Other not so respected
dance forms can be connected with the belly dance, such as Burlesque
and Striptease. As many movies, night club promoters
and dancers used the dance in their performances, and many people
have only seen a belly dance in these venues. Real belly dancers
(raks sharki) do not care for the dance to be connected with
Strippers and Burlesque, as the dance in reality is a very old,
Beautiful and respected art form, but alas it sometimes is. More
to come ...
"Dancing
Girls" have been around since before the first
century, A.D. such as the dancing girls of Gades
(Dancing Girls of Cádiz*
) in S/W Spain, which was once a Roman colony which had
three distinct styles of dancing:
1) Cheironomia,
or play of hands;
2) Halma, or play
of feet; and
3) Lactisma, or
jumps.
Dancing Persian Girls had been dancing before and after the
arrival of Islam*
(founded 7th century.) Dancing girls were in such high regard
that in 527 A.D. shows a dancing girl named Theodora
(d.548)* who married the Emperor Justinian
(483-565) and became the Byzantine "Empress Theodora."
Awélim:
In Egypt (NE
Africa and SW Asia*) the "dancing women" were
called Awélim (wise or learned.) These dancing women
who danced at a later period, like those of the East, were not looked
upon as paragons of virtue. They performed in long, transparent
gowns, beating drums or castanets in quick time.
The Egyptian (Raks) Gháwázees
or Gháazeeyehs
were generally hired to perform dances on certain occasions, such
as a wedding. They would go through their evolutions with unveiled
face, and the men sitting down in the court and watching them, while
the women enjoy the performance from the windows of the harem. A
more modern Egyptian dance, called the "Bee,"
is performed by a single dancer, who, in look or action, expresses
the pain she feels on being stung.
Almèh:
In old Hindu religious writings, The Hindu "dancing girls"
were called Almèh, because they were better educated than the
other females and of higher morals of the country, in which they
formed a celebrated society. The entertainment which they supplied
was well respected and called natch
, or the feats of dancing-girls. The almèh of the higher class
knew, perfectly, all the new songs and dances; they committed to
memory the most beautiful elegiac hymns that bewailed the death
of a hero, or the misfortunes incident to love. No festival was
complete without their attendance; nor was there an entertainment
in which the almèh was not an ornament, or the chief excitement
of pleasurable sensations. The most distinguished class of the almèh
were introduced into the saloons of the great, not alone for their
merits as dancers. They repeated with exceeding grace, and sung
the unsophisticated harmonies or airs of their country.
The Almèh gained admittance to the
favor of the public, and were solicited to attend marriages and
every kind of entertainment, including funerals and other occasions
of solemnity. In some hieroglyphics and paintings, the Almèhare
generally depicted waving small branches or beating tambourines
while they danced, singing the refrain, "Make a good day, make
a good day, Life only lasts for a moment, Make a good day."
Which is the same idea, it will be noticed, as that of the feasters
in the Bible, who said, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow
we die."
However, in the lower order, there was
an inferior class who could not claim to be Almèh, whose imitations
of the former were but very humble and cheap; without the knowledge,
the elegance or the grace of the higher order (Almèh)
they had no choice but to frequent (dance in) the public
places and the general walks; and to a refined mind (people who
knew the difference,) created disgust when they wished to allure.
These impersonators were the first to give the dance an unmoral
view. These fake dancers were usually of poor training and weak
of mind.
The Mughal Empire
gave rise to the dance style known as "Kathak"
a non belly dance (Men also dance in India; they are called
Cathacks, and are between eighteen and twenty years
old. Just like the bayadères, their performances consist of
graceful poses and scarf movements, and they are dressed in magnificent
costumes,) also the French referred
to the Kathak as "la
danse du ventre" (basically meaning
belly dance in French) and in Turkish its called Oryantal
Tansi (again, Oriental Dance.) Early Americans called
it "The Abdomen Dance " or
"Stomach Dance ." Finally most people
(American) call it the "Belly Dance"
which supposedly was misnamed when Little
Egypt danced for the infamous Sol
Bloom at the Egyptian Theater,
it was he who coined the term "Belly Dance." Little
Egypt is said to have danced to the song "Streets of Cairo"
as one of her songs.
Karol
Henderson-Harding states "The spectators pay the dancer
directly in the form of coins or cash thrown on the floor or placed
on the dancer's body. There is no other dance form in which this
occurs. In classical Greece, a woman from a poor family tied a sash
around her hips and went to dance for her dowry in the marketplace.
Spectators threw small gold coins at her, money which she then sewed
into her bodice and hip-belt as decoration, since she had no where
else quite as safe to keep them. Today, dancers still wear costumes
decorated with "dowry" coins. In Egypt at the time of
the fourth dynasty (approx. 2680-2560 BC), dancers
were presented with gold necklaces in payment. By the 19th century,
when the custom of tipping was known as "nukoot," a dancer
would go into a backbend to receive the money, which would be moistened
and placed on the dancer's upturned face.
It is still the custom for
a belly dancer to receive money while she dances, and there is no
other kind of professional dancer who respectfully receives money
directly from her audience. Yes, strippers receive money but are
not respected in their field of dance even if the stripper uses
respected forms of dance such as Jazz, Belly Dancing, Raks Sharqi,
Ballet or whatever during her act. Erotic and/ or Arousing
dance is not a bad thing but it does have a limit and when that
limit is reached it is no longer art but smut. (Note:
Nudity is not a bad thing and can be artistic but, walking is
normal, yes?, but done without clothes while strutting down central
avenue is crossing a line... and dance has its lines as
well... ya knows it when ya sees it.) So the next time ya see
a Belly dancer who is truly doing her art well (Raks Sharki), throw
her a twenty dollar bill and give the single dollar bill to the
strippers.
Note:
The Phoenicians founded Cádiz*
(c.1100 B.C.) on the site the port of Gadir, which became a
market for tin and silver of Tarshish. It was taken by the Carthaginians
(c.500 B.C.+) and passed late in the 3d cent. B.C. to the Romans,
who called it Gades (Cádiz).
It flourished until the fall of Rome, but suffered from the barbarian
invasions and declined further under the Moors.
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