The dance of the bee or dance of the wasp was a provocative Egyptian dance, part of the repertoire of the dancing girls of the Ghawazee. It was perhaps not unlike the famous Dance of the seven veils. In the dance of the bee, the dancer portrays herself as having had a stinging insect fly into her clothes, and attempts to free the insect before she is stung by removing her clothes one by one.
The dance is mentioned in the travel accounts of Gustave Flaubert, and was performed for him by a Ghawazee dancer known only under the pseudonym Kuchuk Hanem.
Famous quotes containing the words dance of, dance and/or bee:
“All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“There comes a pause, for human strength
Will not endure to dance without cessation;
And everyone must reach the point at length
Of absolute prostration.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Ah evil wedlock! Ah fate!
she incites all to evil,
she flutters over all things,
like a bee in flight.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)