Thread: A History Refresher

Hi everyone,

I was at a fair yesterday and met a henna artist. She started telling me about how bellydancers in 'ancient times' tattooed each other. I asked her when this was, and she explained 'throughout the centuries'. I explained that raqs sharqi as we know it isn't centuries old, and then she backpedaled to say 'it must have been folkloric and harem dances of the Middle East then'. I asked her if she was thinking of the Ouled Nail or something, but she said she had no idea. This followed on her informing me the Picts used woad (they didn't) and that it wasn't hallucinogenic (which may be the case; I am willing to stand corrected. After all, everyone thinks absinthe is and it isn't. So I am researching on that topic now).

In this spirit of being willing to stand corrected - I'd like to have a little history of the dance refresher, and also put before everyone the question of whether there is a historical association between tattooing and our dance. That is, discussions of how old we know the dance to be, cultural elements, myths old and new.

Good call. Seriously? If I hear the "ancient childbirth ritual" explanation thing one more time, I will smack somebody with my cane.

I've always wanted to learn more about BD history, but it's so difficult to find a source I can trust - so my totally unromantic, one-sentence rendition is that BD as we know it today is a staged, stylized version of social dances that people did for fun in the Middle East.

Of course, you can break this into its respective bullet points, but I'm not even comfortable with certain stories like Little Egypt's appearance in the U.S. How much of the Little Egypt account is accurate and how much is a glamorous tale?

And when's somebody going to write The Book? We need a reliable source so we can keep all the misinformation and fantasy in check.

Re: tattooing...

Hopefully somebody can chime in on this. I've always understood, all along, that henna tattooing was a decorative ritual for Indian brides. I have never once made the connection between Henna tattoos and Mid-East culture. But it's that whole Oriental Fantasy thing....anything exotic and Eastern is fair game for a certain variety of dingbat to fuse together to fulfill their own fantasies of what the kinder, gentler times were like.

Like, I could dig a Mesopotamian world where women just hung out by the pool all day, got pedicures, talked smack and had Mai Tais delivered by shirtless, oiled cabana boys while the men did hard physical labor. But I'm not gonna write a dissertation on this, any time soon.

I happen to really like this article:
In Search of the Origins of Dance

"When people ask us "How did this dance begin?" they expect an answer that is rooted in material fact -- the provable world we share. And this is the sort of answer we ought to give them. We can explain that this is the folk dance of the Middle East, and perhaps discuss some of the factors that led to its popularity as a performance art both there and in the West. Sticking to fact --however little there is of it -- is respectful to others, as it allows them to form their own interpretations of the dance without being influenced by "origin myths" that might not reflect their own feelings or beliefs. But even more important, this level of caution and truthfulness is respectful of the people of the past, whose lives we do not really know and should not describe as if we did. "

i am sure david well correct, but on platunin weddings, everytime the wedding is east indian, they tell the story of the henna.
their story: poor brides could not afford wedding baubbles , so they were "painted on".i do not understand what ANY of this has to do with M E belly dance, personally.
my thoughts are the same w/bindi's, wtf ?

It's a pretty messy question, and one I'm starting to tackle again -- I'm planning a class on the topic of "Belly Dance in the European Middle Ages" for delivery in early August, and doing a panel on Orentalism, Feminism and Belly Dance in a couple of weeks.
I can tell you a few things. As you rightly mentioned, Raqs Sharqi is not "old" -- in fact, I'd love to create some kind of "Century of Raqs Sharqi" bit to celebrate...in another decade-and-a-half or so. :)
Prior to that, it's messy. I can tell you the term "raqs" goes back at least to the 1500s; A Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing has a ref. to it's use, as well as a few descriptions of period dance, including a lengthy one by Postel. Another description from that period was posted here, by Yasmin (of Serpentine.org); I've asked her for a citation on it. Most of the references from that period tend to describe the same dance form, although the images from that period cover a wider variety (as seen in, for example, another of Metin And's works, Istanbul in the 16th Century).
And there's more. There's a renowned Islamic jurist, al-Ghazali, who wrote in the 12th Century on "permissable" dance, mostly (in my opinion) to justify his Sufi beliefs. However, you can see echos of his rulings in the reactions many of what we'd call "moderate" Muslims react to dance and music today, no matter their sect. Moreover, the times he lives in -- towards the end-game of the 'Abbaisid empire -- are a point where a great deal of writing and other information was put down regarding dance and music. The issue is, much of it is lost to us today, buried in a ton of untranslated and unlooked at manuscripts. But, and I want to underline this -- The Truth is Out There. We just need to dig!
And there are hints. I have (somewhere, I need to find it ASAP) one apparently excellent article on dance from that period, written by one of the aforementioned academicians; he wrote the very worthy Music in the World of Islam, which references dance history at many points in the work. Sadly, my French isn't up to the article, and I need to break it out so I can get someone to translate it for me!
So, I'm willing to go back to about that time, in terms of history for "our dance". I acknowledge earlier information, such as the Roman "quivering thighs" quote, but without context, who knows what that was? It's not like the Mid-East has a monopoly on locking their muscles!

Originally Posted by zamora

i am sure david well correct, but on platunin weddings, everytime the wedding is east indian, they tell the story of the henna.
their story: poor brides could not afford wedding baubbles , so they were "painted on".i do not understand what ANY of this has to do with M E belly dance, personally.
my thoughts are the same w/bindi's, wtf ?

Well, one of the big components of "Wishtory" is that BD was spread through the ME by gypsies from India, who mingled their style with the childbirthin', empowered mamas from the Middle East.

Is there any documented truth to this? Or is the Indian cross-pollenation a Western fantasy creation?

I also think it's common to lump all things exotic and foreign under the same umbrella. Bindis and henna seem to go well with sparkly costumes - so why the heck not? ,r:;

guess old school tends to be a"purest".we just do not fuse here at all. henna is for indian brides.bindis are worn by east indians. it has nothing to do with our dance here, only the tribal group does that.

Originally Posted by BreaMorgiane

I asked her when this was, and she explained 'throughout the centuries'. I explained that raqs sharqi as we know it isn't centuries old, and then she backpedaled to say 'it must have been folkloric and harem dances of the Middle East then'.

And I want to touch on this, as well.
Argh. Harems should NOT NOT NOT be a place anyone romanticizes. They were, and are, awful spaces for the most part, one of the worst examples of man's inhumanity to women. Yes, there was bonding, and strength, and some amount of power -- I'm mindful of the claims by some historians that the Ottoman Empire weakened as the women of the Harem gained power.
But in the main, they made women into slaves. And unlike actual slaves in the Empire, with the manumission (slave-freeing) rules that Islam put into place -- well, suffice to say my est. is that you had better chances freeing yourself as a singing (and dancing!) slave than you ever would as a woman in a harem.
Moreover, this whole "the belly dance spread via Harem women" bit (which tends to go along with the "dancing in Harems" bit) falls flat on it's face with a moment's thought. Harems were, in no small part, one-way streets -- you might, if you were "lucky", get married off to some gov't flunky or suchlike, but by the rules of the Ottoman Empire, you were still "trapped" in a harem-like state. The reason women like the Ghawazee were so potent was because they were amongst the only Muslim women the average man would see uncovered on the open streets, for Centuries. And really, the only way to effectively spread a dance move is by openness; look at how slowly we spread our dances, historically, in the West until the advent of video, and that's with open classes!
If you really want to get a sense of how "locked down" women's lives were during this period, take a look at this (fiction) book:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/My-Name-Red-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/0375706852"]My Name is Red[/ame]
it's by Nobel-Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk. Note, esp., the female Jewish character, who is able to be the "go-between" because of her non-Muslim status.

And briefly, about Folkloric. Just because it's "folk" don't mean it's "ancient". It might, or might not, predate Raqs Sharqi, much less be part of the farther past; a recent comment over at the Belly Dance Book Club points out that the Ghawazi dance, for example, might have evolved (see last comment as of this writing) over the last few decades. If you weren't paying attention, you'd assume it was the same!
Yes, there's no way to know for "certain," from a Western academic perspective. Yet that's no reason to not acknowledge that, celebrate what we do have, and to continue to innovate with that information in mind.

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Well, one of the big components of "Wishtory" is that BD was spread through the ME by gypsies from India, who mingled their style with the childbirthin', empowered mamas from the Middle East.

Is there any documented truth to this? Or is the Indian cross-pollenation a Western fantasy creation?

To be brief, since I'm babbling a lot in this thread (sorry!) -- it is of note that the ancestors of the Ghawazi appear to have come from India, but are Domari, not Romani. However, I've not seen any info on the dance style they performed in India, nor how it evolved in their centuries in Persia.
So far as Romani influence, I've not seen anyone do a job to attempting to track via a systematic analysis of movements, for example. I've seen some ad-hoc jobs, such as this article from Romani.org, but I'm leery about the methology chosen, and that writer's reliance on the very kinds of "belly dance history" I consider...less than wise.

In short, there may be truth to it, but it's going to take some real, and deep, research to make it work.

Originally Posted by asim1

Yes, there's no way to know for "certain," from a Western academic perspective. Yet that's no reason to not acknowledge that, celebrate what we do have, and to continue to innovate with that information in mind.

It just frustrates me that we (the collective "we," of course, not you and I) can't just run with the fact that BD as we know it today simply came from social dances that people do for fun. To me, a simple explanation does a greater justice to the dance than a romantic (yet inaccurate) one. That is, until the magic book with all the answers falls from the sky!

Salsa, bachata and merengue, to my understanding, are staged versions of social dances as well, but you never hear Latin dancers spinning crazy yarns about the origins of their dance. Most of them will say, point blank, that it's just something Puerto Rican and Dominican people do for fun.

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Re: tattooing...

Hopefully somebody can chime in on this. I've always understood, all along, that henna tattooing was a decorative ritual for Indian brides. I have never once made the connection between Henna tattoos and Mid-East culture. But it's that whole Oriental Fantasy thing....anything exotic and Eastern is fair game for a certain variety of dingbat to fuse together to fulfill their own fantasies of what the kinder, gentler times were like.

I was lazy and didn't read all the way through to see if somebody had already answered this, but henna painting is widely done throughout the ME and North Africa. How and where it is done varies from culture to culture, but it is pretty widespread.

Even men sometimes get henna'd...Here's a Palestinian groom getting henna'd:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASrzraH67A]YouTube - hennah night in caryoot nablus palestine wedding[/ame]

But bdancers bedecked in henna, donning bindis, etc.? To me, that falls into the category of "These things are KEWL so let's do a cultural mash-up!"

Cool, thanks for the clarification Nisaa! I knew they used henna as a hair dye in the Middle East, but I didn't know that tattooing was done outside of India. You just don't know what to believe anymore.

Don't forget to add Thai fingers to your list of Super Kewl Things

*Raising Hand*
What known Middle Eastern historic social or folkloric dances are there that resemble raqs sharqi as we know it? None of the folkloric dances I've seen look like a root of belly dance to me.

Originally Posted by khalima

*Raising Hand*
What known Middle Eastern historic social or folkloric dances are there that resemble raqs sharqi as we know it? None of the folkloric dances I've seen look like a root of belly dance to me.

At home dances in Egypt look very much like raqs sharqi to me. Women's sa`iidi has traces of raqs sharqi . Aspects of haggalla look like raqs sharqi ...

Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Well, one of the big components of "Wishtory" is that BD was spread through the ME by gypsies from India, who mingled their style with the childbirthin', empowered mamas from the Middle East.

Is there any documented truth to this? Or is the Indian cross-pollenation a Western fantasy creation?

To me, it seems perfectly reasonable that music and dance have "traveled" along trade and migratory routes, whether it is the Silk Road or the Romani trail. That does not mean that "bellydance" has come from India, but I do believe that some elements of dance and elements of the music we hear today have spread along these routes.

Like Nissa said, henna for brides and on other occasions is very common in the Middle East and North Africa. Here is an article about Habiba going to a henna party in Tunisia - http://www.habibastudio.com/articles/tiwedding3.pdf

And the ghawazee are originally from India via Persia, but I doubt we'll ever see research on what kind of dance they originally did in India - that information is lost with time. There is almost no documentation about the ghawazee before the romantic travelogues of the 1800's.

Originally Posted by phillyraqs

And the ghawazee are originally from India via Persia, but I doubt we'll ever see research on what kind of dance they originally did in India - that information is lost with time. There is almost no documentation about the ghawazee before the romantic travelogues of the 1800's.

To add to this: one missing piece in the puzzle is that the Roma don't usually keep written records, so evidence will have to come from second-hand sources, which makes research a lot more difficult.

Originally Posted by kashmir

At home dances in Egypt look very much like raqs sharqi to me. Women's sa`iidi has traces of raqs sharqi . Aspects of haggalla look like raqs sharqi ...

Hagalla, that is a good one. Is there info out there about how long it had been around and how it looked pre late 1800s/early1900s? And I've only seen examples of modern "at home" dances and saidi... I know tahtib is much older, but then, it doesn't look like raqs sharqi. I guess I'm wondering, how do we know raqs sharki wasn't in large part "born" around the late 1800s Worlds Fair era? How do we know Middle Eastern "at home" dances weren't influenced by raqs sharki, rather than the other way around? I mean, look at how far hip hop has permeated dance today in our culture, and it's only been around 30 years or so.

[quote]the Picts used woad (they didn't) [/quote[

They didn't? WAHH!

how do we know raqs sharki wasn't in large part "born" around the late 1800s Worlds Fair era?

I do hope you're not suggesting it started at the World's Fair.

Difficulty lies with the application of the term raqs sharqi. It's my understanding that sharqi *is* new - it's the term that was given to dancing in the nightclubs of the 20s and 30s to give it an exotic sophisticated flavour, ie it wasn't normal boring old raqs beledi but special elegant modern dance of the East. This, as I understand it, wasn't *only* to appeal to foreigners but to urban Egyptians with money and an interest in all things modern and Western at the time. Mo Geddawi believes the dances were originally pretty damn ordinary beledi, but as they developed into what we now know as sharqi/modern oriental dance, they incorporated more and more elements of other dances, including folklore, fashions etc. I believe, but I could be misremembering, he said Tahia Carioca was the first to put folkloric dances into her performances, ie pop in a bit of saidi or whatever. (Of course Dr Mo, like Edward Said, got to see Tahia dance live at a fairly formative time, though he was younger than Said was, and I imagine in both cases she takes such a special place that it would be easy to attribute cool things to her as a matter of course.)

We know that folkloric dances (by which I mean folkloric dances for the stage) involve multiple influences, ie they're not "pure", and obviously at-home dances are going to be influenced by what men and women see as far as dancing is concerned, which includes movies and professional dancers. One lady I met told me she learned to dance from her mother/sisters and also from copying the dancers in films, which I think is fairly normal. She's not a pro dancer. I also gather that in the ME *dancing* is popular - it doesn't have to be BD - so people can and do learn other dance forms and will incorporate moves from, say, music videos or their salsa class, just the same way we do when we go out grooving.

Originally Posted by zamora

i am sure david well correct, but on platunin weddings, everytime the wedding is east indian, they tell the story of the henna.
their story: poor brides could not afford wedding baubbles , so they were "painted on".i do not understand what ANY of this has to do with M E belly dance, personally.
my thoughts are the same w/bindi's, wtf ?

Everyone: this is a "fun" subject.

Cory: You have been misinformed. There is no story about Mehndi/Henna being used by Indians instead of jewelry. Even the poorest Indian will put jewelry on his daughter when she's married off. Someone fed you a wishtory there.

Henna is an Arab tradition. Mehndi is an Indian tradition. If you look at the history of India people from the west came into India back in the days of the Aryans and brought their traditions and influences with them. Then, India got back at them 1000s of years later and gave them yoga, astronomy, meditation, curry, Kathak, Bollywood, doctors, ayurveda, Kama Sutra, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chess, modern day numbers and more... you can find remainders of the Indian revenge any time you see a yoga studio, read "alternative" literature, see a number, read your horoscope, eat indian food, play Chess etc....

I don't find the theory of India - Gypsies - onto the Arab, Slavic, Spanish, North African, Germanic areas to be strange... however, it's not like they got on a bus and drove through. It's a journey that assumably was made over 100s and 1000s of years...So for people to just bunch Flamenco, bindis, Gawazee coats and choli tops together and call it "gypsy" rubs me the wrong way.. as in "they dont have their sh*t together*. However, if you create a new style incorporating these elements and claim authenticy based on the ground rules you set for such style...I'm totally game. It's about thinking things further than just throwing a bunch of "crap" together and calling it "authentic" just because people have an infatuation with anything "exotic". Frankly, I feel like telling people "find your own freakin exoticism in your own culture to bastardize and misinform people about". But now, that would be rude of me, so I dont tell them.....w.:

Brea: anytime someone serves you something like that - just look at them with admiration and say "I'm so glad you were around back then to keep this documented"... and walk away. Freaks.

Originally Posted by khalima

Hagalla, that is a good one. Is there info out there about how long it had been around and how it looked pre late 1800s/early1900s? And I've only seen examples of modern "at home" dances and saidi... I know tahtib is much older, but then, it doesn't look like raqs sharqi. I guess I'm wondering, how do we know raqs sharki wasn't in large part "born" around the late 1800s Worlds Fair era? How do we know Middle Eastern "at home" dances weren't influenced by raqs sharki, rather than the other way around? I mean, look at how far hip hop has permeated dance today in our culture, and it's only been around 30 years or so.

I'd like to make a point.... when it comes to what we consider dance today...lets take Ballet... it has a cultural heritage, but it is still not traced back to the "purest minimum denominator". Take Flamenco, there you have the same... take Kathak, same there... Take Raqs Sharki.. .same there... Take ACB...same there?

I dont get this urge with dragging ourselves so far back in time to where there is no documentation available and just guessing around rather than taking what we have available and making the best out of it and walk forward. People have such a hangup about "fakelore" yada yada yada. Fact is, Reda and the other stylists of Egyptian dance did a fabulous job. They gave us - foreigners - a chance in H*LL to learn and understand the dances. Samia Gamaal was heavily influenced by the west - yet the Egyptians look at her as the icon of Egyptian dance. If the Egyptians accept this as Egyptian - why shouldnt we? AND, what kind of documentation do we REALLY have to base any kind of authenticy / lack of authenticy off of prior to this? Where are the videos?

If 2 dancers cant agree upon how to execute 1 movement - why is written interpretation of visual experience considered valid "documentation"?

Although history - documented - is important, there has to be a proactive effort to bring the dance forward. Denying what we have is just even more detremental to our dances.

I could use ACB as a great example of such denial. Where the world looks at the US for reference and guidance on ACB, many ACB dancers try to justify their style through references in the ME, Turkey and Egypt. Why?

I dont see any Egyptians running to India to find "their roots".

What I do see is a bunch of people from all over the place elsewhere (based on the West's facination with romanticising the Middle East) making up wishtories and making cultural, artistic and dance technical efforts much harder than needed.

Love the word wishtory, btw.

Cant we all just get over ourselves and move onto documenting what we do right now and promoting the idea that - heck, what we are doing currently may actually have a value of it's own?

DaVid

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Difficulty lies with the application of the term raqs sharqi. It's my understanding that sharqi *is* new - it's the term that was given to dancing in the nightclubs of the 20s and 30s to give it an exotic sophisticated flavour, ie it wasn't normal boring old raqs beledi but special elegant modern dance of the East.

This article does a good job of boiling down much of what I've heard on the matter:

The term Raqs Sharqi first came about when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers. "Raqs Sharqi", which actually translates as "Oriental Dance” or “Eastern Dance”, was used to distinguish the dance from European, or western, dances. ("Orient” as opposed to “occident”.) In the same way, “Raqs Baladi” was used to differentiate between "native" or "local" dance and foreign dances. At the time of Badia Masabny, the nightclub version of these dances was referred to as "Raqs El Hawanim" or "Dance of the Ladies". The late master instructor Nelly Mazloom once described “Raqs el Hawanim” as being the style that upper class women danced when amongst themselves at weddings and other gatherings.
She went on to describe how young girls sought the attention of potential mothers-in-law by dancing at weddings that were at that time still segregated. The girl sought to dance gracefully and elegantly while appearing refined and modest. Due to the fact that Masabny’s clientele were upper-class Egyptians as well as foreigners, dancers deliberately tried to imitate the style of the upper class women. For this reason the dancing appears to be very restrained and subtle.

I think the core difference is that Raqs Sharqi changed drastically starting in the 1920's, with Badia's involvement. So I usually end up saying "Raqs Sharqi started in the '20s"...but it's not strictly true, it appears.

I could use ACB as a great example of such denial. Where the world looks at the US for reference and guidance on ACB, many ACB dancers try to justify their style through references in the ME, Turkey and Egypt. Why?

Because they know damn well they're not "standing in" for Americans when they do it. Because they know damn well that however loudly some dancers shout about "belly dance" being an "American" reinterpretation of ME dances, the words "belly" and "dance" together, next to an undulating and usually bare torso = The Mysterious East Probably Turkey/Egypt/Occasionally India to the GP.

Belly dance is Middle Eastern at its core and we are not. Everyone knows it, everyone runs around in circles trying to justify why we're allowed to do it. "Wah it evolves and I can do it because I'm an evolutionist! Wah it is genuinely connected to the ancient dances of North Africa and so anything I do with it is authentic! Wah it's an American thing so I can do it because I'm an American! Wah it's an ancient woman's thing and I can do it because I'm a woman!" It would be a lot better if we just said "I do it because I like it and I make a point of honouring the people from whom it has come and who it is seen as representing, while also recognising its fundamental hybridity both at home and abroad."

Originally Posted by asim1

This article does a good job of boiling down much of what I've heard on the matter:

The term Raqs Sharqi first came about when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers. "Raqs Sharqi", which actually translates as "Oriental Dance” or “Eastern Dance”, was used to distinguish the dance from European, or western, dances. ("Orient” as opposed to “occident”.) In the same way, “Raqs Baladi” was used to differentiate between "native" or "local" dance and foreign dances. At the time of Badia Masabny, the nightclub version of these dances was referred to as "Raqs El Hawanim" or "Dance of the Ladies". The late master instructor Nelly Mazloom once described “Raqs el Hawanim” as being the style that upper class women danced when amongst themselves at weddings and other gatherings.
She went on to describe how young girls sought the attention of potential mothers-in-law by dancing at weddings that were at that time still segregated. The girl sought to dance gracefully and elegantly while appearing refined and modest. Due to the fact that Masabny’s clientele were upper-class Egyptians as well as foreigners, dancers deliberately tried to imitate the style of the upper class women. For this reason the dancing appears to be very restrained and subtle.

I think the core difference is that Raqs Sharqi changed drastically starting in the 1920's, with Badia's involvement. So I usually end up saying "Raqs Sharqi started in the '20s"...but it's not strictly true, it appears.

Do we actually know whether or not the term sharqi was used prior to Badia et al, though? Sure, they might have been dancing raqs al hawanim, but my point is, "sharqi" appears to have been something of a marketing term. From the 20s.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Because they know damn well they're not "standing in" for Americans[snip for length]

I see your point... I think it is very valid in regard to Egyptian, Turkish, Lebanese style dancers. however...

I had a similar stance on the matter before I moved to the US... my understanding for ACB, ATS and ATF has changed drastically since. Where as Turkish Oriyantal Tanzi, Raqs Sharki - be it Lebanese or Egyptian and Sikhat etc. are all representative of their native countries...ACB is native to the US because it's intent, effort, flavor, purpose and concept is purely American. YES, there is an influence from the various countries "over there", but - as I used to think ACB is just "real" dance done badly, when actually looking at it and asking a heck of a lot of questions - at time with a rather derrogatory attitude about it all - I found that ACB actually has it's own set of rules, stylization etc. Just like Tribal.

I frankly dont find ACB representative of the Middle East or Turkey. I find it representative of Bellydance, yes, but not Middle Eastern dance or Turkish dance. There are so many structural, conceptual, anatomical, musical and stylistic differences that it HAS to be aknowledged as a separate style.

And frankly, I think many dancers would have a problem being "lumped in" with all the "others", talking in a stylistic and philosophical sense here. I know that I for one dont want my Egyptian dance that I worked so hard to learn to be lumped in with Turkish or ACB or even "MTV dancing". I acknowledge the worth of each of these styles and I know it takes hard work to learn each style - speaking from own experience. These efforts would be wasted if "its all the same" anyway, which I have frankly worked way too hard to define the difference between in my education and in my teachings along with 1000s of others to accept.

I see your point about the GP, but we are not the GP and as practitioners of these dance disciplines we cant just accept that "people are too dumb to see the difference anyway" and leave it at that.

DaVid

Originally Posted by david

Brea: anytime someone serves you something like that - just look at them with admiration and say "I'm so glad you were around back then to keep this documented"... and walk away. Freaks.

That's GREAT.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Do we actually know whether or not the term sharqi was used prior to Badia et al, though? Sure, they might have been dancing raqs al hawanim, but my point is, "sharqi" appears to have been something of a marketing term. From the 20s.

This was a question Dr Mo tried to research. He could find no references to the term prior to the 1920s. He was unsure whether Badia came up with the term or just publicized it, but he is convinced it arose with the Egyptian sala. His slant was it was used to distinguish the "high class" dance from the boring old fashioned dancing by fat, dark women wearing too many clothes (yes, I'm paraphasing).

Originally Posted by khalima

Hagalla, that is a good one. Is there info out there about how long it had been around and how it looked pre late 1800s/early1900s? And I've only seen examples of modern "at home" dances and saidi... I know tahtib is much older, but then, it doesn't look like raqs sharqi. I guess I'm wondering, how do we know raqs sharki wasn't in large part "born" around the late 1800s Worlds Fair era? How do we know Middle Eastern "at home" dances weren't influenced by raqs sharki, rather than the other way around? I mean, look at how far hip hop has permeated dance today in our culture, and it's only been around 30 years or so.

Yes, these days there will be some influence - but we do have records of people prior to widespread use of video and internet (because your average Egyptian could never afford to actually watch a raqs sharqi performance - their access was to raqs beledi which is usually considered to be the root dance).

"Raqs Sharqi" is post Badia. However, there is film by Edison of native dancers prior to 1900 - and it looks pretty much like raqs beledi to me.

People like Denise Enan and Dr Mo Geddawi were exposed to pre-global culture social dancing and what they describe and teach is not a world away from belly dancing as we know it today.

A little later we have film by Morocco and Aisha Ali.

None of this is thousands of years old but I think it is reasonable - given the isolation that used to be the norm that the dances have been fairly static for several hundred years.

I frankly dont find ACB representative of the Middle East or Turkey. I find it representative of Bellydance, yes, but not Middle Eastern dance or Turkish dance. There are so many structural, conceptual, anatomical, musical and stylistic differences that it HAS to be aknowledged as a separate style.

You're thinking as a dancer and using the term "representation" in a different way to me. When I say "representative" I don't mean "is an example of/is physically the same." I mean it stands in for something. The figure of the belly dancer stands in for the Orient. The Orient is fictive but at the same time intrinsically connected with a material place or set of places. This is why a woman can put on a two-piece "oriental" costume and dance, using no movements remotely connected to the ME, she can do straight classical ballet, *and yet* anybody will tell you that woman is a harem girl or belly dancer because that is what she appears to be. And if you ask anybody who is not a dancer, where do harems come from or where does BD come from, they do not say San Francisco, or Detroit, or New York or Boston.

They believe what they see is supposed to be Middle Eastern in some way. They believe it more if it is "authenticated" with wibbly music and undulating bodies and tinkling finger cymbals. ACB has developed into a dance of its own but it was *created to be representative of a fictive Orient.* We can't step aside and go oh it's not authentic therefore it's different. It *is* different, but it is fundamentally tied on a representational level to fantasies of the Orient. That's in the West, anyway. It's not entirely lacking in the same function in the ME either.