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Roll up, roll up, for belly dancing

PHOTO COURTESY OF BELLYDANCE SUPERSTARS

The man behind Bellydance Superstars is an American with bleached hair, a booming voice and he's on an unlikely mission to bring peace to the Middle East. Apparently, a sexy veil, belly buttons and gyrating hips are just what the world needs after 911 and the invasion of Iraq.

Miles Axe Copeland III is the kind of man who sees only the big picture. The impresario who brought you Sting and The Police (his brother Stewart was the drummer), The Bangles and Wishbone Ash is hitting the spot with his latest entertainment venture.

A chorus line of belly dancers and Hollywood production values meet most of the criteria for a hit show following the 10-year success story of Riverdance. Bellydance Superstars has sex appeal, a veneer of culture and the timing seems about right. Belly dancing is hip.

"Anyone for tea?" Copeland roars when he learns I'm English, mimicking an upper-class accent. Even the star-inured staff at the CTI TV (中天電視) restaurant in Taipei take notice as the 62-year-old and three belly dancing beauties from his harem settle down for our interview, which has been arranged to promote a series of shows beginning in Kaohsiung next week.

Performance notes: What: Bellydance Superstars Where and when: * Wednesday, 7:30pm at the Chiteh Hall (至德堂), Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Kaohsiung City Government (高雄市政府文化局) * March 30, 31, 7:45pm at the Taipei International Convention Center (台北國際會議中心) * March 31, 2:30pm at the Taipei International Convention Center * April 1, 7:45pm at the National Chung Hsing University (國立中興大學), Taichung Tickets: NT$800 to NT$2500, available at ERA outlets or on-line at www.ticket.com.tw Further information: Contact Da Da Arts Promotion on (07) 5370-000 or visit www.dadaarts.com.tw

"Actually, I was born in London myself, old boy," Copeland shouts, before establishing his Middle-Eastern credentials. His father was a CIA agent and his mother was a British spy. He was brought up in Syria and made friends with the rich and powerful in Damascus, Cairo and Lebanon, becoming fluent in Arabic along the way.

In his Web site biography he claims to have promoted the first "psychedelic-style happening in Beirut" and formed a security consultancy before relocating to London and becoming an agent, manager, producer and record company owner.

His story is as colorful as his hair is colorless but it came to an end of sorts when he split with Sting after 2001 and you can tell that it still hurts — and not only financially. He winces and changes the subject when I remind him that The Police have reunited, obviously without him.

Moving quickly on, he says this left him promoting smaller groups and one of these was Oojami and the Turkish musician Necmi Cavli, producer of the album Bellydancing Breakbeats in 2002. It turned out to be one of those serendipitous meetings that eventually led to the Bellydance Superstars.

"It started out as a way of marketing Arabic music and I thought how the hell am I going to promote this?" he says. "The answer was belly dancing and I organized a competition with a US$1,000 prize in LA and around 140 dancers turned up."

Sonia was one of the winners and the perfectly formed brunette who trained in classical, modern and jazz dance before turning to belly dancing says she's going to be eternally grateful.

"I made a living belly dancing for 10 years but I had enough of the restaurants and weddings and this has helped me move onto a bigger stage, travel and do workshops. It's been a dream come true."

The Bellydance Superstars hit the road with the Lollapalooza 2003 tour, were invited to a festival in Bali and then did 58 dates around North America. The grind of traveling and daily shows made the group the lean performing machine it is today, Sonia says.

Copeland later hired choreographer Jillina, who honed the Bellydance Superstars' act when it appeared for an extended run two years ago at the Folies Bergere in Paris and more recently at the Monte Carlo Casino.

She says there was initial criticism of Bellydance Superstars because belly dancing had established itself in the US as “a kind of self-empowering thing for women, whether they were young or senior. Belly dancing is good exercise, for feeling feminine or sensual again after surgery [for breast cancer]. It's even good for childbirth.”

“We got flak because some people thought we would make belly dancing a Hollywood thing for, you know, just beautiful, thin girls, but that's not true,” says Jillina, who is ample, fit and possibly over 30, though she does not give her age.

“We are presenting the beauty of women in a wholesome way, without being titillating” Copeland interjects, then gives the game away. “We're not burlesque or hootchy-kootchy.” Hootchy-kootchy was one of the names originally given to belly dancing, a Western term that was coined around the turn of the 19th century and popularized by an impresario called Sol Bloom. Copeland is reinventing the wheel.

Belly dancing in its present form owes as much to Western interpretations of the ancient North African dance as the clothes the dancers wear. In Middle-Eastern tradition this was about concealment, now it's more about revealing as much as is culturally permissible. Belly dancing used to be a private, solo dance. Now it's public and there's a chorus line.

To be fair Copeland is not pretending to be a purist and freely admits all of the dancers are American and his show is far removed from a traditional raqs baladi, or folk dance, in Arabic. He is unashamedly promoting a fusion of dance genres and the Bellydance Superstars feature tribal, punk rock, ballet, gymnastics and even Polynesian influences.

As for belly dancing being part of a peace movement in the Middle East, Copeland's megaphone diplomacy knows no bounds. “This is the most significant thing I have ever done. When the original Police guitarist Henry Padovani saw what we were doing he said, 'This is like the Beatles.'”

“After September 11 there was a feeling that everything Arabic was problematic, but this was a media invention. It's not true for the public because it does not hold prejudices,” he loudly insists.

“Here we have Americans celebrating Arabic culture and that's why we have been called ‘the most important dance group in the world' by the Sunday Times. The biggest issue in America is how we're going to form a new relationship with the Arab world.

“Artists can make a difference. Just look at Bono. It has never really happened in dance but that's what we're doing.”

Copeland's hyperbole appears to have no limits. He believes belly dancing has come of age and the Iraq war and 911 have focused our attention on the Middle East so now is the time to push its culture.

“We're surfing the wave. I have studied Riverdance and actually it's a 30-minute show. If you watch you can see where they run out of ideas, then they just keep repeating themselves.

“We have a lot of variety and the girls have a chance to shine on their own. By the time I have finished they will be the most famous dancers in the world.”

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