AKW: The only Salome in the Bible is identified as a follower of Jesus. We don't know the name of the woman who danced for Herod, only that she was Herodias' daughter.

Movies Full Listings and Pictures Salome (1995) Malfitano and Terfel recreate the effect this salacious opera had on its audience. Salome (1953) Rita Hayworth, Stewart Granger Salome, Where She Danced (1945) Yvonne DeCarlo Salome's Last Dance  Salome staring Nazimova

Foreign Film Full Listings and Pictures Salome (1986 Italy-France co-production) Director: Claude d'Anna. Jo Champa is Salome Salome (Italy 1972) by Carmelo Bene. Donyale Luna is Salome Salome (Italy 1965) by Odoardi Fiory

Opera Full Listings and Pictures Salome The Royal Opera, sung in German with English Subtitles. Richard Strauss Salome Orchester der Deutsche Oper Berlin

Andrea Deagon's Recommended Reading Bizot, Richard. The Turn-of-the-Century Salome Era: High- and Pop-Culture Variations on the Dance of the Seven Veils. Choreography and Dance 2.3 (1992), 71-87. Dijkstra, Bram. Idols of Perversity: fantasies of feminine evil in fin de siècle culture. Oxford University Press, 1986. Ellis, Sylvia C. The Plays of W. B. Yeats: Yeats and the dancer. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. (Excellent on 19th century Salomes in literature) Kendall, Elizabeth. Where She Danced: The Birth of American Art-Dance. University of California Press, 1979. (Vaudeville Salomes) Koritz, Amy. Gendering Bodies / Performing Art: Dance and Literature in Early Twentieth-Century Culture. University of Michigan Press, 1995. (Maud Allan's influential 1907 Salome) Zagona, Helen Grace. The Legend of Salome and the principle of art for art's sake. Geneve, Droz, 1960. (Salome in literature over time)

Anita: This is true, although according to my NIV study bible footnotes there is a non-biblical source Josephus who recorded her name as Salome. She apparently married a son of Herod the Great, her great uncle Philip. I guess that's why her name was recorded somewhere in history.

Oscar Wilde's French play 'Salome' is very loosely based on the biblical record of events. There is a lot of embellishment (there would have to be to get a One Act play out of a handful of bible verses) and he kills Salome off at the end. Interestingly, the only stage directions for Salome's dance are -slaves bring perfumes and the seven veils, and take off the sandals of Salome- then later -Salome dances the dance of the seven veils-.

Will Linden: <Oscar Wilde's French play 'Salome' is very loosely based on the biblical record of events.> More accurately, it is loosely based on Flaubert's story of the name. The "dance of the seven veils" is added in one of Wilde's stage directions.

Andrea Deagon: The accounts of the infamous dance in Matthew and Mark only mention "the daughter of Herodias," but from the Roman historian Josephus we get the name Salome -- he doesn't mention the dance and gives a different account of what led to John's execution, but he does mention the name of Herodias' daughter, presumably the one in the Biblical account.

This figure was popularly known as Salome in the church fathers and in other religious sources from the 4th century AD onward. In the 19th century she became a popular literary figure, but was confused with her mother as a sort of all-encompassing femme fatale -- sometimes known as Salome, sometimes as Herodiade. Wilde's play Salome (1894) introduced the dance of the seven veils and Strauss's 1905 opera Salome, with libretto from Wilde, popularized the dance and the figure, so that there was an explosion of vaudeville and other Salome dances in the early 20th century.

If you are looking for historical accuracy rather than dance inspiration, disregard what you might read about connections with Inanna etc. -- e.g. Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. I personally like the idea of seven veils, descent into the underworld, power and self-knowledge for modern raqs dancers, but this series of connections is not a feature of ancient dance or historical Salomes.

The problem with the Salome story is always determining the facts -- and realizing what images different cultures have ascribed to dancing. Here's some interesting information to give perspective on the matter --

Hebrew tradition has mixed feelings about dancing -- sometimes it is joyful expression, but there are other stories of dancers distracting or causing problems for the work of the Lord -- one that comes to mind is the (apocryphal) story of Pharaoh's daughter dancing for Solomon and distracting him from building his temple. Josephus, the most reliable historical source, doesn't mention any dancing in the circumstances around John the Baptist's death, but there is precedent in Hebrew tradition for dance to be seen this way and incorporated into the traditions, whether or not any dance by Herodias' daughter ever took place.

The dance of Herodias' daughter in the gospels was not described in detail and may not have been understood as lascivious by the people who heard (or originated) the story -- but it was certainly understood as worldly and distracting and opposed to the greater (spiritual) good.

Hollywood isn't responsible for making Salome a dancer -- nor is Oscar Wilde or Strauss or whoever. Salome was being illustrated dancing, or holding the head of John the Baptist after she danced, from the 15th century on, and probably earlier. (She wasn't dressed in Eastern clothing in these illustrations, just in ordinary Western clothes -- that's how all the Bible stories were illustrated in Western art. As conventions for depicting "period" scenes changed, so did Salome.)

What this century has promoted is the idea of the "Dance of the Seven Veils" and the association of Salome with "belly dancing" or movements associated with the supposedly degenerate East.

The image of Salome has a long tradition in the West, which goes beyond dance and much deeper into issues of violence, sexuality vs. spirituality, women's roles as manipulators or manipulated, etc. It's a fascinating topic and tracking down the different elements of the Salome story could take a lifetime!

BTW there's another Biblical (or pseudo-Biblical?) Salome, the midwife who helped Mary. Maybe why some 19th century puritan girls were named Salome...Will Linden: <Oscar Wilde's French play 'Salome' is very loosely based on the biblical record of events.> More accurately, it is loosely based on Flaubert's story of the name. The "dance of the seven veils" is added in one of Wilde's stage directions.

A. Walker: Also, the particular dance done for Herod is never identified nor described. In fact, Herod's reaction is simply described as "pleased" -- we don't even know if there was any sexual connotation at all. But apparently, Hollywood and the theater latched onto bellydance (or a degraded form of it) as a way to portray this "Salome" character, and it's been etched into people's minds ever since.

I can't remember which film it is -- maybe "The Greatest Story Ever Told" -- but it shows Herodias' daughter dressed sort of like a bellydancer and doing a half-hearted, atrocious attempt at something vaguely resembling bellydancing. She looks like a robot -- she must've been the director's niece or something.

Anyway, that's the problem when you make a book into a movie! They never get it right. However, the good news is that the real story does not condemn the dance.

Morocco: There is no such thing as a real, historical basis for the fantasy of a "Dance of the 7 Veils".

It was the total invention of Oscar Wilde, in his play "The Loves of Salome", that was never presented in his own country (England) in his lifetime.

Though the play was put on in Paris, France in 1902 (if I remember the exact year correctly), the dance part was cut out of that production & only alluded to/ mentioned in the dialogue.

It was not until Richard Strauss's opera "Salome" that any sort of dance of the 7 veils was done on a European stage & the woman who did it did not end up nude - or she would have immediately ended up in jail.

Mata Hari