s imagination, though.

Salome’s Impact
“The Costume,” adapted by
Eastern artists working in the
West and brought back to the
East, became a part of the urban Eastern rendition of
raqs sharqi under such artist/impresarios as Badia Masabni.

Salome’s Impact
Western versions of “the
Costume” were featured in movies and in pinups.

Salome’s Impact
Most influential in the West, though, was the popularization of the idea that women could find themselves and express themselves through dancing an ancient dance of Eastern origin, and that that dance could bear as many interpretations as there are dancers …
One of the principles that is the foundation of the success of belly dance in the West.