Core Connections: Cairo Belly Dance in the Revolution’s Aftermath

Core Connections: Cairo Belly Dance in the Revolution’s Aftermath explores the intricate networks of belly dance in Cairo, Egypt following the turbulent aftermath of the January 25, 2011 revolution. This comprehensive ethnography takes readers on a captivating journey through the city’s diverse dance landscapes spanning from Nile cruising tourist boats and decadent five-star hotels to smoky late-night discos and Pyramid Street cabarets. While mapping the multiple maneuverings of Cairene dancers and viewers alike, author Christine Şahin centralizes the dancers’ embodied political insight while fleshing out nuanced portraits of their lives and stories amidst ongoing political precarity. Bridging the realms of Dance and Middle Eastern Gender Studies, this groundbreaking book not only analyses but embodies ethnography.

This book’s ethnographic approach mirrors the core of Cairo belly dance itself via attending to dual meanings of moving; centralizing mobility and movement as sites of power and knowledge, but also in researching and writing in ways that stir up poignant emotions that lead to physical reactions, change, and connection. In essence, the book captures the same aesthetics and values of Cairo belly dancing: to ’move’ with greater feeling and to cultivate richer core connections within ourselves, between one another, and within our city-spaces. In doing so, it advocates for a heightened awareness of the intricate nuances present in otherwise marginalized bodily interaction and exchange, recognizing their potential to inspire into more revolutionary realities and relationships.

Christine Sahin is a dance practitioner-scholar and ethnographer specializing in contemporary Egyptian social, street, and staged dance as well as other vernacular MENAT (Middle Eastern, North African, and Turkish) dance genres. ?ahin is currently serving as Acting Assistant Professor of Dance in the Department of Dance at the University of Washington in Seattle.