Oriental dancers were at the London Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. (Travel accounts were brought back, not the Ghawazee themselves.) Ghawazee were brought to Denmark in the 1760s. (There seems to be no evidence for this.) The Crusaders brought back dancing girls to Europe. She was an actress and a prostitute, whose mother was a dancer.)Ħ12 AD Moors settled in Spain bringing oriental dance with them. (Contemporary sources do not describe her as a dancer. The Empress Theodora was a famous oriental dancer. (There is hardly any evidence that the library was still extant during her adulthood, let alone that she was the librarian there.) The philosopher Hypatia was the last Alexandrian Librarian. (Hmmm…exactly where, to which Goddess and how do we know?) Some of the dubious statements I've seen include –Ģ300 BC sacred love making widely practiced in temples to the Great Goddess. Maybe there’s been some confusion over the story, or can someone tell me better?Īs for BellyDance timelines – I take them with a pinch of salt, although a good starting point for research. I’d have thought her involvement in a previous fair would have been an ideal newsworthy comment here. The next paragraph then says Lorraine is applying to be in the New York world fair (which lost money the year before), and implies that she would do for the fair what the original Little Egypt did for the 1893 Chicago fair, and what Sally Rand did for the one in 1933. But another newspaper report of May 1965 does record her trying to sue Elvis Presley for presenting a dancer in one of his films as Little Egypt.
The Oct 1963 newspaper article didn’t mention it, but then it could have been irrelevant old news by then. I know the internet doesn’t have everything, but I can’t find any first-hand account of Little Lorraine Egypt billed in or suing the Seattle Fair in1962. I wonder if linking the names caused confusion in popular thought that Little Lorraine Egypt and Sally Rand performed at the same fair? When talking about these sensational shows at fairs other reports link the Little Egypt of 1893 and Sally Rand of 1933 as comparable ‘shockers’, and the only thing that people remember about these supposedly educational events. The final sentence looks suspicious to me because newspaper reports of the fair focused on the show girl productions of Gracie Hansen, calling them the successors to Little Egypt and Sally Rand, with no mention of those two stars actually being in the fair. A Show Street featuring Sally Rand and Little Egypt, and a Midway were added.” ( Earth Station Nine). State Representative Len Sawyer added that "a cadaver at a medical exhibit in Canada was drawing more attention than an Art Exhibit". The only link between Little Lorraine Egypt and Seattle I can find on the internet is this quote “In 1961, State Senator Reuben Knoblauch complained that too much space and emphasis had been placed on the Art Exhibit and not enough on "skin shows" that would attract more people.
Little Lorraine Egypt was also playing in ‘Gideon’ on Broadway, New York from Nov 1961 – Jun 1962, which would have overlapped for some of the Seattle Fair. It seems likely she would have been intending to feature on Show Street (the adult entertainment section), yet this is exactly the type of entertainment the newspapers claimed she wished to distance herself from (unless she has a huge dose of hypocrisy). I wonder where the story of Little Lorraine Egypt suing the 1962 Seattle Fair came from? The fair ran from April 1962 – October 1962. I'm going only from memory and apologies if my memory is faulty. She sued the Fair, but I never found out if she won, or what if any reason was given for the Fair canceling her appearance. Thanks very much for your reply and the articles.ĮDIT - As I recall she was scheduled to dance at the Seattle Fair and then dropped from the lineup. The dancer, although retired by this point, sued in an attempt to keep her from using the name. In the 1980's there was also a female wrestler using the name Little Egypt. After reading Donna Carlton's book I concluded that the 1893 Little Egypt was a legend created after the fact. They usually have a paragraph about legacy and so forth. She had her name legally changed to Little Egypt, and I thought there might be a Wikipedia entry for her even if it was brief, or at least a mention in the page about the 1893 Little Egypt. Last couple of times I tried I couldn't get the Google News Archives Search to work for me anymore.