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The Perfumes of Araby dance troupe was initiated in the Los Angeles area in the late 1960s for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Diane inspired her dancers to create their own beautiful costumes and was intimately involved in their fabric selection and construction. Denis (my “great-grandmother” in Modern dance: my Modern dance teacher Pat McLaughlin studied with Martha Graham, who started with the Denishawn Dancers). She drew inspiration from classic images of women in Orientalist paintings as well as cheesy Belly dance cover art and ground-breaking modern dancers such as Ruth St. Diane also appeared in “The Witchmaker” (1969) as the Nautch dancer.ĭiane’s self-made costuming was breathtakingly inventive, interpretive and well structured.
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Throughout the ‘70s, Guy continued to call on various Perfume members for countrywide performances. Among her earliest Middle Eastern dance engagements were at Lou Shelby’s “The Fez” in Hollywood (Lou was our orchestra violinist.) and on the road with “Haji Baba” star, Guy Chookoorian, who was also the Perfumes’ stalwart oud player in our multi-piece orchestra.
DIANE WEBBER HISTORY FREE
The article also touches on paradoxes of our art form: the performance setting, creating a artificial boundary within which we feel free to have intimate exposure (and how costuming facilitates that), and the seeming female accommodation of male sexism –actually a proclamation of autonomy and a pathway to power.ĭiane Webber was a Playboy centerfold –twice there’s another whole story there – yet, we’ll stick with Belly dance this time. I was there! Through a selection of our performances in that era, we’ll explore dance and costuming as becoming the object of your own fantasy. This article will focus on the iconic 1970s “ Perfumes of Araby” Belly dance troupe, lead by the almost mythical performer/actress/teacher, Diane Webber, who was also my teacher. I’ve tried to be precise: please forgive me where I’m hazy! It was the ‘70s after all! Please enjoy the links provided at the end of this article for more exciting information to further encourage and stimulate your own creativity as you, dear reader, move our dance form ever further. Now, as I reach back in my memory of these exciting times to compose this article, I’m grateful for the researched archiving amassed and available in today’s technological world. The sociological change of American society in the 1970s also informed our dance community. We always performed to live music recorded music was rare at dance events. Knowledge had to be directly and carefully mined from academic, ethnic and cultural sources. The abundance of inspiration in that era was almost beyond understanding yet once upon a time before the Internet, music, imagery and information was less readily available.
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The Belly dance scene in 1970s Los Angeles: It is difficult to spotlight succinctly even one portion of a vibrant, vast and quickly growing community of Middle Eastern dancers, their enthusiasts, and the ethnic communities, musicians, festivals and supper clubs that supported the dance arts.
DIANE WEBBER HISTORY CODE
“I live by a man’s code designed to fit a man’s world, yet at the same time, I always remember that a women’s first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.”Ĭarol Lombard quote from “Women’s Wit and Wisdom” "Perfumes of Araby" in the 1970s, Part 1 by Stasha Vlasuk