Male belly dancer wows city audience

If you do something, do it in style — that’s exactly what the city witnessed at a recent pride party, where people from various walks of life gathered to celebrate the decriminalisation of Section 377. Invited to perform at the event was Alex Victor, one of India’s very few male belly dancers. Based in Bengaluru, he is also a Kathak and contemporary dancer, and takes classes in performing arts too.

When asked about his stay and experience in Chennai during the show, pat comes the reply, “It was amazing! I’m coming here after quite some time so I felt like the city had changed a lot. I felt very positive vibes and the streets look so clean. Though I was here only for four days, I’m thinking I should move here and find a job.”

When he was invited to perform belly dancing, ‘Why not?’ he thought. “Dance has always been my passion; I think it’s a god-given gift. I used to participate in school shows and competitions and took it up as a career eventually,” he says. “Yes, like one would in any other career, I faced my share of ups and downs but I didn’t let that stop me.”

Alex has received a lot of taboo for being a male belly dancer but he has learnt to take it in his stride. “I can’t really blame anyone because our education system doesn’t teach acceptance or equality. Only some skills or streams of education are accepted, but artists and freelancers like me aren’t taken seriously. There have been days when I’ve starved because I haven’t had the right avenues to stabilise my income; it even took a severe toll on my health,” he recalls.

However, putting his past behind him, he is now looking to improve his lifestyle while working on a fusion dance project. “One similarity between Kathak and belly dancing is that they are native dances of each region and have a deep-rooted history. I have written quite a bit about the origin of belly-dancing but since Indian parampara fascinated me a lot more, I began studying Kathak in detail — it’s very sacred for me. The idea for my upcoming project will be an amalgam of Kathak, belly dancing and contemporary but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to materialise,” 

he says.

How did belly dancing happen to him though? “It was actually a challenge. My friend, who is an Arab, once showed me a video of a male belly dancer. He told me that I could dance anything in the world but not this, so I took it up as a challenge to prove him wrong! Over time, I began to like a lot because of the curvy and flowy movements. It makes me feel empowered to be different and helps focus my confidence into something productive,” he says on a concluding note.