Belly Dance

    

Origins and History of Belly Dance

 
The story of Ishtar and Tammouz (4,500 BC)

When Ishtar's husband, Tammouz, died (to this very day, Tammouz means July in Arabic) and returnd=ed to the world of darkness, the womb of the earth, Ishtar decided to save him by craft and to bring back the light. She dressed up in all her splendor, tied a girdle around her hips and donned seven veils to enter the netherworld through seven gates. The goddes of love danced seductively at each gate, each time leaving one veil to gain entrance. At the seventh gate, she removed the last veil. During the whole of her stay in the underworld, all life on earth stood still, deprived of love, growth and celebration. Only when Ishtar returned, fully veiled to shield her secret from human eyes, did life on earth blossom again. her reunion with Tammouz was celebrated every year at the beginning of spring and symbalized the reawakening of nature and life.

Ishtar's dance of the seven veils survived troughout history. It was given several interpretations according to different social attitudes towards women. Although we can only guess at ishtar's seduction dance, her movements must have resembled those of bellydancing. The girdle or scarf tied around the hips by every Middle Eastern dancing woman reminds us of Ishtar's dance and transforms today's women into interpreters of a culture long ago.

(Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi "Bellydancing")

    


Belly dancing is most likely the oldest dance still existing as an art form today. It can be traced back to times when the moon was worshipped as the life giving goddess, connected to all women because of it's influence on
their fertility and menstrual cycles. According to many historians, women in those days used to gather especially during the time of the full moon to worship their fertility through movements of their womb and dance, which has always been the most potent form of ritual and worship.
With the change of religion from a female to a male dominated one, the dance changed into an art mainly performed by women for kings and pharaohs, but still for a long time was seen as a sacred feminine art with magical powers of invocation. During the time of the pharaohs the meaning of the dance began to split into worship and entertainment and professional dancers enjoyed a high status in society.
With the arrival of Christianity and the catholic church (which was the major political power throughout the middle ages) this status began to decline. Followers believed that humans are split into mind, body and soul with the body being the seat of all evil and women (based on the story of Eve and the snake) being the incarnated sinfulness, a combination that soon lead to denial of all physical and sensual pleasure.
Another influence began to play a major part: A surplus of women in the cities lead to many women turning towards becoming either a nun or more often a prostitute as these were the  only available alternatives to marriage. This increased their “sinfulness” to a point were women in general were so much feared by the catholic church that countless women were tortured and killed. After the witchhunts all dancing (and often singing) was prohibited by the church.
At the end of the middle ages, when agriculture increased and the population grew, a strong upper class was formed and chivalry was a part of their ideology. Dancing returned in forms of very controlled versions of courtship with movements more designed to show off an image of beauty and chastity and with men and women touching their hands only lightly through gloved hands. At this time it was only the gypsies (roma) who had brought their old ways of dancing from India, changed them and and kept them alive throughout their travels. In Egypt, those gypsy dancers are called “ghawazee”, literally meaning “outsider” or “intruder”. Some gypsy tribes, like the Ouled Nail from Algeria, became very famous for their dancing, and earned almost all their living from it, which highly increased the status of their women and made the birth of a girl reason for great celebrations. As all gypies used to wear all their worldly belongings on their bodies, successful dancers showed off their status in the form of coins, heavy jewellery  and rich fabrics.
Some dancers were employed by kings and wealthy members of high society and were called “Awalim”. They performed the moves of the gypsy dancers but were trained and educated to fit into their society. They were taught certain manners, changed some of the moves and given costumes to fit their employers’ taste and although they were able to lead a wealthy life and were therefore given a high status in society, the dance and the dancer became more or less the object of male fascination. In many cases, especially during times of war, (like the dancers of the Berber tribes in Algeria), women were made to dance naked in front of the soldiers. As a result, many of the old original dances have become rare or lost.
Soldiers and Travellers brought the dance to the stages of Europe and later to America.

 

Raks Baladi/Raks Sharki
In rural parts of Egypt a form of belly dance is known as Raks Baladi (meaning “native dance”). This folk dance is danced very commonly at all celebrations. It’s moves are earthy and feminine and focus mainly on hips while the upper body is hardly used.
Raqs Sharki (meaning “eastern dance”) is the professional form of the baladi. It uses the whole body and draws on other dancing traditions like Indian, Persian, Turkish and sometimes western ballet. It is what is known as classical arabic or oriental dance.
Oriental dance, middle eastern dance, raks sharki, goddess dance or womens dance are all names for the same dance.
The term "belly dance" has probably appeared some time during the 19th century and was created by western audiences. Although it is now the term most commonly used by both audience and professional dancers, it is neither really authentic nor is it technically a good description of the dance. The moves, although emphasis is put on the hips, include all parts of the body, arms, hands, fingers, head, chest, eyes, legs and feet, mostly in a combination of isolation moves.




Belly Dance today
Although  today, belly dance has and still is evolving into many different styles, there are currently some major trends: Tribal style, Ethnic fusions, Egyptian style and Turkish Style.

TRIBAL BELLYDANCE
Fat Chance Belly Dance, a dance group from San Francisco,was created in 1987 by Carolena Nericcio, who first developed and analyzed original Tribal dance moves from tribes like the Ghawazee.
Carolina was a student of Jamila Salimpour in Berkeley, CA.  Jamila was the first American woman to teach belly dance classes, (50's and 60's), and her students began taking over the local Renaissance Fair. So she organized it, brought in balancing acts and a mix of musicians, created the costuming to make it look like a "tribe" with different dance styles from different countries(in the Middle east), and called them Bal Anat. www.balanat.com
Carolina Nericcio created a style that became known as American Tribal Style (ATS), a dance form based in middle eastern styles fused with flamenco and indian dance. A number of her students took this style and added their own touch by using other dance/art forms like theatre and performance art (Ultra Gypsies) or Yoga (Rachel Brice), etc. to create a new trend known as Tribal Fusion Belly dance.
As in the original Ghawazee dresses, the costumes for those styles are still often made by the dancer herself, consisting of coins, shells, heavy fabrics and other natural and personal decoration.
Video clip:  http://www.khafif.com/ghawazee.mov




Ethnic Fusion Belly Dance
Middle eastern dance, Indian dance, spanish dance, turkish romani, african dance and others are explored in there pure form as well as in fusions with each other to create unique and exciting choreographies. Especially the dances of the gypsy trail blend with each other perfectly through their connection with their common source of indian dance (with rajasthan being the birth place of the gypsy trail) that follows through persian dance, turkish dance, egyptian, greek and Spanish Flamenco.

EGYPTIAN BELLYDANCE (RAKS SHARKI)
During the 19th and 20th century professional dancers in Egypt were classified mainly as either Ghawazee - Gypsy dancers - or Awalim, the more educated women who were invited to perform in rich households and courts. Their dance was performed mainly in it's traditional Egyptian form - Baladi. Technically it developed as a solo dance, with the main focus on performing for an audience. The costumes of those dancers were more glamorous than those of the gypsies (Still today, the "pure" Egyptian style favours more elegant, tight fitting  and "glitzy" costumes, often heavily beaded and very expensive.

“The dominant religion in the Middle East is Islam, and the pervasive influence of the Muslim faith impacts upon all aspects of Middle Eastern culture, including dance.  To people who are not of Middle Eastern descent, there is an apparent paradox in Middle Eastern dance: although the dance is very sensual and includes dramatic hip movements, chest lifts, and abdominal rolls, there is a great deal of modesty required, particularly in Egyptian raqs sharki.  ...The movements of raqs sharki seem very small when compared to other styles because in raqs sharki, the dancer is very inwardly-focused, and her movements are very contained.  Most importantly, in raqs sharki, the dancer's legs stay together, and she does nothing to call attention to the area between her legs." (Nisaa)
                                                                                                                                                      
A site with lots of video clips to watch: http://www.amulya.info/bellydancenet/
 
TURKISH BELLYDANCE
Probably due to the larger Romani population in Turkey and their influence in the dance, belly dance in turkey has a different flavour to egyptian style. Although the basic moves are largely similar, they are somehow more lively, more fiery, more energetic and playfule and maybe less elegant. The main rhythms are Ciftitelli, which sounds a bit similar to Maqsum and is used for slow and sensual moves and floorwork and Kashlimar (or Karsilama) which is a very lively 9/8 rythm that shows the strong inflluence of romani music and is danced with bold moves, jumps "hitting" hand gestures and swinging skirts. Tambourines are often used by the dancer.
Modern turkish style costuming also has a trend of relealing quite a lot of skin which is not always seen as apropriate.

 

Belly dance for everyone!!!

As the techniques used in belly dance consist of moves most natural (and therefor therapeutic) to the body and enhance everybodys individual personality it is not an exaggeration to say that it is recommended for every age, size and body shape! Everyone can learn it and everyone can look gorgeous doing it! All you need is  a good body awareness and a feeling for rhytm (which we all naturally have anyway, some of us may have forgotten but it can be found again...) and the rest comes with practise!