Arabic Bellydance
The dance form, which is known as ‘Belly Dancing’ is quite popular all over the world. In fact, this is a western name given to a form of Arabic style of dancing which has developed in the Middle East. In Arabic language, belly dancing is called Raqs Sharqui or sometimes as Raqs Baladi (a folk dance).
In Europe, belly dancing is known as oriental dancing. In Turkish, it is called Oriental Dansi (Dance of the East). The French call it Danse du ventre. Americans refers to this dance form as “Middle Eastern Dance”.
In the Arab world, Raqs Baladi is performed on festive and social occasions like marriage and other social gatherings. This dance form is more for fun and celebration. People of all ages and sex perform this dance. This traditional dance is learnt by Arabs from an early age. The other form Raqs Sharqui is more dramatized version of the dance form and generally performed by professional dancers.
In belly dance, a dancer has to move muscles in different parts of the body. Through this dance form, the dancer conveys the rhythm and the emotion of the music in visual form. It is generally a solo dance having its own dance vocabulary that integrates fluidly with the rhythm of the music.
Though both men and women perform belly dancing, people generally picture it as dance form for women only. Belly dancing gets more appreciation when it is danced by a mature voluptuous woman. It is basically a dance form which expresses feminine sensuality.
This dance form was introduced into the western world towards the end of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century. The Arabic dancers were brought in to show their dances in various exhibitions and world fairs held in many parts of the western world. These shows made this dance form quite popular as more and more people could see this dance form. But, its popularity started reducing because of the inherent sexuality of the dance form. In fact, this dance form was banned in some parts of Arab world for many years.
The viewers get entertained when they watch a belly dance show with all the exotic movements of the dancer. But, this dance form has turned out to be a good form of exercise too. The body movements involved in this dance form makes the body flexible and provides cardiovascular exercise too. Therefore, this dance form is being considered as a form of art which provides all practitioners a fun way of exercising their body too.
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 6:58 am and is filed under Arabic Bellydancer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.