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There is a concept in Arabic music called Tarab, which loosely means "the ecstasy of listening" and is a sort of trance like state of just being immersed in, one with, and carried away by the music as you let it move you (physically and emotionally).
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Articles
I mentioned the more traditional way of teaching this class. Western way of teaching and learning, with a very codified way of doing things is not traditional to how raqs sharki (Eastern dance, AKA bellydance) was learned. For centuries, professional dancers were from families of entertainers and so they learned from a very young age. I try to combine how Americans are comfortable learning with more traditional teaching styles, to prepare you to really appreciate how many native dancers prefer to teach. This article from Leila (an American who had a successful career in Cairo for many years) talks about how important it is to be able to learn in this way. Articles
I promised short articles each week to give the dance some context. This week: a little on the history of bellydance, and the difficulties of reconstructing the past of a folk dance. This article is a bit about how hard it is to pin down the exact origins of raqs sharqi. Lots of myths have been created to try and explain the history, but it is likely that, in spite of more research into the early 20th century being published in English, we won't ever have firm answers for the first origins. Egyptian Sets Dancers today often don't use a formal set structure. For example, a dancer performing at a wedding in Cairo in 2024 might perform a solo to an entrance piece (Anywhere 4 and 20 minutes) and the rest of their performance would be dancing with the wedding guest all together on the dance floor. For a show in a 5 star hotel, on a boat, or in a night club, she might have a collection of songs and tableaus in any order the dancer curates for her (current Cairo laws do not license male bellydancers) audience.
If you've been dancing for a little while, and have some movements you feel comfortable doing, it's time to start making your own dances!
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This post will be short because I don't know much about either of these regions, but I don't want to leave them out. In the future, I am hoping to have this re-written by some one with more expertise in the areas covered. 9 of 11
Many American dancers hold Egyptian style up as a standard as a result of shifts that happened during the 80s. Cheaper travel and the hard work of the Egyptian tourism board, plus tapes of Egyptian dancers from the golden era, Lebanon's civil war, and changes in Turkey shifted the focus of dancers in the US from Anatolian areas to Egypt. But while dancers in the US were idolizing Egypt's golden era, many changes were taking place within Egypt's dance scene, especially during the 1990s. 7 of 11
This post is about the style changes that happened in the US between the 90s and 2010s and how the situation dancers in the US found themselves in changed. During the 80s, dancing in the US was still basically the same styles as the previous decades, with more fringe on the costumes and more dancers starting to get into historical research, but several changes to the national context were starting. 8 of 11
The story of fusion belly dance as we know it today can be traced back to Jamila Salimpour and her classes and performances on the West Coast of the USA starting in the 1950s and 60s. Post 4 of 11
Interestingly, while Turkish dancers sometimes call the it raqs instead of oryantal dans, all the places bellydance is part of the vernacular party dance were once part of the Ottoman empire. Post 5 of 11
Our next style goes by many names! Sometimes called "American Cabaret", or "Am Cab" for short, "Vintage American", "Vintage Oriental", "American Restaurant", "Vintage Restaurant", "classic American", and even "Anatolian Cabaret" by those wishing to emphasize the influence of Greek, Turkish, and Armenian immigrants and artists on the style. Post 3 of 11
This post is to give students enough of an orientation to Lebanese style to get the lay of the land. You can probably tell by how much shorter than the others it is, but there is more to the story which you're better off learning from sources more focused on this style. |
AuthorLisa Lumina is the primary author of student readings. Guest authors are indicated on their posts. Archives
May 2025
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