Recently a popular instructor released her masters thesis and made some fairly egregious errors in academic research, including misquoting and apparently completely misunderstanding the existing research.

This is exactly why doing historical research in certain art forms (like belly dance) is difficult, to say the least. This particular researcher cited sources that did no primary research of their own, and misunderstood the primary research of other sources. Added to that, this instructor neglected to reference any recent research, work done in the last decade. It's almost as if they were only familiar with popular names and didn't actually dig deeper to see what had already been published.

Whenever a person attempts to research something that is so multi-faceted as dance history, there is a tendency for that person to cherry pick evidence or just jump on the work that reinforces their own beliefs and personal mythologies. This is why peer review is SO important. We don't know all our biases, and while we may not have specific political or economic motivations for publishing our conclusions, we are swayed by what journalists call our "faultlines" -- the areas where our bias shows to our peers.

It doesn't help that a great number of "researchers" in this field have been white-washing the statements and attempting to rewrite the histories of luminaries in the bellydance world in order to make their favorites shine more brightly and cast doubt on the statements of those who disagree with those favorites. I'm all for letting individual people reinvent themselves, as long as that doesn't fly in the face of actual facts.

At any rate, I think this video is, while understandably a bit salty, a great example of why peer review is necessary and how respecting primary research--even when it goes against what we want to believe--is essential. I think I can link it here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DxDhGd34J/

I have a ton of music from when I started dancing in the late 1990s through to about 2010. It’s all great but what new music are dancers liking these days? I’d like to get music that is more modern.

Suggestions welcome! Thanks!