The Belly Dancer As Philosopher

“Westerners often imagine the [“Oriental”] dancer as the femme fatale. But the dancer is not a femme fatale. She is a mother.” In an interview that cites a Lacanian psychoanalyst and an anthropologist, the dancer known as Malak, born and raised in Spain and now an established instructor in Cairo, talks about the power of belly dance and the relations (of several sorts) between dancer and viewer.