Thread: significant colors

I'm almost certain I saw a discussion on this before but cant find it.

I've been requested to wear certain colors, red especially, for gigs. Is there a cultural significance or representation of certain colors?

I may be guilty of the blind leading the blind but..I know that a lot of the greek folks in my area love when I wear silver/white and blue. Those being the colors on the greek flag and most commonly associated with that cutlture. I've also been told that white is a funereal color in arab/islamic society but in my area, our top arabic belly dancer often wears white when performing in cultural celebrations and has her student groups wear white as a base color in recitals and other performances. So...I don't know.
Of course as an amercian dancer with primarily amercian clientele I get the usual requests for red at valentines day, black and white or silver at New Year's, yellow for returning veterans, et cetera. But these are american/western cultural associations with color and probably off topic slightly from your question.

re: new years colors, when i went to brazil they were all shocked that black and silver are the colors for new years here. black is bad luck over there! u either wear red (for love), yellow (for money), or white (for peace). when i performed it was after new years tho and i wore green, they were happy cuz it was part of the brazilian flag lol

*back to topic! lol*

There certainly are cultural color associations. I came across some color information that I shared in the following thread. You might find some of it interesting.


http://www.bhuz.com/forum/belly-danc...-costumes.html

Originally Posted by Carissa

I'm almost certain I saw a discussion on this before but cant find it.

This thread? http://www.bhuz.com/forum/belly-danc...-costumes.html

Oh, thank you for bringing up Manon's original thread - I meant to read it back when it was originally posted and dropped the ball (probably went to the Swap Board for research and never came back).

-Devora

Thanks for all the feedback. Actually I just got done reading Manon's previous post lol. It was very interesting, I totally agree that colors have a psychological impact.

If I remember correctly the thread I had read before may have been about zeffa and someone mentioned red being a lucky color for some. hmm.

I heard red just was the most popular costume colour with people who hire bellydancers, as brunettes were preferred over blondes. But that's veeeery general. Red is lively, juicy and definitely grabbing the attention. It's not lyrical, refined or mysterious.

Originally Posted by Nouria

Red is lively, juicy and definitely grabbing the attention. It's not lyrical, refined or mysterious.

Maybe that is why I love red! ..l;,

I also love orange, fuschia, magenta, all the fiery colors. And I also like blues, watery colors. Interestingly, my horoscope is a mix of fire and water. I also look great in royal purple, which I believe is a Sagittarian color. So maybe there's an astrological significance to the colors we choose! I tend to avoid pastels, I like saturated colors because they feel more powerful to me.

I totally love red! The first costume I made for myself is juicy clear red!

Originally Posted by Nouria

Red is lively, juicy and definitely grabbing the attention. It's not lyrical, refined or mysterious.

Hmmm... I feel very mysterious, elegant and juicy when I wear a red costume. I think if you have a dark skin tone a deep red can make you look very mysterious

Originally Posted by toria_dances

Hmmm... I feel very mysterious, elegant and juicy when I wear a red costume. I think if you have a dark skin tone a deep red can make you look very mysterious

True that different skin tones give different impressions and perceptions are different. Your type is a bit like of that very tanned Asian model on bellydance store, isn't it? She gets to show a lot of the real ferrari red stuff which suits her type great, but still, mysterious to me is something that escapes an unanimous definition, which I find in all sorts of violets/purple/scarlet and maybe midnight blue...anyways, never really sth. bright.

Ok if you say a deep red, - I love that colour too, it's very elegant and it also suits me - I'm a very different skin-type from you.

We have a Colombian in our troupe, but she's really dark, like most Africans. For the last photoshoot she was wearing a golden costume (the thread of the fabric was gold with black underneath, so it was no bright, yellowish gold but sth. I'd call "tired gold") and she looked fantastic in it - mysterious, yes! I love that colour, but I think you need a skin tone from yellowish to brown and definitely dark hair - like the owner of said costume - to really benefit from it. But when our Colombian dancer tried that costume on, she totally "took" it, because for her it was even better...