Exploring diversity seminar series: DIANE OATLEY – Divinity quivers in debasement: the ambigous potency of oriental Dance.

A presentation of the Egyptian dance form raqs al-sharqi (“belly dance”), and its inherent potential to subvert and transcend traditional perceptions of the feminine body and sexuality, as well as to destabilise received notions regarding the Oriental other. The dance’s link with sexuality and the feminine body is held as offering not only access to the divine in a manner that transcends a dualist perception of spirituality/the body, but also as being responsible for raqs al-sharqi’s ill repute. This contradiction is not sought contained or undone; instead the potency of the dance is held as also stemming from this very ambiguity.

“Divinity quivers boldly in debasement: the ambiguous potency of Oriental Dance”

Diane Oatley has a MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Oslo. Expressions of the body have been a consistent theme of her dance criticism and other writings, the latter in the form of essays, criticism and poetry published in a wide range of newspapers, periodicals and anthologies in Norway, and internationally. Her current projects include research and dance studies in Flamenco.