Photo No-Nos: B - Belly Dancers
Essay by Aaron Schuman
2021

This essay was originally published in:
Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph (Ed. Jason Fulford - Aperture, 2021)

     I haven't photographed a belly dancer in nearly twenty-five years.
 
12/3/12 Business Card:
Hi Elinor, This is an odd question, but I was going through some old boxes at my parents' house from my college days, and I found this business card: "Elinor. Belly Dancer. 212- . . . " Is it yours? My guess is that it's from the mid-1990s, but I have no idea where I got it. Maybe we met way back when? To be honest, it feels like finding something from a past life.
 
12/3/12 Re: Business Card:
Oh My God!!!!! That is so weird, Aaron. It is mine—from 1996 when I was dancing and also starting as a photographer myself. I'd just arrived New York and made the cheapest cards. That's still my home number! We must figure this out . . .
 
12/5/12 Figured It Out:
Elinor, I don't believe this. I ransacked my archive and found this picture of you (and more) in a file of forgotten negatives. When I realized, I laughed out loud. This is what I remember: I think a film-student posted a flier at NYU looking for a photographer to shoot stills for around $100. I was nineteen at the time and I needed the money, so I called him. He gave me an address on the Upper East Side and told me to show up a few nights later with lights and a camera. When I arrived, there was a guy in a convict costume, some 1920s flappers, a dominatrix, and, apparently, a belly dancer. He directed (and starred in) the shoot himself; I think it was for some club-night he was throwing. There are five rolls of film; you feature prominently in three—one is entirely of you dancing solo—but then you disappear. All of the photos are pretty ridiculous, but I did the shoot as he asked, which felt very uncomfortable and embarrassing thanks to his terrible ideas—i.e. you handcuffing and man-handling the convict like a belly-dancing bad-cop. I also seem to remember that he never paid me. I must have just thrown the negatives in a box with my other work from back then and never looked at them again. But apparently you gave me your card, and I saved it. Mystery solved.
 
12/5/12 Re: Figured it Out:
Aaron, I had to sit down and breathe. I can't get over this crazy chain of events. It all comes back to me now. I remember the others were annoying, but feeling a connection with you. Around that time, I did many different jobs for the money too—I had even weirder ones, believe me. But I asked for my $75 cash as soon as I got there. As a belly dancer, I knew better.

- Aaron Schuman