TribalDancer

Just to let everyone know, I have moved the last two pages of this thread to a new topic: Vital Elements of Bellydance. Hopefully the spin-off of the topic will help people find it better and benefit from the valuable discourse!
http://forum.orientaldancer.net/showthread.php?t=894

This thread is of course still open should anyone want to continue to discuss Gothic Bellydance specifically!

Venefica

I am sorry if I revive an old tread i am just interested in this topic, I am a goth girl and I want to combine two things I am interested in. Gothic lifestyle and dress and bellydance. Now I do not mean to offend anyone. And I know very little aboute bellydance so I can not say what is or what is not bellydance. But if one use the same movements and steps as in bellydance, shimmy, snake arms, temple arms, traveling steps and so on and so on, and wear bellydance inspired costumes, just whit a darker twist and dance to ghotic music, are one not still dancing bellydance. A waltz is still a waltz if one dance it in disco clothes and under a mirror ball. I might be wrong as I am a complete beginner, but is it not the steps and movements that define somthing as bellydance and not the costumes or music one dance to.

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Ash Begets Chaos. Chaos Begets Primordial Life--Haunting Grounds.

Aziyade

Venefica, you need to look up Taletha. (www.taletha.com)
She's (in my not so humble opinion) the best Goth belly dancer out there. She studies Modern Egyptian so her style is really closer to Egyptian than some of the tribal goths. Plus she's just the sweetest!

I know she's very choosy about her music -- something she thinks is terribly important to doing Goth BELLY dance instead of just dancing to Goth/industrial music.

Venefica

Thank you for the link and the information. I will look it up. I hope you ahve a wonderful day.

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Ash Begets Chaos. Chaos Begets Primordial Life--Haunting Grounds.

MiaMi

This thread is absolutely amazing. So much information in one source. I have always been curious about different styles, and gothic bellydance has always been a curiousity of mine.

I never really knew what to think of it, because the cultures seem different to me. The Goth culture seems dark, mellow, and morose. Whereas, the bellydance culture seems mysterious, elegant, and whimsical.

I guess the mysterious part connects the two, not that Goth is surrounded by mystery, but the idea of goth and the idea of bellydance are formed around different cultures, and both are seen as taboo, which I believe makes them fuse so well.

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Aisha Azar

Dear MiaMi,
Therein lies the key. Ask yourself if belly dance is only about movement. What about the soul and spirit of the dance itself? There is a vast difference between the "dark" soul of current Goth culture and the spirit and essence of belly dance. They are not two things that express the same sentiments or feelings or spirit. There is no connection that transcends physical movement,m which is rather ubiquitous to dance. It is VERY misleading to refer to the Goth dance form as belly dance just because there are a few movements in common. In other words, if we were to go by movement alone it could be called Goth hula or Goth modern, or Goth anything else. This is why Goth and belly dance do not really work together. It is not about movement at all but about essence.
On the other hand, if the dances created under the Goth premise are not referred to as "belly dance", sometimes there is a beauty and intrigue there that I can appreciate. Raqs Gothique is a much better name for this dance form, because it does not imply that it is belly dance. I am not sure who coined the name, but my hat is off to them.
Regards,
A'isha

Reen.Blom

What on earth Medieval and Barocco Have to do with Gothic(as it is known today not the style of Cathedral architecture)??????????

Sara

It has quite a lot to do. I had previously wrote a big explaination but deleted it cause I was just going on and on and there is too much to say. It is from buildings, and art that the Gothic culture was inspired. The gruesome carving and scultpures, the fantasy of gothic literature such as Dracula (which is said to be inspired by Vlad Tepes who was the ruler of Wallachia in the 1400's). Writers and artists alike were inspired bu the buildings of the High Medieval period.

Then from these writers and artists you got modern day goths. The link is very long and goes on for ages, lol, so I can't explain it fully, but there's the jist. Inspiration.

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Reen.Blom

Actually Gothic style in arcitecture appeared to replace the Roman style of cathedral building, Roman having to put up with relatively low buildings due to restrictions of building technology of the time.

Gothic introduced the technology for building extremely high catherdrals, breathtakingly high + using stained glass to create illuminated coloured-light filled air under high painted ceiling. Common ppl those days lived in huts, houses with tiny to no windows, and I extremely doubt that to a person of 13 century Gothic cathedral amazingly tall decorated, painted, filled with relics and holy images, candles, music and singing would seem a dark and gloomy dracula-like place! On the opposite it was an AMAZING STUNNING place, which was supposed to reflect the grandeur of God. Even to us it is still amazing to see a building with such space and light inside.

As for Dracula - being written on the verge of 19 and 20th century it describes a fantasy- type places(indeed feeding on Romanian legends) (ghost stories of all kinds were the rage in those times), and in fact has very little to do with "Gothic" style in architecture.

By that time humankind already went through many styles (including Barocco which was highly decorative Renaissance style with return to ancient Greek and Roman ideals of the beauty of human body, using a lot of colours, ornaments, flora and fauna sculptures and paintings, gold, elaborate style- what does THAT have to do with modern Goths?). Also by that time neo-Gothic style of architecture was introduced which was lighter simplified style still embracing the idea of Gothic style of lifting high up the the Heavens above creating air and space inside).

I would agree that modern Goth connects to those Ghost and Dracula fantasy stories and art. But to connect it to classical Gothic and Barocco I do not see possible!

Shanazel

So modern goth is neo-Victorian-pseudo-goth?