Thread: Eager and keen to learn the history of the art.

Hi everyone,

I am very keen to learn the history of this amazing art form and in particular how it started and grew and then how the other branches formed.

Is there a site I can read up on this?

Thanks

Honestly, there's not a "one-stop shopping" website that does a great job of putting together all the parts of how this dance formed evolved. Hell, you can't even get 2 sets of dancers to agree! One example: for the Wikipedia article on "belly dance", I had to dig through a bunch of old books I had, and other sources, to pull up a number of distinct "theories of origin" on the dance. And I can't say with any academically-oriented certainty which is "true".
So, yes, you can visit sites like the "Belly Dance Museum," and learn a great deal about how Raqs Sharqi -- more-or-less the original "belly dance" from most people's perspectives -- formed in the early 20th Century. But it's not going to talk about, say ATS, and I sincerely question this whole, "belly dance goes back to BC Egypt" theory that it kind of pushes.
I would also recommend, as another online source, reading through the GILDED SERPENT, which has a number of diverse articles that touch on dance, such as the hint that Frederick II might have had dancers at his palace in Sicily, or the series on the Ghawazee dancers (who might be the oldest (barely) extant form of performance "belly dance" we know of!), or the excellent North Beach series, which helps document much of the history of the dance in the NoCal region in the middle of the 20th Century, just as it was getting started. Seeing as one of the most famous dancers from that region, Bert Balladine, just passed on, it underlines the importance of that information.

All that said: You're not going to get a through history online, yet. If you want something more solid, you need to lay hands on a least a few books. For example, I put together an Amazon wishlist of books I think rock for bellydance history, and I highly recommend, esp., Belly Dance: Orentalism, Transnationalism, And Harem Fantasy; it's a series of articles that span much of our recorded history, while also doing a good job of myth-exploding. There are other works, like the just-departed Metin And's Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing, that I think are essential for finding our roots as dancers, but are also out-of-print; you'd have to search, or use your local library's Inter-Library Loan service, to read them.

Hope all this helps. If you're looking for something more specific, let us know and we can help!

Asim, do you mind if I harvest your links for my web site - giving you credit and linking to your site from mine?

Tribal Butterfly thanks for asking that ?.
Asim, you have provided enough links to keep me busy for a long time, awesome!

Since you have 'tribal' in your name, I'll start there.

There's a GREAT deal of detail on the history of Tribal style in the thread on 'tribal fusion is a mixture of tribal dances'

Also see the current thread on 'Turkish dance vs. American Cabaret' for info on both of those styles.

Be sure to find the 'history of bellydance in 5 sentences' it's educational and a hoot!

For a website, I always start with Shira.net. She's a cautious and reliable source, relatively free of bias for a human, and keeps bull**** out of her site, bless her heart!

Originally Posted by anala

Asim, do you mind if I harvest your links for my web site - giving you credit and linking to your site from mine?

Sure!
If you wanted to be really nice, please add a link to my dance blog, APOSTATE, as well. I have a few dance history piece in there, including a piece I wrote on based on the small bits of information I can find on the dance in the European Middle Ages period.

Read The American Vs. Turkish thread in this forum for starters. That is packed with info.

Also do some checking on Bhuz's archives. I remember a very long (and informative) thread about 6-9 months ago on this.