[oman-l] Re: UAE male dancers, Dan

[cwallace@postoffice.csu.edu.au]

Can anyone help me with sources of information on the above, which I 
have just read about for the first time in Holton's "Mother without a 
Mask" (Motivate, UAE, 1991).
 I plan to write to her but am dubious of gaining anything mush further by so 
doing because:

1) having to use her publisher as a forwarding address seems 
well-nigh useless because even that company's marketing manager 
doesn't respond, IMHE, to enquiries about their publications [the 
continuing price I believe of Gulf states' entrusting managerial 
positions to non-Gulf nationals; in this case, as so often the case, 
the incumbent has a sub-Continental name]

2)  the thrust of her book is  very Family-Values, and she 
makes strong value-judgement comments against this Dan group in 2 
places, labelling them 'homosexual' and "mincing and  winding" at 
different places, though earlier she had also managed to say that they, 
when not dancing, looked like strong black men who were acting as 
guards for the wedding gifts (or some such).

Does Thesiger write of them anywhere? I have read extensively on the 
Gulf but have not struck this name before. Can anyone on the list add 
more please. Are they related to the interesting tradition of 2 male 
dancers dancing in an unusual way in front of a singer/oud-player, a 
convention that one sees on many old music videos shown on Gulf 
Arabic-language TV channels?
Thanks
Craig Wallace
(Fax: 0061-2 9555 9537)
Craig McL. Wallace
Fax: (+61 2) 9555 9537

(Dec 20 1996 -Jan 6 1997 only):
 Fax: (+64-9) 5758 459