Little Egypt (dancer)
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- Alternate meaning: southern Illinois.
Little Egypt was the stage name for two popular exotic dancers, Ashea Wabe who danced at the Seeley banquet at the 1893 World's Fair and Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, also performing under the stage name Fatima, appeared at the "Street in Cairo" exhibition on the Midway at the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893.
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[edit] Ashea Wabe
After the fair, Ashea Wabe became front-page news item in 1896 after she danced at a New York Fifth Avenue swank bachelor party for Herbert Seeley. A rival dancer falsely reported that Wabe was going to dance nude and the party was raided by the vice squad.
The raid brought some amount of fame to Wabe (as Little Egypt). She was hired by Broadway impresario Oscar Hammerstein I to appear as herself in a humorous parody of the Seeley dinner. She would have then been forgotten except for a series of photographs taken by Benjamin Falk.
[edit] Farida Mazar Spyropoulos
In the Egyptian Theater, on the Exposition Midway in Chicago, where the USA first saw Raqs dancers, Sol Bloom presented a show titled "The Algerian dancers of Morocco". Spyropoulos, the dancer who stole the show, was neither Egyptian nor Algerian, but Syrian. Little Egypt/Fatima/Spyroppoulos continued to popularize this form of dancing, which came to be referred to as the "Hootchy-Kootchy", "Hoochee-Coochee", or the "shimmy and shake". Another name for the dance is "danse du ventre", which is French for "belly dance". Today the word "hootchy-kootchy" generally means an erotic suggestive dance.
Subsequently, several women adopted the name of Little Egypt and toured the United States, until the name became somewhat synonymous with exotic dancers generally. Spyropoulos then claimed to be the original Little Egypt from the Chicago Fair. Although no dancer used that stage name at the fair, Spyropoulos, because of her size, had been given the nick-name Little Egypt. Recognized as the true Little Egypt she always disliked being confused with the other dancer from the Seeley banquet. Spyropoulos danced as Little Egypt at the 1933 Century of Progress in Chicago at the age of 62.
[edit] Rhonda Fleming
Rhonda Fleming starred in the title role of the movie Little Egypt, a 1951 Universal International Production.
[edit] Little Egypt in music
[edit] Ray Wylie Hubbard / "Snake Farm"
Ray Wylie Hubbard mentions both Tempest Storm and Little Egypt in the title track of his album "Snake Farm" when discussing the singer's girlfriend Ramona who works at a reptile house.
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- Well a woman I love is named Ramona
- She kinda looks like Tempest Storm
- She kinda looks like Tempest Storm
- And she can dance like Little Egypt
- She works down at the snake farm
- Well a woman I love is named Ramona
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[edit] Leiber & Stoller/The Coasters
Rock and Roll tunesmiths Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller penned a song entitled Little Egypt that was a 1961 hit for The Coasters. In the song, Little Egypt is depicted as a burlesque dancer/stripper, wearing "nuttin' but a button and a bow".
[edit] Elvis Presley/Roustabout
Elvis Presley performed the Lieber and Stoller song in his 1964 film, Roustabout and included it in his legendary 1968 TV special, Elvis.
[edit] Hank Williams Jr./Naked Women and Beer
Hank Williams Jr. mentions Little Egypt in his song, Naked Women and Beer.
[edit] Donna Carlton/Looking for Little Egypt
Donna Carlton wrote "Looking for Little Egypt", a historical account of Little Egypt at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
[edit] See also
The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid
