Why foreign dancers not allowed in Egypt ? It’s a couple of minutes after two in the morning when Hanadi comes to the stage at the Haroun Al Rashid night club in the Semiramis International. Outside, it is still swelteringly hot and humid and the Kasr Al Aini bridge is packed with pedestrians. Inside, the night club is packed and as the curtain goes up on the ten-piece orchestra, palpably expectant. The setting is much as you would expect–mirrored pillars, a low ceiling studded with tiny spot-lights, tables corralled into long narrow holding pens of brass railing and purple velvet padding. The audience–more women than men and the majority of them are veiled. There is only one table, front and center by the stage, which has no woman sitting on it.

Hanadi emerges through a side-curtain into a swirl of tabla and I realize that it’s going to take a lot of verys to describe her. She is very voluptuous, she is dressed in a very, very scanty costume, and she dances very well–her hips follow the tabla while her upper body moves to the melody of the violins. The effect is dramatic, and not surprisingly very sensual. I drift a little, borne on the lilting melody played out in the air by Hanadi’s long, graceful arms to thoughts of Flaubert’s 19th century dancers and the lubricities of Egypt. I am brought back abruptly a minute later as a nearby woman erupts in rhythmic clapping and ululating to mark the closing of the dance.

Their kids take up the clamor as the music fades, and then hush up politely as the lights come up and Hanadi reaches for the microphone. She smiles and says, good evening. Her voice is soft, and lilts demurely as she coaxes the audience into responding. I am utterly disoriented, the more so when I realize that her hair has been deliberately prepared to look, and go on looking, as though she has just stepped out of the shower.

There is some minor dispute over what this kind of dancing is called. Popularly, it is known as belly dancing, but some dancers prefer to call it Oriental dancing. Most people simply call it "The Dance." Whatever you call it, it is a form synthesised of many traditional dances and moves that have developed out of dialogue both with Western perceptions of "the Orient," and with the commercial imperatives of tourism.

Socially, it seems equally complex–a cultural high-wire act in which women work their way across a complex territory, crossing and re-crossing the line which separates the respectable from the forbidden. It is interesting to note, that most dancers currently dancing in Cairo’s top clubs are from outside Egypt– Hanadi being an exception.

This, however, may be about to change. In the last session of parliament the government introduced a labour law that seems to be designed to upset this aspect of "the dance". As of 1st January of the new year, foreigners will no longer be allowed to work as dancers in Cairo.

The senior assistant food and beverage manager of the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel which operates Al Rashid, Ashraf Sobhi, gives his thoughts on the ban. "The reason I believe is that there are plenty of Russians coming into the country and you know Russian business is not all that straight all the time and they wanted to make some control, some rules," he says. Talking about the so-called "Russian shows," which are commonly perceived to be the prostitution rackets.

According to an official from the Ministry of Labour, the ban is the result of "complaints from several belly dancers and domestics."

Other explanations abound. Personal conspiracy theories–usually concerning the source of these "complaints"–are among the more entertaining. But others within the industry observe that society is becoming less tolerant and apprehensive. It may be dancers who are being targeted now, other groups will follow later.

There is no doubt that over the years Cairo has become the center of a world-wide resurgence in interest in Oriental dance. One measure of this interest is in the booming business being done by people like Mahmoud Abdel Gaafar of Khan al Khalili, who ships more costumes abroad every year. Another is the success of people like Hassan, a former dancer and now a teacher, in attracting foreign students and dancers to her annual festival. But the most persuasive, for me, is the foreign dancers who come to Cairo, either to see or to dance, because it is seen as the world center for "The Dance." A successful stint in Egypt can translate into a more lucrative career in North American and European markets.

Liza El Laziza, one of Cairo’s best-known dancers, stresses, "Cairo is the central nervous system, it’s the heart of the form, and there are many Europeans and Westerners and Far Easterners who come here to see the dance, but I’ve been here for four years and I’ve actually seen the decline both in the number of the places, the venues, where the dancers work, and a decline in the art itself."