VIDEO: Belly Dancer Shows Her Talent

The world is a big place filled with different cultures.

It goes without saying that the place you were born and brought up is the place where your culture will be referred to.

When we look at dancing, we find that there are many types of dancing styles.

Some consider belly dancing a form of entertainment, others think it’s pure art.

According to Wikipedia, belly dancing is believed to have had a long history in the Middle East, but reliable evidence about its origins is scarce, and accounts of its history are often highly speculative.

Several Greek and Roman sources including Juvenal and Martial describe dancers from Asia Minor and Spain using undulating movements, playing castanets, and sinking to the floor with “quivering thighs”, descriptions that are certainly suggestive of the movements that we today associate with belly dance.

Later, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, European travellers in the Middle East such as Edward Lane and Flaubert wrote extensively of the dancers they saw there, including the Awalim and Ghawazee of Egypt. In the Ottoman Empire belly dance was performed by both boys and women in the Sultan’s palace.

Belly dance in the Middle East has two distinct social contexts: as a folk or social dance, and as a performance art.

As a social dance, belly dance (also called Raqs Baladi or Raqs Shaabi in this context) is performed at celebrations and social gatherings by ordinary people (male and female, young and old), in their ordinary clothes. In more conservative or traditional societies, these events may be gender segregated, with separate parties where men and women dance separately.

Historically, professional dance performers were the Awalim (primarily musicians and poets), Ghawazi, and Köçekler. The Maazin sisters may have been the last authentic performers of Ghawazi dance in Egypt, with Khayreyya Maazin still teaching and performing as of 2009.

In the modern era, professional performers (including dancers, singers, and actors) are not considered to be respectable in the Middle East, and there is a strong social stigma attached to female performers in particular, since they display their bodies in public, which is considered haram in Islam.

The costume most commonly associated with belly dance is the ‘bedlah’ (Arabic: بدلة‎‎; literally “suit”) style, which typically includes a fitted top or bra, a fitted hip belt, and a full-length skirt or harem pants. The bra and belt may be richly decorated with beads, sequins, crystals, coins, beaded fringe and embroidery. The belt may be a separate piece, or sewn into a skirt.

Badia Masabni, a Cairo cabaret owner during the early 20th century, is credited with creating the modern bedlah style. It has been suggested that the bedlah was inspired by glamorous Hollywood costuming, or created to appeal to Western visitors. Earlier costumes were made up of a full skirt, light chemise and tight cropped vest with heavy embellishments and jewelry.

As well as the two-piece bedlah costume, full length dresses are sometimes worn, especially when dancing more earthy baladi styles. Dresses range from closely fitting, highly decorated gowns, which often feature heavy embellishments and mesh-covered cutouts, to simpler designs which are often based on traditional clothing.