The performance of belly dancing in the West embodies a central paradox: while invoking Orientalist tropes in its appropriation of Middle Eastern dances, it is cast as a celebratory form of women's empowerment that destabilizes Western patriarchy. Exploring these contradictory claims, the author situates the predicaments of gender and interculturalism that surface in discourses about Western belly dance.

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© 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2006
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