Arabic Dance
Dancing as a human activity has a very long history. Every community indulges in dancing to celebrate different religious and social occasions as an expression of joy. Thus, dancing has become an integral part of any culture.
In the ancient times, dancing and music was part of normal life in Egypt. Many evidences are available regarding dancing in Syria, Turkey and many other parts of Arab world in the ancient times. At that time, dancing was considered more as a means of entertainment, but dancing was prevalent in some religious occasions also.
As Christianity and later Islam started to influence the entire Arab world, these pagan forms of dancing started to be forbidden especially during religious ceremonies. But, dancing continued as a part of entertainment.
After the introduction of Islam in the entire Arab world, lots of restrictions were imposed on women when they went out of their home. Wearing of veils was one of them. This restricted dancing to be done only inside home before their relatives for celebration of family occasions.
This restriction made it impossible for any respectable woman to take up dancing as a profession. Only women who lived at the margins of society earned their living by dancing.
Gypsy tribes from Northern India migrated to the Middle East in 5th century as musicians and dancers. As they did not follow Islam, they did not face restrictions on their performance and they moved about all over the place and they developed a style of dancing incorporating different cultures prevalent in the region. They took up the profession of entertainers where women danced and men provided the music. Some of these tribes ultimately settled in Egypt. They are known as ghawazee in Arabic. As Islam spread all over Northern Africa, Middle East, Turkey and even into Spain after Moorish invasion, this dance form also spread.
Interest in Arabic dancing in the Western world started increasing after Napoleon occupied Egypt in 1798. Many others from the Western world visited Arab world in the 19th century. Egyptian and other Arabic dancers started visiting the Western world during different exhibitions and expositions held in this period in different places like Paris, London and in the United States.
In the 20th century, many dance forms influenced the development of Western dancing. One of them was Oriental dance form which was basically Arabic in style. In Egypt, Arabic dance and music started to develop to entertain many visitors, who came to visit Egypt. Also the growing Arabic cinema industry helped in its growth.
In the present day Middle East, belly dancing is performed in tourist hotels in places like Egypt. But, dancing is under threat in many places of Arab world because of Islamic fundamentalism prevalent in those areas.
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 6:56 am and is filed under Arabic Dance. 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.