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| internet source: Belly Dancing |
The name Belly Dancing is most likely derived from the French 'dance du ventre' which means 'dance of the stomach'. It is also known as 'Oriental Dance', a boarder term covers Middle Eastern and near Eastern dance styles. Another name is 'Raks Sharqui', Arabic for 'dance of the East' and is primarily used to describe Egyptian caparet style, though now it has broader usage in America.
Dancing is a living element of human existence, it grows and changes with the world around it. Although it may not seem like now, the roots of Belly Dancing are firmly entrenched in religious rituals focusing on goddess worship and fertility. Belly Dancing symbolize the re-creation of giving birth. The sharp hip movements, deliberate muscular contractions ans spasms, as well as sinewy undulations, demonstrate the strong connections to the body's responses during labour and delivery.
It was a long history for the rituals metamorphose into a mainstream public entertainment. It started with the Romany gypsies who originally hailed from India and spoke a Hindi-based language. Some time around the 5th century AD as a result of local oppression, need for work and sometimes banishment, the Romany gypsies began to migrate. They first travelled west into Afghanistan and Persia. From there, some migrated north to Turkey and on to Europe and other parts of North Africa. During their nomadic journeys they provided entertainment.
The Romany left a cultural influence on many areas where they settled and the spell of their dance style remains strong in Central Asia, where Islamic communities have thrived for centuries. It is especially concentrated in Turkey and Egypt. As a result of cultural segregation between the sexes, Muslim women were permitted only to be entertained by and celebrate with other women in closed quarters, which made Belly Dancing at that time a lady-only entertainment.
Belly Dancing developed in different ways in each country the gypsies migrated through. In Turkey, after Fatih Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the gypsies settled in the newly titled city of Istanbul, where people were amused by female-only dancers and musicians called chengis. Working in organized groups comprising the business leader, dancers and musicians, referred to as a kol, the chengis danced at bath houses, harems and other communal locations for women. They built an artistic style that is the root of many of the movements in Belly Dancing today. The complex hip work, shimmies and varied facial expressions, as well as veil dancing and finger cymbal playing, can be linked back to the gypsy chengis, who remained highly regarded and extremely popular until the end of the 19th century. However this new form of dancing was suppressed when the power of the Ottoman Empire began to wane. In Turkey today, chengis dancing has become Belly Dancing and is primarily a tourist attraction, rather than secular entertainment.
Back at the ancient time, as the gypsies continued migrating south into Egypt, the dancers were liberated for a time regarding their audiences. Performances were no longer exclusive to women. Gypsies also danced for the public at celebrations, wedding processions and in front of coffee houses and market places where the flow of people and money was greatest. Referred to as the ghawazee, their repertoire was a mix of music and dancing, including their unique torso movements, native dances and improvised performances with veils, sticks, swords and candles. Some theorize that it was this public practice of dancing that generated the idea of adding coins to the performers' costume. As the gypsies danced, people who stopped to observe them would toss coins to their feet as tips. Without safe places to store their earnings, dancers sewed the money onto their clothes for safekeeping or used the coins to purchase jewelery which could always be worn.
Generally, public dancing was tolerated by the authorities because taxing the performers was good revenue but religious complaints outweighed the financial benefits, so public ghawazee dancing was outlawed in the city of Cairo in 1834. Severe punishments including physical abuse and years of hard labour made banishment very successful. The ban was not lifted until around 1849 to 1856, and then dancing returned to Cairo. This time, dancing are moved inside to a music-hall type environment and Egyptian cabaret-style dancing was born. At the turn of the century, it was given the name of Belly Dancing.
Belly Dancing's expansion into Europe and America came from the ever-increasing flow of tourists into the Middle East. Dance troupes were contracted by foreigners and taken to exhibition forums in London, Paris and Chicago to perform their unique music and dancing. Their art was praised for its unique excitement- and condemned as lewd and scandalous because of its dramatic physical demonstrations. Even under intense public scrutiny, Belly Dancing grew tenfold at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with the publicity surrounding a belly dancer name Little Egypt. Syrian Little Egypt sparked a wave of controversy because of her pelvic- and torso-focused dancing.
The fantasized and often distorted version of Belly Dancing grew at a rapid pace, becoming more popular but its image is often dominated by the burlesque temptress style and is described as sex-hungry, thus Belly Dancing was not very appealing to the majority of the female population. However, in recent years the true elements of this incredibly feminine and self-affirming art form has been discovered, modern and contemporary belly dancers now are able to rejuvenate the dance from the taints of yesterday to the visual delight of today.
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