Jamila Salimpour

Biography

Jamila Jamila was a professional dancer with her own band when the first successful 'Oriental' night club opened in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, the Greek Village. This venue hired Jamila's musicians but not her, claiming that her bedlah was risque. So Jamila went there as a customer and made careful assessments of their clientele and entertainment. In an article published on Bhuz, Jamila described the effect a certain scandalously effective singer had on the Greek Village's cash flow. "Just as in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 when the dancers from the midway offended the sensibility of what was considered the norm, the customers to the Greek Village came in droves to view the offender first-hand in order to more effectively pass judgement. The cash register rang from the profits of the protestors who stayed most of the night to watch Betty and make sure they saw what the gossip was all about. She never disappointed them."

Jamila had started teaching in the early 1950s. When her second marriage ended, she arranged to both dance AND teach classes at the Fez, a popular nightclub. Because of the problems Arabic restaurants were having with dancers from overseas who had come into the country illegally and who were supplementing their income on the side as prostitutes, the Fez agreed to let Jamila provide them with American dancers who would stick to dancing.

In 1960, Jamila moved to San Francisco, where she had more opportunities to perform. The audience was now heavily American men, not Arabic, and the American audience were there for the dancing, not the music or the singing (which they did not understand). They expected a dancer on stage at all times, which ended up turning the original 15-minute sets into exhausting 45-minute sets. The upside was that Jamila was exposed to many regional dance styles and soaked them up like a sponge. Zills became a special interest for her.

1965: Married again, and again to a Persian husband who would not allow her to dance publicly. Jamila, now pregnant, continued to teach full time. She had huge classes (as many as 300 in a gym at one time). Part of her brand consisted of arriving fully dressed and made up as for a performance. Her striking dark looks and dramatic costuming made her a commanding presence. She favored folkloric costuming over traditional cabaret for the theatrical effect: photographs from the 60s frequently show her in what became her signature assuit dresses with dramatic tatoos and headpieces.

As daughter Suhaila grew up, Jamila incorporated her into her dance life, teaching her to dance, perform and eventually to teach. Jamila began to codify the steps she had learned, which not only facilitated teaching but which proved useful when the belly dance scene started to incorporate choreographed dancing to music by large Egyptian orchestras and when videos became a popular way of teaching. The choreographies could be written down and understood by students; the videos had a way to name what was being taught. Jamila's terminology was eventually absorbed into the Western belly dance culture and is used as a de-facto standard by many teachers and performers today.

In the late 1960s, Jamila formed the tribal troupe Bal Anat, initially as a way to structure the ad hoc bellydancing which was taking place at the The Renaissance Pleasure Faire; the owners of the Faire were threatening to throw the belly dancers out. The troupe was dramatically successful, performing and touring with up to forty dancers and musicians at any one time. Jamila incorporated her unique understanding of ethnic costuming, Middle Eastern dance and music, circus dynamics and excitement-hungry American audiences to create a distinctly American dance art form, tribal belly dance, which she never represented as anything other than fantasy but which took hold in many imaginations as 'real' belly dance.

From her speech presented in 1997 at the International Conference on Middle Eastern Dance: "I have heard a couple of new expressions since my return to Berkeley. They are East Coast Tribal, West Coast Tribal, and the Ethnic Police, an expression I find very amusing. I don't object to anything as long as it is entertaining."

Timeline

1926

Jamila is born. Her father, a Sicilian who had been stationed in the Middle East and who was fascinated by the Egyptian dances, would imitate what he remembered for his family. She called him her first Orientale dance teacher. In her teen-aged years, she studied the dancing in Egyptian movies.

1942

Elephant acrobatic rider in the Ringling Brothers Circus. In an interview with Habibi magazine, she described circus life as hard and dangerous. She survived two stampedes, slept in a crowded tent next to the railroad tracks, and had one bucket of water per day to take care of all clothes washing and bathing.

1944

First marriage, to a high school sweetheart. The young couple moved to Los Angeles, where the marriage quickly ended.

1946

Jamila began her professional dance career.

1947

Newly divorced, Jamila moved in with a Armenian/Egyptian family. Her landlady became a friend who took her to movies starring famous Egyptian dancers, after which they would come home and recreate the movements. Jamila assembled a band with local amateur musicians and began to dance at small private parties, which were, at that time, the only real venue open to her.

1949

Begins teaching. She begins to develop her now-famous codification of MED dance and zill patterns.

1950s

Jamila, now married to her second husband, an Eastern Indian dancer, is forbidden by her husband to dance in public herself, but she is allowed to teach and to help her husband manage their coffee house, the Nine Muses, serving Indian and Sicilian food.

1957

The Fez (Arabic nightclub) and the Greek Village in Los Angeles start incorporating music, singing and dance into their entertainment, sparking a unique excitement and interest in Middle Eastern and Greek music and dance.

1958

Jamila, divorced again, moves to San Francisco and begins dancing at popular Arabic nightclub, 12 Adler. She also organized performing engagements there for other (now famous) Middle Eastern dancers, including Aisha Ali and Marliza Pons.

1960s

Jamila becomes the first woman to own a Mid-Eastern club in California, the Bagdad Cabaret.

1966

Daughter Suhaila is born.

1968

Bal-Anat, her legendary dance troupe, is formed to perform at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in San Francisco, California.

1978

Jamila publishes her first manual on dance in 1978.

References

• Many dancers disagree with Jamila on the history of belly dance, but these videos demonstrate how determined she was to raise belly dance in America to an art form.
  • Jamila Salimpour Part I
  • Jamila Salimpour Part II
  • Jamila Salimpour Part III.
• Biographical video by Suhaila, very informative. Jamila's dance roots through Bal Anat. She describes the Jamila Salimpour format as evolving from the dancing of the Golden Era dancers of the 1940s. Bal Anat dancing and Suhaila's cabaret dancing were the same format, but the Bal Anat shows included a lot more 'hokum' as Jamila described it: theatrical stylizations, costuming and props that pleased the audience at the Ren Faires of that era.
• Biographical video of Jamila by the Salimpour family.
• Jamila's speech at the International Conference on Middle Eastern Dance in 1997 about her career in dance. "I don't object to anything as long as it is entertaining."With Pictures.
• Shaping a Legacy; A New Generation in the Old Tradition: Interview of Jamila by Shareen El Safy for Habibi Magazine, written in 1994.
• MONA SAID: Mona Said and the Munching Mosquitoes in Habibi (1983) Vol 7 issue 5. Includes a description of a performance by Mona Said and some autobiographical notes about Jamila's trip with her daughter to Egypt.