the structure of the sa-eela

My personal notes for an attempt to make explicit the structure of this particular dance


Framework for the performance of the Sa-eela

There are 5 phases to the dance, which were never expressly defined in the books. I have analyzed the one and only presentation of the dance in an attempt to extract the basic structure. Below you will find my outline of the phased of the dance, with a description of the key elements of each phase. Following this is some quotes from the primary source material, organized into the phases I have detailed to provide the reader with further inspiration or grounds for debate on my judgements.

1. Opening phase
Most Gorean dances open with a standard, casual phase, many of which can not be distinquished from each other. Perhaps the intent is to build anticipation in the viewer by keeping the exact nature of the dance a mystery for the opening. In particular, for this performance, the girl should dance casually and lightly to create the maximum contrast with the next phase.
2. Confinement phase
In this phase the girl pantomimes being imprisoned, locked in a cell, away from the pleasures of male company. There seem to be 3 sub-phases to this phase, a) the portrayal of the cell and railing against confinement, b) a lyrical fantasy about freedom, c) despair
3. Pleading phase
Now the girl acts out pleading with her captors for release, followed by the presentation of herself to a Master to perform.
4. Display phase
The girl has now been given a chance to present herself to her Master and attempt to arouse his interest. At this time the girl goes through a series of motions designed to display all of her charms to her audience, particularly emphasizing those physical traits that she feels will most interest, arouse and excite her Master. NOTE: This is about display, not arousal.
5. Climax phase
The final phase of the dance is about arousal and submission. Having drawn attention to her many charms, the girl now dances to display her passion, her eagerness to have a Master USE those charms. She dances provocatively, excitedly, with great energy and passion, until finally she ends with an act of submission before her true master, as is typical of most Gorean dances.




The former Peggy Baxter, of Earth, nude and in the steel collar of Tasdron of Victoria, her master, now danced before us, a Gorean slave girl.

"Such movements, of course," Glyco was saying, "are instinctual in a woman."

The Sa-eela, usually performed in the nude, as though by a low slave, and by a girl freed of all impediments, except her collar, is one of the most powerful of the slave dances of Gor. It is done rather differently in different cities but the variations practiced in the river towns and, generally, in the Vosk basin, are, in my opinion, among the finest. There is no standardization, or little standardization, for better or for worse, in Gorean slave dance. Not only can the dances differ from city to city, and town to town, and even from tavern to tavern, but they are likely to differ, too, even from girl to girl. This is because each girl, in her own way, brings the nature of her own body, her own dispositions, her own sensuality and needs, her own personality, to the dance. For the woman, slave dance is a uniquely personal and creative art form. Too, of course, it provides her with a wondrous modality for deeply intimate self-expression. "'They all wear collars," is the first portion of a familiar exchange, of which Goreans are fond. The second, and concluding, portion of the exchange is, "But each in her collar is different." This exchange, I think, makes clear the attitude of the Gorean toward the slave girl In one sense she is nothing, and is to be treated as such, but, in another sense, she is precious, and is everything.



Peggy now danced upon her knees, at the end of the table, using the table in the dance, thrusting her belly against it, and touching it with her hands, and her body and lips.

Peggy, then, was back from the table, on the tiles, on her back, and sides, and knees, and then prone, and then again, supine, and then writhing, as though in frustration and loneliness.
I observed the dancer, closely, the striking of her small, clenched fists on the tiles, the scratching of her fingernails at their smooth surfaces, the turning of a hip, the flattening of a thigh, the lifting of a knee, the turning of her head, the piteous scattering of her hair from side to side. She lay on her back, and, whimpering, struck down, in misery, stinging the palms of her hands, bruising her small heels. She might have been in a cell, locked away from men.

*opening phase*
{no documentation on this in the primary source, so I presume it to be the same as the standard features of most Gorean dances}

*confinement phase*
She then rolled to her stomach, and rose to her hands and knees, and, head down, remained for a moment in that posture. It is at this moment that the music enters a different melodic phase, one less physical and frenzied, one almost lyrical in its poignancy. She crawls some feet to her left and lifts her bead. She puts out her small hand. It seems that it there encounters some barrier, some enclosing, confining wall. She then rises to her feet. Swiftly she hurries about, in the graceful, frightened haste of the dancer, her hands seeming to trace the location of the obdurate barriers, those invisible walls which seemed to contain her. She then stood and faced us, and put her head in her hands, bent over, and then straightened her body, her head and hair thrown back. "I?" she seemed to ask, looking out, as though some rude jailer might have come to the gate of her pen. But there is, of course, no one there, and, in the performance of the dance, that is clearly understood.
Then, in poignant fantasy, within the pen, she prepares herself for the master, seeming to thoughtfully select silks and jewelry, seeming to apply perfume and cosmetics, seeming to be bedecked in shimmering, diaphanous slave splendor. She then crosses her wrists, and moves them, as though they have been bound. She then extends them before her as though the strap on them had been drawn taut. It then seems that she, head high, a bound slave, is being led on her tether from the pen. But, at the gate, of course, her wrists separate, and her small palms and fingers indicate for us, clearly, that she is still confined. She retreats to the center of the pen, falls to her knees, covers her head with her hands, and weeps.

*pleading phase*
The next phase of the music begins at this point.
She looks up. There is a sound in the corridor, beyond the gate. She leaps up, and backs against the wall of her pen. This time, it seems, truly, there are men there, that they have come for her. She puts her head up; she turns away; she feigns disdain. Then, it seems, as she, startled, looks about, they are turning away. She then throws herself to her belly on the floor of the pen, calling to them, lifting her head, holding out her hand piteously to them. She pleads to be considered.
It then seems, as she shrinks back, lifting herself to the palms of her hands, frightened, that the gate to her pen has been opened. She kneels swiftly in the position of the pleasure slave. Obviously she fears her rude jailers. Twice, it seems she is struck with a whip. Then she, again, assumes the position of the pleasure slave. She nods her head. She understands well what is expected of her. She is to perform well on the tiles of the feasting hall. "Yes, Masters!" it seems she says. But how little do her jailers, perhaps only common and boorish fellows, understand that this is precisely what she, too, deeply and desperately desires to do. How long she has waited, in cruel frustration, unfulfilled and lonely, in her cell for just such a moment, that precious opportunity in which she, a mere slave, may be permitted to display and present herself for the consideration of her master. How can they understand the poignance, and significance, of this moment for her? She is to have an opportunity to present herself before the master! Who knows if she, in such a large house, one with such cells and jailers, may ever again be given such an opportunity?
It then seems that she is hauled to her feet and that her wrists, tightly and cruelly, are bound behind her back. Her body and head are then bent far over. Her head twists. It seems a man's hand is in her hair. Not as a high slave, clothed in Jewelries and shimmering silks, tastefully bound, is she to be conducted to the site of her performance, some aristocratic banquet; rather, cruelly bound and nude, she is to be thrown before masters at a drunken feast. She then, with small, hurried steps, bent over, described a wide circle on the tiles. Then, it seemed, she was thrown to her knees, and then her side, before us. Her hands were still held as though tightly bound behind her. She looked at us. We were, of course, the "masters," before whom she was to perform. She rose to her feet. She twisted, as though her hands were being untied. She then flexed her legs and lifted her hands over her head, as she had in the beginning, back to back.

*display phase*
She had now entered into the display phase of the Sa-eela. In this portion of the dance the girl calls attention to the various aspects of her beauty, from the swirling sheen of her cascading hair to her ankles, from her small feet to her tiny, fine fingers.

*climax phase*
The final phases of the Sa-eela then begin.
In these phases the girl, in all her unshielded beauty, and naked except for the collar of slavery, attempts to arouse the interest of her master. _
The music now, pounding and throbbing, mounted headily toward the climax of the Sa-eela.
In these, the final portions of the Sa-eela, the slave, in effect, puts herself at the mercy of the Master. She has already presented before him, almost in a delectable enumeration, many of the more external and rhythmic aspects of her beauty. She has displayed herself hitherto before him rather as an object in which, hopefully, he might take an interest.
The girl now, in all her helplessness, in all her desperation, in all her sensual splendor, was dancing not aspects or attributes of her beauty before her master, but was dancing her own passions, her own needs and desires, her own piteous, needful, beautiful, intimate and personal self before him. There were no restraints, no reservations, no compromises, no divisions or distinctions. Her needs were as exposed as her body. She danced herself before her master.
The music swirled to its climax and Peggy, turning, flung herself to her back on the tiles before Callimachus of Port Cos. As the music struck its last, rousing note, she arched her back, and flexed her legs, and looked back at him, her right arm extended piteously back towards him.