The World of Male Belly Dancers in Istanbul

Everyone cheers when Sig dances. His hips tilt, then sway; the muscles in his abdomen quiver with the coin belt around his waist. The drumming quickens. The glitter on his chest and the gold band around his neck attracted a spotlight, reflecting its light back to the hundreds of spectators - men and women - who stretched their necks toward the stage.

The lights dimmed. He flew kisses. He puts his hand over his heart. He takes a bow.

At Shanta Music, an ornate, velvet-lined nightclub on Istanbul's high-octane Istiklal Street, belly dancing - and the admirers who praise it are granted - is not limited to women. Segah, a self-proclaimed zenne, is one of several male dancers in Turkey's largest city who make their living performing what Turks call "oriental dance," taking traditional female costumes, roles and poses and adapting them to urban tastes.

Male belly dancing is not a new phenomenon in Turkey. Most zein dancers can trace their roots back to the sultan's court in the last centuries of the Ottoman Empire, when women were largely banned from performing on stage. Just as boys played female roles in Elizabethan Shakespearean plays, young men-usually Greek, Armenian, or Romani, from the empire's non- *** populations-were often reluctantly trained as dancers, dressed in androgynous or feminine costumes and makeup, and -- in many cases -- by moonlight, as aristocrats ***.

In traditional Ottoman practice, the terms "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" were largely absent, as scholar Serkan Górkemli explains. Sexuality was often defined as a matter of status/rank and sexual roles. Certainly, a higher-ranking aristocrat would define himself as an active or penetrative ***, and in other cases he would sleep with women; a Zen dancer would be expected to play a more "feminine" sexual and social role. Whether or not there is a sexual relationship between the dancer and the audience, Zen dance (and its viewing) is considered part of "mainstream" male culture.

But after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the secularist Ataturk ***, the Zen dance and its often complicated sexual politics fell out of favor.

And so the Zen wandered, surviving mainly in rural areas, including Turkey's more religiously conservative eastern provinces of Turkey. There, Zennes often perform for straight audiences (without the sexual element), says filmmaker Mehmet Binay, whose 2012 feature Zenne Dancer explored the relationship between Istanbul's Zenne dancers, a German photographer, and the gay "bears" (bears) of the conservative Urfa province. Zenne Dancer] won't happen in a restaurant or at a wedding," says Binay. "It would happen in a closed room with ten or twelve men sitting around drinking and watching a male dancer dance," says Binay. . He said attending a traditional oriental dance is something both men and women do. "We all belly dance at some point - even straight men - at least, we used to."

Back in 2006 when Binay and his collaborator Caner Alper began researching zenne, they saw it as a "disappearing culture" - one that was only found in rural areas and some underground gay clubs in Istanbul. clubs were found.

"We are very much influenced by Western entertainment, culture and show business," Binay said. "Oriental" dancing is no longer as popular in Turkey as it once was. Even in Istanbul's sizable gay community, where zenne dancing can be particularly ****ed up, "people would rather watch a drag show than a boy. Male belly dancing is a thing of the past.

But in the last five years, zenne dancing in Istanbul has gone mainstream: in the media for Binay and Alper's moviea and in the success of gay crossover clubs like Chanta: whose zenne shows are aimed at a heterosexual and female clientele. "The zenne dancers were on the verge of extinction," says Alper, "but now they're back. When we used to Google zenne, we'd find a few people - now there are hundreds. Then the word [zenne] was an insult, and now it's ...

"Fashionable," Binay interjected.

"Yes, fashion." . The kind of male belly dancing we see in contemporary clubs has actually evolved. It's not just Eastern belly dancing anymore.

The growing popularity of zenne dancing has been a boon to dancers like Segah, who has been performing in Chanta for two years and has appeared on TV programs in Turkey and Cyprus.

Like many zenne dancers, Segah learned the art in a home environment, rather than from formal teachers. "[Growing up], whenever my sister did her chores, she would play music in the background and would dance. Dancing was part of our daily life.

His mother was a cabaret singer, and when he visited her at the Istanbul nightclub, he would often see female belly dancers perform. He says: "I always imagined myself dancing like them - wondering what it would be like to dance like that." . When he was 15 or 16, a friend encouraged him to start dancing openly, but the only job he could find was at a rundown gay nightclub in Istanbul's Aksaray district. He says: "I danced with just a belt with coins on it, but once they paid me, I used the money to buy my first costume."

Like many gay Turkish men, Sig has found a degree of freedom in Istanbul, which has an active, openly gay community that doesn't necessarily exist outside the city. Although Turkey *** does not criminalize homosexuality or offer any formal protection against discrimination for gay and lesbian bisexuals, cultural attitudes towards homosexuality are largely negative; according to a 2011 poll conducted as part of the World Values Survey, 84% of Turks consider homosexuals to be their least desirable neighbors. This contempt often turns violent; Binay and Alper's film Zenne Dancer tells a slightly fictionalized version of one of Turkey's most talked-about cases: the 2007 "honor killing" of Ahmet Yildiz, who was a close friend of both filmmakers and is believed to have been committed by his FATHER DONE GAY - Istanbul's annual Gay Pride *** is the largest in a ***-majority country - Turkey *** The rising tide of ***ism in Turkey *** is slowing down the fight for gay and lesbian rights. In 2013, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized a Dutch lesbian couple for adopting a Dutch boy of Turkish descent, openly calling homosexuality "a sexual preference that goes against the *** culture,"

The Turkish military's treatment of homosexuality reflects this cultural contradiction. The Turkish military's treatment of homosexuality reflects this cultural contradiction. Gays and lesbians are considered exempt from compulsory military service because of mental illness. In practice, they are often forced to provide their own degrading *** or undergo rectal examinations to "prove" their homosexuality,

Segah himself served in the army for eight months. He said he was going to get a waiver, but he didn't fit in with his father, who sent him to the recruiting office, so he stayed in the Army for eight months before he was able to quietly get his release. "I didn't mind," he said. "I had more lovers there than anywhere else."

Now, Segah performs nightly at Chanta, as well as at private functions such as bachelor parties, appearing on TV next to some of Turkey's biggest stars.

Still, Segah's family was less than happy during his career. When they first saw his zane dancing on TV, they immediately called him and begged him to stop, telling him his work was a "moral disgrace." "I come from a traditional Turkish family," says Seger, "and I'm basically cross-dressing-imagine my father and my father's friends seeing me in this cross-dressing, like dancing? It's really not easy to accept.

While his family reluctantly accepted his career choice, they never saw him perform. His brother once came to Chanta to watch Segah's opening act, and he admired the singer, but Segah sent him away before he performed.

, Segah said he never officially dated his parents. "They realized [I was gay]," he said, but it wasn't a topic they talked about openly.

In liberal Istanbul, however, Segah's negative experiences were few and far between. He recalls only once being confronted with insults by a homophobic audience member.

"I heard it, turned around and said, 'Thank you, sir,'" Segah said with a laugh. "He was so surprised that he tipped me almost 200 lira!

Segah is proud of his ability to drive spectators out of the fortress area. Unlike traditional Ottoman zenne, whose stylized movements are slower and harder than those of their female contemporaries, Segah prefers to perform the exact same moves as female belly dancers, he said. "For the most part, zenne doesn't affect people. But when I dance, I create a 'gender confusion'. I'm a man - with a beard! -but I dance like a woman. It's really shocking. They're shockingly into it