Yvette Cowles - Belly Dancing and Beating the Odds - How one woman’s passion helped her overcome breast cancer

My love affair began while I was round at Samira’s house, enjoying mint tea and cake with the girls. Samira had put on some Arabic music and Naget picked up a hip-scarf and started to dance to it. Her hips shimmied so vigorously that the coins rattled and the fringing flew. While she danced the rest of the girls clapped and ululated – a sound known as the zaghreet – enthusiastically. It was captivating.

So it was that I discovered my passion for Arabic music and dance. At that time I was 22 and teaching English as a language student in a multicultural secondary school in St Étienne. My colleagues were pleasant enough but quite reserved, and I was quite perturbed when one of them gave me a signed picture of Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of the Front National, as a welcome present. I was lonely and homesick, but Samira, Naget and the other North African girls in my class took me under their wing, invited me round to their houses for mint tea and welcomed me into their world.

When Naget finished dancing she handed me the scarf. I was petrified! My legs turned to jelly, I was rooted to the spot and my hips wouldn’t budge. But, little by little, thanks to the warmth and encouragement of my new-found sisters, I learned to shed my inhibitions, let go and enjoy myself. My hips happily made the circles and ‘figure eights’ that the girls taught me, and my shoulders shimmied as enthusiastically as theirs. After years of stressing about my weight, and struggling with anorexia and bulimia, at last I had discovered a sensual and mesmerising dance form that celebrated the female form and could look beautiful whatever a woman’s age, size or shape. I was completely entranced.

Those afternoon dance sessions became a regular fixture. I loved those girls and their families; they made me feel that I belonged. And I saw belly dance as an expression of that sisterhood and sharing. For them it was just something that women did when they got together. But then they didn’t know the white middle-class London suburbs where I was brought up! By the time I left France I was desperate to stay but the academic year was over, my contract was finished and I had to go back to Exeter to complete my degree. And there were no belly dancers there. So the sparkly scarf that the girls had given me as a leaving present was put in a drawer, where I almost forgot about it.

After leaving university I hadn’t a clue what to do next so gave in to my mother’s persistent pestering to do a secretarial course. How I hated it! But thanks to my newly acquired secretarial skills – and the fact that my star sign was compatible with that of my new manager – I got my first job: Promotions Assistant with a well-known London publisher.

It was 1987 and part of my job – pre-Internet – was to scour the papers for reviews of books by our authors. One day, as I was flicking through the Sunday Times , a headline caught my eye: ‘Belly Dance Classes for Health and Relaxation’. They were being run by Tina Hobin at Pineapple Dance Studios, just around the corner from the office! So began the second chapter of my dance story …

I dusted off the hip-scarf, started going to regular classes, and immediately became hooked. And I wasn’t alone. I had fallen among fellow addicts who, like me, just couldn’t get enough of the intoxicating music, sensual dancing – and the dressing up, of course! The more we danced and studied, the more we realised how much there was to learn, so we went to as many classes and workshops as we could to improve our technique and extend our repertoire.

We started practising our shimmies and hip-drops at each others’ houses, sharing cassettes of Arabic music with each other, and eagerly devouring clips of the stars of Egyptian dance on VHS – video cassettes copied so many times that the picture was grainy and the dancer barely distinguishable. But it didn’t matter; we loved what we could see, and those stars, Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioca and Fifi Abdou, became our idols.

A friend asked me to dance at her father’s birthday party, which had an Arabian Nights theme.

‘Oh no, I’m just a beginner,’ I protested, ‘I’m really not good enough.’

‘But Yvette, you’ll be great,’ Sarah pleaded. ‘Just dance for a bit and then get everyone to join in. It is Dad’s fiftieth, after all. There must be some consolation for being that old!’ I had to agree that 50 was pretty ancient, so how could I refuse?

I enlisted my mother to help me make a costume. Before she got married, she had been a seamstress with a London couture house and had been constantly in demand from friends and family to create dresses for weddings, christenings and other special occasions. She would make the off-cuts into stylish creations for me and I would dance around my bedroom, wafting chiffon scarves and spinning as fast as I could to make my skirts swirl. My dressing-up box was legendary in my school. And, thanks to Mum, I acquired a life-long passion for silk, chiffon and other fine fabrics. No drip-dry crimplene for me! Although my mother was completely bemused by my passion for belly dance and viewed sequins and spangles as rather ‘vulgar’ and ‘showy’, between us we came up with an eye-catching pink two-piece (known in Arabic as a bedlah ). The bra and hip-belt took me weeks to decorate with jewels and swathes of bugle bead fringing and, when combined with nine yards of chiffon skirt that floated and swirled as I danced, the result was a labour of love that made me feel like a princess.

The night of the party didn’t start well. I was so anxious that I got lost, drove the wrong way down a one-way street and nearly collided with a van. Thinking that the other driver was going to get out and punch me, I reversed at speed, driving my car into a large oak tree. When I arrived, Sarah’s house was much bigger than I expected; and there were dozens of cars outside. So much for the ‘small, intimate gathering’ Sarah had promised me! By the time I plucked up the courage to ring the door-bell I was in quite a state. My hairpiece had dislodged, my make-up was halfway down my face, I’d lost one earring and I looked wild-eyed and slightly unhinged. The look on Sarah’s face as she opened the door spoke volumes. The sea of Aladdins, sultans and harem girls parted for me and I dashed upstairs to a bedroom to repair the damage.

Half-an-hour later I emerged, make-up and dignity restored, enveloped in a gold and pink sequined veil. I walked downstairs with all the enthusiasm of a woman about to face a firing squad. I’d given Sarah a tape of the music; I just prayed it would work. And that my costume would remain intact; in rehearsal the day before my bra strap had come unhooked as I practised my shoulder shimmies. The assembled friends and family were all sitting in the ‘large reception room’, the size of a barn. There was a magician on just before me and I could hear the laughter and chorus of ‘Abracadabra’ two floors up in the bedroom. Oh well, I thought, at least everyone seems to be in a party mood.

As I waited in the hall for the strains of Aziza , my entrance music, I felt a sharp twinge in the pit of my stomach. My hands were shaking so much that I kept dropping my veil. I thought of the legendary Fifi Abdou, one of the stars of Egyptian dance, and my greatest inspiration. What would Fifi do? It was obvious; she would command the stage and have the audience hanging on her every hip-drop. A hush descended. I took a deep breath and made my grand entrance.

The next 15 minutes are something of a blur. I just remember snatches – the smiling faces, roars of appreciation and applause, plus the pure, unadulterated pleasure that I experienced. Every fibre of my being tingled with energy; I had never felt so alive! I shimmied and sashayed around the room, twirling and spinning with my veil, before draping it over the astonished birthday boy and coaxing him to dance with me. By the end of the second track the whole room were on their feet and I was teaching them to zaghreet – the high-pitched sound of appreciation that Naget and the girls had taught me – and camel walk across the floor. I finally made my exit to a chorus of cheers, and remained in a euphoric daze for several days afterwards. A delighted Sarah told me that my first solo gig had been ‘a triumph!’