Thread: "Arabian" Style...

Ok so this made me chuckle! ..l;,
I received an inquiry about my upcoming classes this afternoon. This woman explained to me how she took Belly Dancing "years ago" (wouldn't mention how long). So she goes on describing how they had it in her "school" (I don't know if this was a dance school or what). Apprently all they had available was "Arabian Style" Belly Dance and so thats what she learned at the time.
So am I missing something here? Was there such thing "back in the day" or EVER for that matter? Maybe yet another description of an earlier style...
I am thinkin its probably just another misnomer!
My response was well I have never heard of that style but it may be that things have changed since then! :-)
Either way made me laugh!
xoxo,
-Nadirah

I've heard of people who dub their style "pan-Arabic." I think it just means that you have influences from several different places, that you're not solely an Egyptian or Lebanese-style dancer, for example.

Occasionally, I've heard dancers use the term "Arabic" style, which has always confused the living daylights out of me. To me, that's kind of like saying "Italian spaghetti" or "American blues" or "Hawaiian hula." Unless maybe it's some kind of attempt at a catch-all phrase for pan-Arabic fusion, or anything that's not distinctly Egyptian?

I'm kinda curious about this terminology, too!

I assume "Arabic style" is a mash up of mostly Egyptian and Lebanese elements, as opposed to Turkish or some obvious fantasy/fusion, doing-your-own-thing style. Probably if you were affiliated (either directly or through your teacher) with a club or restaurant run by an Arab family and you danced primarily to Arabic music, you would have thought of the style you were doing as "Arabic."

the one time i heard this term, i took it to mean 'pan-arabic' like makeda said. it was used in reference to a dancer who doesn't do turkish, but does do the mish/mash 'american restaurant' style. maybe this was an old-school way of saying 'heavily influenced by egypt etc'...

tourbeau beat me to it ;)

I assume she means "pan-Arabic" as well. However, seeing the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about khaliji or other Gulf dances. When I hear "Arabian" I think Arabian peninsula as opposed to the general Arabic-speaking world.

Did you see her dancing? What did it look like?

did she mean "vintage oriental"? as opposed to tribal, fusion, modern egyptian, etc?

I've been asked numerous times about my "Arabic" dance, from North Americans and people from the Arab world who are not Egyptian. Egyptians on the other hand are all "this is Egyptian dance you know, it comes from Egypt." LOL.

I do get the impression it's an older term that was probably used in the US in preference to "belly" dance. Apart from the obvious problem of leaving out the Turks, it's quite a natural term to settle on, because it does seem to be a dance you find elements of anywhere there have been Arabs. (Unless of course it's really an Ottoman Empire thing - and maybe 150 years ago the same sort of people would have called it "Ottoman" dance.)

I heard Arabic style used to describe Middle Eastern dancing in general. I've used the expression myself when I couldn't describe a style as exactly Egyptian or Tunisian or even Khaleegy but a combination of all three.

In the old Habibi and Arabesque magazines, you'll see people referring to "Arabic Style" and most of them seemed to have danced NOT Turkish or American Cabaret, but a style not exactly like what we think of as Egyptian today.

To me that translates into what Tourbeau said.

Yes I would have defined Arabic/Arabian style as either Egyptian or Lebanese cabaret style (somewhere that has Arabic as the main language) as opposed to Turkish or even Greek style. Not sure if there is a "Persian" cabaret style.

Although this reminds of Amir Naoum's dvd in which he shows different versions of Baladi. One is called "old fashion style" and the other one is "Arabic Style"

I assume what Amir means by Arabic is what is used in the Lebanese/Syrian region and not Egpytian which would technically be North African.

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Originally Posted by SatinWorship19

Occasionally, I've heard dancers use the term "Arabic" style, which has always confused the living daylights out of me. To me, that's kind of like saying "Italian spaghetti" or "American blues" or "Hawaiian hula."

Not really, Arabic as opposed to Turkish Belly Dance (which is very different - and Turks are not Arabs) or "American" belly dance which would be slightly different.

Maybe I misread the story, but to me it sounds as if this lady took some bellydance classes a long time ago, and when she tried to describe what she is looking for, she made a simple mistake by using the wrong word (arabian instead of oriental). I don't think there is any more behind her message.

Actually I´ve thought about describing my basic classes as arabic style bellydance or MENA style...why?


I´ve learned from predominantly egyptian and egyptian style teachers,
only use class/choreo music from Egypt,Lebanon,Syria&Iraq for basic classes.

The movements and style may be hard to define,but not the music-many other teachers mix in tribal,Hilal,persian,bollywood and turkish style AND use music from these various sources.
Students are terribly confused by this.

A quote from a school who does actually flag this as fusion:
"Imagine-bellydance,persian dance and indian bollywood mixed...Can it be better?"

Er...well...i guess not.

My teacher, who is Syrian, often referred to belly dance as Arabic dance or Oriental dance. She used all 3 terms. Music can be Eygptian, Syrian, Lebanese etc. but the style and the feeling is Arabic. Back in the day, many dancers switched between Arabic style and American Caberet/Vintage Orientale/Turkish style. Some however exclusively did one style. Often a musician, when looking to hire a dance from the Greek clubs, asked, "Can she dance Araby?"