My profile of Donna Carlton is featured in the latest issue of Belly Dance magazine

The Winter 2008 issue of Belly Dance magazine is out, and I'm thrilled with the way those talented folks put together my profile on Donna Carlton, dancer, teacher and author of LOOKING FOR LITTLE EGYPT.

You can find the article starting on Page 56, nestled between a tribute to Leona Wood (who graces the issue's cover), penned by Aisha Ali ,and Marta Schill's review of last year's Raqs L.A. event, with lots of great photos.

I had such a great time interviewing Donna for this article and I really felt privileged to be able to share her story with others. She is not only devoted to the art and practice of belly dance as a teacher and performer, but her research into the early days of belly dance and especially the legendary Little Egypt has made her one of its most knowledgeable historians.

If you don't know where to get your own copy, visit the magazine on the Web at http://www.bellydancemag.com/.

Finding Donna Carlton

So I obviously didn’t get to Ahlan Wa Sahlan in Cairo, which some call the ultimate belly dance pilgrimage. But I did take a belly dance pilgrimage of my own last month. The purpose of the trip was to visit the site of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, which is now largely parkland nestled beside Lake Michigan and surrounded by the University of Chicago. It was an amazing and humbling feeling to stand in the place – the exact place! – where belly dance made its first big splash in America.

But the highlight of the trip was meeting one of my all-time favorite belly dance heroes: Donna Carlton, who wrote the seminal belly dance book LOOKING FOR LITTLE EGYPT. It’s a book I’ve read and reread for its detailed examination of the Little Egypt legend, as well as its treatment of the whole cast of real-life characters who came together to make this a particularly compelling period in history. Can you just imagine all those fine Victorian ladies with their kidney-crushing corsets and floor-length skirts casting their disapproving glances over the earthy Ghawazee dancers? The snickers, those upturned noses, their curiously riveted glances? Yeah, me, too. I imagined those moments for so long they ended up forming the basis for my forthcoming novel, THE BELLY DANCER.

So it was with a great deal of anticipation and no small amount of hero worship that I walked into a Starbucks in Lebanon, Indiana, where Ms. Carlton kindly agreed to meet me to be interviewed for a future article for Belly Dance Magazine. She couldn’t have been more gracious. We talked for a little more than an hour about her book, the inspiration for her research, and her continuing passion for belly dancing. By the end of it, I’d all but forgotten that we’d only just met. Perhaps because I’d spent so many hours with her words and ideas, I already felt like I knew her. Or maybe it was because she is genuinely such a friendly person that she has the gift of putting people at such ease.

If you haven’t already had an opportunity to read LOOKING FOR LITTLE EGYPT, I urge you to check it out. It’s one of the best belly dance history books out there, and it’s written by a woman who truly loves the art and history of belly dance.