Thread: Celtic Traditions

I'm just getting started with this, and I was wondering if anyone knew anything about celtic or welsh belly dance traditions?

I can't say I've personally heard of belly dance "traditions" from the Europe, but if you are interested in dance history, Shira's website is always a great place to start:

Belly Dancing: About M.E. Dance--Its History, Cultural Context, Dance Styles

Welcome to the Bhuz community!

I'm pretty sure there are no Celtic belly dance traditions. Sorry.

Any belly dance in Wales or the other Celtic fringes of my nation are very recent and inspired by the ME I do assure you.
I know that the movements we attest as belly dance moves when attached to music from the ME are belly dance. And I am also quite sure that women may have danced those moves or similar in other regions and at other times. In which case they were not what we call belly dance which evolved from the folk dances of Egypt and Raqs Beledi polished up to Raqs Sharki.
I do not believe in Raqs LLanfair..... but I do know that there are girls in the LLandudno area who can belly dance a la Cairo!

still a cool thread! Would be interested inhearing more about these NEW Celtic Bellydance traditions.

There are no Celtic bellydance traditions that I have ever heard of, and I am a Scottish historian.

Originally Posted by Isolde24

I'm just getting started with this, and I was wondering if anyone knew anything about celtic or welsh belly dance traditions?

Unless there was an unrecorded conquest of Wales by the Arabs there can not be any Welsh belly dance traditions as by definition belly dance comes from the Middle East. Sorry.

Originally Posted by kashmir

Unless there was an unrecorded conquest of Wales by the Arabs there can not be any Welsh belly dance traditions as by definition belly dance comes from the Middle East. Sorry.

Well we have had the Romans ( who were mainly Spanish legions),The Saxons (Germans) and Danes and Vikings (more Scandinavians) the Normans (Norse Frenchmen) and further attempts by the Spanish (Philip II)and French(Napolean) and the last landing actually in Wales:


Last Invasion


Don't you think that's enough for one nation!..g.:

Ah yes the returning Crusaders but I think they were more interested in bringing back Maths medicine and science ,home comforts and castles not dancing girls. Their upright matrons would not have stood for that after minding the manor-farm for decades.

I'm sorry, but the idea of Celtic style belly dancing makes about as much sense to me as the idea of Japanese style salsa dancing.

OK, I'm sure plenty of people in Japan do salsa dance now. :) However, I'd still call it a Latin dance wherever it's done.

There is a chance that a female from the British lands through many wrinkles in history got into an Ottoman harem and then became a court dancer, who may even have introduced one or two of the dance steps she knew from home into her repertoire - unlikely, but not completely impossible. But, that this is really more material for an entertaining novel, and doesn't quite establish Celtic bellydance.

I think there actually *is* a novel like that, steffib! I remember reading a description on Amazon or somewhere...

Originally Posted by GenevieveOfAtlanta

I think there actually *is* a novel like that, steffib! I remember reading a description on Amazon or somewhere...

There are at least two novels with a similar plotline, fun to read - one is called Valide (and of course I can't remember the authors' names ...)

But there is actually some truth behind those stories: from what I recall, the slaves in Ottoman harems had to be non-Muslims, which makes it somewhat plausible that a woman from Britain may somehow have made her way to being a court dancer.

Which still doesn't make it a Celtic tradition of belly dance. It means a Celtic person learned a Middle Eastern dance.

i'm wondering if the OP is referring to fusion? there are some who've applied traditional gaelic dance moves to ME to fusion-esque musical pieces (including myself) with varying degrees of success, here in the states anyway....i've not heard of any FROM those lands who've done any interesting fusion yet, but even tho there may have been some Roma, or even ancient Roman infusions of other nations, there are no native BD traditions in any of the gaelic speaking, or cornish/welsh lands....they have their own indiginous dance which HAS been fused....some really interesting MUSICAL fusions have occurred, tho(see 'dublin to dakkar' by putumayo, the rogues, wicked tinkers, brother, etc. which have a 'gypsy' or ME vibe lately)

Well, there are Celts who BD, but that doesn't make BD a Celtic tradition.

Certainly there are sometimes places where you can imagine a degree of musical overlap in traditional pieces, but you can do the same with Chinese and Irish music, for instance (somewhere I have The Chieftains in China on LP). I would say that the desire for there to be Celtic BD taps into heavy romanticisation of both sets of people - Celtic Twilight meets Mysterious Orient- and is possibly borne out by the *completely unsubstantiated but still widespread myth* that belly dance is Neolithic/Bronze Age and that all developing primitive peoples did it at one time till evil Judao-Christianity stamped it out, except in places where people would subsequently develop Islam for some unknown reason.

Originally Posted by GenevieveOfAtlanta

I think there actually *is* a novel like that, steffib! I remember reading a description on Amazon or somewhere...

Vanity Fair..per chance?

Only in the Reese Witherspoon version!

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Only in the Reese Witherspoon version!

No...... and in the BBC versions...ask Kharis..she was in it!

The silly Hakim episode is mentioned on an Amazon crit!

Ew!

I've read Vanity Fair several times and I recall no actual BD scene in it. More an issue of the Wrong Man's Jewels. I'll have to refresh my memory, as I think there is a performance of some kind.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Celtic Twilight meets Mysterious Orient

Thank you, Zum, for yet another element I can incorporate into my dissertation. ..g.:

It comes naturally due to my tenuous and contested links to Clannad.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Ew!

I've read Vanity Fair several times and I recall no actual BD scene in it. More an issue of the Wrong Man's Jewels. I'll have to refresh my memory, as I think there is a performance of some kind.

Aw Thackery ...that old thang!!!
It's so long since I read about Becky..I thought she was a right raver when I read about her at school but hey I don't recall any dancing girls either .Thackers obviously needed bringing up to date...g.:

Becky is rocking. A *****, but rocking.

ETA the word I used was nothing like as bad as it now appears in censored form...

But didn't you know that Scotland was named for Scota-the daughter of an exiled Pharoah? Who established Goddess worship?

I could make an argument-in fact, it's an argument made by more qualified ethnologists than I!-that there is a link between ancient Turkey and Ireland. But as to there being an unbroken line of dance between that time and ours? That's right up there with the undying covens.

Sorry for the snark.

Well, the Irish tradition is that the Milesians came from Greece, so it's close.

I don't know if anyone is still following this thread but I am currently making a bellydancing kilt (think sequined tartan!) for an upcoming 'Scottish Cultural Event". Though I live in Canada I was born in Scotland so I should get away with it, at least in my own mind. I haven't read all the posts on this subject but an obvious link between bellydance and celtic tradition exists in the gypsy traditions. There may be no historic connection but in the evolution of modern bellydance other cultures have been drawn on as inspiration. Many tribal bellydancers borrow gypsy stylization. The Gypsies themselves subtly influenced the cultures from Ireland to India and nowadays many other places.

Well, actually, gypsies like other immigrants and low-placed peoples tend to copy what's local, not the other way around. Sorry.

I immediately thought of a tartan bedlah for the whole celtic/welsh/scottish/let's throw in everything.... Would one also use a shillelagh for raks assaya? A tribal troupe caber toss - that would be very dramatic on stage.

That's hilarious! What madness! Sometimes I get plagued by wisps of insecurity when trying something 'new', so I'll keep your image of Raks Highland in mind to lighten the process. And a good point about low placed peoples in the previous reply. I had only very modern connections in mind. Should have read more posts before blurting out. I just came out of the closet as a lurker so perhaps I need to learn a wee bit o protocol. Perhaps, also, I should stick to the "what are you working on?" forums and stay out of historic commentary! ..l;,

oooh I love the Raks Assaya with shillelagh! Now you've got my mind whirling....heehee! I've been threatening to do an intermission show at our monthly Ceili for awhile now....