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

I returned from Egypt even more inspired. I longed to perform on a proper stage, with professional sound and lighting, and a captive audience. Then, as so often has happened, the opportunity presented itself. I was invited to join Josephine Wise’s Masriat Dance Company as a soloist, and to be involved in my first theatrical show. Thanks to Jo, I even had the opportunity to perform in an opera, Bizet’s Djamileh at the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House. And not many belly dancers can claim that!

Very few of my gigs were that glamorous. But even the grotty ones make me smile to look back on. I – and my boyfriends over the years – were never keen on cabaret or restaurant work, but I did sometimes cover for friends at gigs when they were double-booked or needed time off. It wasn’t my natural habitat; publishing is a female-friendly industry, and I was used to being treated with a degree of respect. Here, I found that some of the managers and waiters were patronising and sexist. They would ‘accidentally’ walk in on you while you were changing in the cupboard they had thoughtfully provided and make you hang around for hours before you got paid. I also hated the enthusiasm with which some men tried to stick money down my costume and even found myself backing off when they approached with a note (rather foolish given how little I was being paid). But I did enjoy getting people up to dance, particularly the women. I remember one New Year’s Eve in Grayshott dancing on tables and then leading a conga around the village green, while the restaurant kept my boyfriend happy by giving him a slap-up meal and unlimited drinks.

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