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 religeous 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 Empir e 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 mis-named 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 recieve
money while she dances, and there is no other kind of professional dancer who respectfully
receives money directly from her audience. Yes, strippers recieve 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 yah sees
it.) So the next time yah 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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