Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World

by Wendy Buonaventura

Book Overview

Newly updated and reissued in an appealing new format, this classic book is a lavishly illustrated celebration of female dancers of the Arab world and their impact on the West. "I think it is the most... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566563003
• ISBN13: 9781566563000
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Interlink Publishing Group
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 9.5" x 11.5"

Customer Reviews

serpent of the Nile

This book was supposed to be hard to get ahold of. But I ordered it and it came in a timely manner, in good shape. Thanks!

beautiful pictures!

A great book to keep for your library. It's going to be tempting to take some of the pages out of this book and frame them! Interesting content, also.

Great !!!

Wendy Buonaventura takes you to a journey from the early manifestations of belly dancing to today. She shows a very good knowledge of this ancient art, and it could be a very resourceful book for people who just want to know a little bit more about belly dancing. I recommend it to everyone.

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative

I bought this book on the recommendation of my belly dance instructor, who's had a copy for years and says it's a "wonderful resource." I agree wholeheartedly: the author has amassed all sorts of information about the background of Middle Eastern dance, and the historical illustrations (many of which are from private collections) are superb: Dinet's paintings of Ouled Nail dancers made my head spin with costume ideas.But this volume isn't just for dancers: while dance holds the book together, the author has also created a fascinating study of the uneasy relationship between East and West. The influence has been mutual: Westerners have become obsessed with the seductive East, while Hollywood has had no small influence on Middle Eastern concepts of entertainment. She also discusses the ambivalent position of the professional dancer in both societies. While Middle Eastern women seem more comfortable with their bodies than Western women, both cultures have historically been conflicted (for religious regions) about the body and sensuality in general. Middle Eastern women may dance in the privacy of their homes for their own entertainment, but a woman who earns her living dancing is viewed with equal suspicion in both cultures.The illustrations range from the gorgeous (Gerome's beladi dancer entertaining Turkish mercenaries) to the dutiful (stiff studio photographs of early dancers) to the unintentionally hilarious (Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn are a hoot), and the printer renders them well. My only quibble: in the paperbound edition, the binding is so tight that some of the two-page spreads are hard to see as a whole (cf. the Plate Dance!). But in general this is a terrific book, and I'm glad it's back in print.

Wonderfully informative, beautiful pictures, well researched

This book is well written, and well documented throughout. The history is written to lead you through the the years with a clear perspective of the people of differant regions at the time. This is a must have for anyone who loves middle eastern dance.