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Examining performers from the ancient Mediterranean world to the modern Islamic Middle East, including India and Pakistan, Shay explores the careers, artistic performances, and legacies of these individuals who were forced to produce entertainment and art for, and have sex with, any and all patrons.

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Introduction: Life as a Public Entertainer 1. The Public Entertainer 2. The Contours of Masculinity and Public Entertainers in Ancient Greece 3. The Contours of Masculinity and the Public Entertainer in Rome, Hellenistic Greece, and Byzantium 4. Medieval Islam: The Caliphate in Damascus, Baghdad, Córdoba, Cairo, and Beyond 5. After the Caliphate: Early Modern Ottoman Turkey, Safavid Iran, Mughal India: The Heyday of Islamic Gunpowder Empires 6. The Long Nineteenth Century, the Qajars, the Ottomans, Egypt, and Colonialism 7. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Modernity and Nationalism

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"The Dangerous Lives of Public Performers provides valuable insights into the complex history of what we think of as the Islamic/Middle Eastern world. It shows, for instance, that there was a great deal of continuity between ancient Greece and Rome with the values and practices that developed in this part of the world. Shay presents a fascinating foil to what we know in the field of dance studies about the history of dance in the West from the same Greek and Roman roots through Western Europe to contemporary dance in Europe and North America. He also illuminates intriguing differences with Western ideas regarding masculinity by examining such things as the role of hospitality, expression of emotion, and practice of bisexuality in certain time periods and places." - Naomi Jackson, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, USA

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Anthony Shay is Associate Professor of Dance at Pomona College, USA.

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