Thread: Belly dance in 1960's London

Does anyone know who this is?

this is a pathe news vintage reel fron an Arab nightclub in 1960's London

( BELLY DANCING ) - British Pathe

Wow. Not even sure where to start on this one. I'm thinking of all the merkin jokes that infamous Souheir Zaki "Leylet Hob" clip spawned, and at least she was wearing a regular bra!

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Does anyone know who this is?

No idea, but the floorwork here looks like it came from the same choreographer.

Caroline, Cathy Selford (Vashti) is on Facebook, you could try sending her a message, I think she's probably one of the best people to ask.

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Does anyone know who this is?

this is a pathe news vintage reel fron an Arab nightclub in 1960's London

( BELLY DANCING ) - British Pathe

Hope the dancer had a good chiropractor. My neck hurts from watching that.

OMG, I'm speachless. Thought she was having a seizure.

I sent the clip to my Level 2 students, giving them a bit of background info on it, and asked them to identify at least two moves that show it is not classical Egyptian style.

I'm sure their jaws will drop when it comes to the wild head spins and pelvic gyrations. We've gone over what not to do so much in class, let's hope they can apply it here :)


Khalida

oh
my
. . .
!!!

I can't stop laughing! I thought she was going to take off - ... now we have the aeroplane propeller move! or shades of Linda Blair As for the raunchy strip club moves

Love the Biskit video, poor fellow running into the wall like that, how embarrassing for the poor fellow That must've been some dream!

What makes you think this is an Arabic nightclub specifically?

It's a wonder the camera guy didn't get a severe case of EYE BUG when he was doing the close ups of her lady garden area

Don't know the dancer but interesting clip. Goes to show how much dance has changed. Was there audio to this video? I wasn't able to hear the music which would of course make a big difference.

Autre temps, autres moeurs... It's a bit harsh to judge a performance from 50 years ago, and done in a venue and a social environment that no longer exist, by the standards of Here & Now.

If the sign is anything to go by, this was a Cabaret night club off of Regents street in London. At Swallow Lane (L'hirondelle means Swallow in French, hence the name.) It looks as though the club was open from sometime in the 40's to relatively recently. The company is still registered. Might be fun to talk to the owners and see the history. Looks like Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt and other legends played there!

As for the video posted, I agree, there is a long list of belly dance sins in this footage. Ah, well!

{{{HUGS}}}

ETA: The explanation on the website says that this was, indeed, L'Hirondelle night club off of Regents street. Really think it would be fun to do some research and find out the history!

Soho was fairly rife with "exotic dance" joints in the 60s and this strikes me as the same sort of place. It doesn't say "Arabic nightclub" to me specifically - look at the clientele, where's the band, etc.

It reminds me a little of the exotic dancer scene in "Beat Girl". though she was far filthier. And not wearing a skirt.

I don't think Caroline was after critique!!! Just identification. Yes dancing has moved on, on both sides of the pond ,,,thank the Lord but it is very easy to look at our early dancers and take the p$$$. They are the blocks we all built upon wether we like it or not. I was horrified when I saw the technique in performance of a well known American dancer. I had no right to be..these people are pioneers. But bearing in mind what we perceive there...what experience training was there then? Watching the dancer (sorry forgot her name) on James Bond,maybe!
I like to think of the dance of the 60s as raw and learnt however and wherever. No one had Egyptian specialists coming over to visit and refine and correct. Dancers were to vist the lands of dance and see good practise in later decades. Apart from glimpses of Samia Gamal in the Valley of the kings, there was no film example either.
I am not saying this is applicable in this case. She may even be a show-dancer whose donned the costume and thinks she has got it right. Maybe she just thought those pelvic thrusts were sexee.But I speculate....

I might suggest also asking Afra or Tina. I do remember an interview with Afra in our mag. When she first started dancing in clubs the demand for dancers was greater than the supply and there will have been plenty of dancers getting gigs who we would assume not to be worthy these days but I repeat again...what training was there? What I am also hoping to make clear is the impact that the Hilal made on this early scene. I certainly hear of if its' attitude to it

This is of great interest to me as we have a research project running in our association magazine on how bellydance has developed here in the UK.Our researcher Jo had done a fascinating interview with one of the first teacher/dancers on the scene in the 70s..it gets very muddy further back
This film will be a very early sighting of a rare bird and it would be great to identify her. There were vsiting dancers but this lady looks like she might be homegrown.
There is another film in the Pathe collection of a belly dance competition..or at least a parade of girls in belly dance costumes.
And yes there were Arab clubs in London in that era. I assume this was one.

Anne White of Planet Egypt may know more too.. or like Nikki says Vashti was working in the Nightclubs of 1960's London.

The nightclub was a very well known haunt for the summer season Arab clientele in London. I believe it was owned at different times by different people and a few times during one period between 64-69 it was owned by Arabs.

I remember reading somewhere about well know belly dancers performing there with well known ME singers etc.

As for the style, it looked like a 'rough' version of Turkish style to me and want much worse than some of the present day clips I have seen on youtube with pretty bad floorwork.. and yes, I did laugh.


Regent Street is W1 in West London. Parts of Soho are/were known for seedy strip joints etc. but Regent Street is a main artery in this area and well known for various types of hotspots.

PS. I may have read about this in Lucinda Jarretts book 'Stripping in Time' which has a whole section on belly dance.. I need to dig it out.

I also found this interesting article whilst researching..

BOMB FOUND AT LONDON NIGHTCLUB - NYTimes.com

This nightclub which was one of the longest surviving has also closed. It was very close to the l 'hirondelle in Regents Street.

Looking at the clip she looks more Turkish style to me than Arabic, but equally she could be a go go dancer for all we know!

I used to know Vashti quite well, and I believe she didn't work in any club in the UK during the 60s, I believe she started dancing in France originally as at the time that's where the Arabic clubs were, but I might be getting muddled so best to check with her. From what I understand, the scene in the UK didn't really start until the 70's, not 100% per cent sure when the Arabic clubs that bought over Egyptian dancers started but maybe mid to late 70's???

Off-topic, they have some fab clips how about this one with Nagwa Fouad:

CAIRO - British Pathe

Looks like they have quite a few belly dance clips, I'm off to go exploring...

Sorry have to add one more link of Nadia Gamal, just couldn't resist, should be sticking them in the YT section, next time...

LEBANON - British Pathe

I dont know much about this dancer Asmahan.

I vaguely remember her doing the workshop circuits in 1990's and seeing her on the cover of Mosaic magazine dressed like a Pharoah.

Her webpage gives a picture of the London Scene from the mid 1970's but does not mention l'hirondelle or Omar Khayyam.

I think it is intereting that the London scene was very much alive in the 60's as it was in the US, but it never developed nationally untill the late 70's and pretty much as a seperate development from the nightclub scene.

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by mafadalo

Looking at the clip she looks more Turkish style to me than Arabic, but equally she could be a go go dancer for all we know!

ha! we posted at the same time.. I personally think she was a belly dancer as she is playing sagat. Why bother learning to do that if you just 'go-go'?

I used to know Vashti quite well, and I believe she didn't work in any club in the UK during the 60s, I believe she started dancing in France originally as at the time that's where the Arabic clubs were, but I might be getting muddled so best to check with her. From what I understand, the scene in the UK didn't really start until the 70's, not 100% per cent sure when the Arabic clubs that bought over Egyptian dancers started but maybe mid to late 70's???

We are looking at the same stuff! There definately was a thriving scene in the 1960's. I was born in West London in the late 60's and my mum remembers some things about this time.

Off-topic, they have some fab clips how about this one with Nagwa Fouad:

CAIRO - British Pathe

Looks like they have quite a few belly dance clips, I'm off to go exploring...

Yes, the pathe clips are quite something. The internet and the resources available today are just amazing actually. I remember not too long ago trawling the liberies for hours on end to only scratch the surface.

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

I personally think she was a belly dancer as she is playing sagat. Why bother learning to do that if you just 'go-go'?

I'm not sure this was all that uncommon on either side of the Atlantic. One of the older dancers I know started out as a go-go dancer and switched over. To hear her talk, it was like, "If I learn to play those clacky things, I can get better tips and less groping? Okay, sign me up!" If you had the look the club wanted, and the restaurant staff and/or musicians were willing to train you, I don't think it was that hard back then to make the jump, especially if you were in an area where there were more clubs who wanted dancers than trained dancers to fill those jobs.

Well thinking about it logically, I cant imagine women wanting to be a 'belly dancer' back then as there was nothing in the mainstram to inspire them.

I am sure even in the States women who became belly dancers fell into it through circumstances and yes, being a dancer in the enertainment arena would have provided more of an opportunity for this development.

American style belly dance was born in a similar way with dancers being taught by musicians etc. around them.

I heard Sadie was a stripper before turing belly dancer, is this true or an urban belly dance myth?

I have no idea who she is, but wish we could hear the music because that might give us the answer as to style background. If you count along with her bigger accents and steps... it's hard to tell, but I think it looks more 6/8 than anything else such as 4/4, or 9/8. To me it looks possible that she has Moroccan Shikatt influence/background. The pelvic drops, thrusts and circles along with the hair stuff... All found in Shikatt dancing, which looks quite different in a loose, belted galabeya.
This is ALL just guessing of course.
Hopefully we will find someone who knew the club at the time. It seems it was around in the 70's and 80's. Yasmin (DC) may know about it.

Well, according to Morocco (also my first teacher) many women started belly dancing because they were simply interested in different, ethnic dances. Morocco and Elissa Kyariacou (my first teacher here in LA) were both professional Flamenco dancers who then started apprenticing in clubs and studying with teachers who were dancers there. Bobby Farrah came up in this period.

On the West Coast, you had people like Bert Balladine teaching bored housewives, some of which would go on to become dancers. Bert actually was given a citation by Gov. Reagan in order to help him with his credentials as a teacher. (Reagan was governor of CA in the late '60's - early '70's.)

Asfor Sadie, I have no idea if she had been a stripper before becoming a belly dancer. I do know that she stated studying in the late '90's and really put the petal to the metal in about 2003 - 2003. I may not be her biggest fan, but I have to respect determination and persistence.

{{{HUGS}}}

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Well thinking about it logically, I cant imagine women wanting to be a 'belly dancer' back then as there was nothing in the mainstram to inspire them.

"Valley of the Kings" came out in 1954, and "Son of Sinbad" in 1955. If you lived in an area with an ethnic nightclub, you could have been exposed to dancing there, too. The dancer I referenced upthread started in a Greek club in 1966 in Ohio.

I heard Sadie was a stripper before turing belly dancer, is this true or an urban belly dance myth?

You know, if you think there's a chance you'll want to bury the youthful indiscretions of your past when you're older, you probably ought to have the forethought not to go on a reality softcore porn show on HBO. The consensus is that the woman in "Sadie TAXICAB CONFESSIONS 2002 17" on YouTube is the same Sadie, and as far as I know, she's never denied it.

My guess is that this woman is Turkish. When I was working at Omar Khayyam, I remember walking past L'Hirondelle. It was quite famous. Many of the pelvic thrusts she did look Turkish. Her facial bone structure also looks more Turkish than North African. This is more evident on the close ups, since she does look almost British from a distance.

But the main reason I say Turkish is the way she is playing her one-holed finger cymbals. If you look closely at her technique, she is using a modified clam-shell grip and bringing the fingers to the thumb. This indicates to me that she actually learned "from over there". American / Western dancers of the time used a different method of playing - more open handed.

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

I also found this interesting article whilst researching..

BOMB FOUND AT LONDON NIGHTCLUB - NYTimes.com

This nightclub which was one of the longest surviving has also closed. It was very close to the l 'hirondelle in Regents Street.

I was working there at the time this happened.

Could it be Melek Caroline? This is how she looked recently.... if you are friends with Behiye you should be able to see this photo. If not, I wonder also if Melek would maybe know who she was.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

I don't really care if Sadie was a stripper, actually, and I don't think it's relevant.