Looking For Little Egypt

Cover

Title Looking For Little Egypt

Author Donna Carlton

ISBN 0-9623998-1-7

Publisher IDD Books

Category Nonfiction: Historical Research

Shira's Rating

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What It's About

Donna Carlton set forth to research the facts behind the legendary Little Egypt, who allegedly was the first famous Oriental dance artist ("belly dancer") in the New World. Popular belief suggests that she was the star of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival.

In this book, Carlton reveals the results of her research. She talks about the role of Sol Bloom in bringing Oriental dance to the U.S., the various dance acts that were presented at the fair, the opposition led by Anthony Comstock, the influence that the fair would later have on American society for the next century, and what occurred after the fair ended. And of course, she reveals what she learned about the legendary Little Egypt.

Its Good Points

The first thing that struck me about this book was that Carlton committed to following true research methodology. She sought and used "primary sources" such as newspaper articles written at the time of the events, souvenir books of the fair, and Sol Bloom's autobiography. She worked hard to find original documents written back at the time the events were occurring, rather than relying on analysis by later people.

Carlton's writing style is pleasant to read. Most researchers are terrible writers. Even if the subject of the research is interesting, it can be painfully boring to wade through the academic lingo that most researchers use. I was thankful that Looking For Little Egypt was written in a style that I could relax and enjoy. She used everyday vocabulary and sentence structure. Her writing style drew me in enough that I could ignore the activity going on around me in the airport while I was reading.

The book has many illustrations, including many photographs of the dancers, which greatly enhanced the experience of reading it. Carlton made excellent decisions regarding what to include: for the most part, the illustrations were clear and easy to see. They supported the information being presented in the accompanying text. Modern-day dancers may get some new costume ideas from these pictures.

Carlton remained faithful to the facts. Researchers usually begin their projects with a theory that they are attempting to prove. As facts emerge that contradict their theory, researchers must then make a choice between ignoring these contradictions or accepting the fact that their initial theories contained errors. Carlton acknowledged in the book that she had wanted to show a continuous path of Oriental dance in the U.S. starting with the World's Fair dancers and leading up to the present, but the facts she was able to find did not substantiate this. I appreciated her willingness to adjust her beliefs about the history of the dance based on the information she discovered in her research. She reported what she actually found, not what she had wished she might find. Not everybody would have.

The book includes a complete bibliography. For those of us who may be interested in learning more about the subject, this provides a very helpful list of suggestions for additional things to read.

The book contains an index, which was very helpful to me. It made it easy for me to later refer back to sections I wanted to read again.

On The Negative Side....

There were a few instances where I found myself wishing a given aspect of the topic might be covered in just a little more detail--often, just one or two additional paragraphs would have been enough to provide the additional information I hoped for. To name a couple of examples:

I found myself wishing for just a little more information about Oscar Wilde's play about Salomé and Richard Strauss's opera. I've been told by others that Wilde and Strauss were the first ones to introduce the notion of the "dance of the seven veils" into the Western imagination, but Carlton didn't mention anything about the seven veils when she talked about the work of these writers.
Carlton didn't exactly talk about the origin of the term "belly dance". She frequently referred to "le danse du ventre" which is the French-language equivalent of the term "belly dance", but didn't talk at all about how the origins of this term and how it came to be translated into English as "belly dance" for widespread use in naming this dance form.

In Conclusion

If you're interested in reading about the history of Oriental dance, you'll like this book. It talks about what happened when Victorian morality and colonial attitudes clashed with Middle Eastern culture. It was easy and fun to read, and I very much enjoyed the pictures. I recommend it.