Aisha Azar

Dear Dipali,
What has led you to the conclusion that belly dance gets mainly ignored in Egypt? Why do you think the dance started in India and why do you think it has lost its Egyptian essence? I do hope that you will respond to these questions because I am really interested in how you have come to believe what you believe about the dance.
Belly dance is in fact alive and well in Egypt, and though there are now dancers in the west, this does not mean that the "west has gripped the dance" and forced out all of the Eygptian; only that they are developing new and different forms of dance here in the west that has some movement structures that borrow from belly dance as well as other forms. Egyptian belly dance does retain its essence. It is in every fibor of the native dancers, and there are some western dancers who also do it justice. The same can be said for the Lebanese and Turkish dancers, who regardless of costuming, musical changes, even new dance movements, still retain their ethnic and cultural flavor and spirit, which is after all, the real meaning and feeling of any dance form. People who have studied a dance style for a long time can often tell you if a dancer is a native of Egypt/Lebanon/Turkey, because of the essence of the dance, and the approach to the music and the movement. I could tell immediately that Esmahan is not Egyptian and that Randa is, for example, merely by the way they dealt with the music emotionally. That was without knowing a thing about either of them. Essence is alive and well and easy to spot. It is not easy to explain in words, but it is a truth of the dance.
Regards,
A'isha