khanjar

I was wondering also about origins of ME dance, where did it originate in reality. I could not help wondering about influence from India and it's environs, as one of my other interests is ethnographic arms and armour. For example the curved scimitar used in the dance involving balancing the weapon on the noggin, The weapon hilt styles, both Arabian and Indian styles have been found in both India and the middle east. There is the clear weighted blade which I believe is a scimitar, and also the curved blade which is the talwar, the names interchangeable. Trade of goods was obvious in the past as it is now, with the heavily laden sambuks motoring out of Dubai creek on passage to India, perhaps it has always been so. So why not the trade of cultural ideas.

I do feel in the past, if not the present Asia and the Arabian cultures are linked.

Khanjar, is the same in Arabia as it is in India and some parts of North Africa.

I think only in Yemen is it called something different

adiemus

I agree that if we look for a 'single' origin for MED we are going to have trouble - it's a bit like asking who originated the blues! All forms of artistic/creative expression are going to be the product of their time and include elements from all the historical and contextual influences at that point in time. And even as we look at the range of dances currently included in the MED rubric we can see how they have developed even in the short space of time since movies have been used to record the dance!

I also can't see why the things we see happening now - like the fascination for things novel and unfamiliar - wouldn't have been just as influential in the time of the pharoahs! We're humans, and we adopt new and interesting things because we like to be inquisitive and 'seek'!!

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khanjar

Maybe the thing to do is look at all traditional dance styles from all surrounding countries and see if there are any similarities. But then one has to look at trading partners of the past. I know for instance, The Swedish Viking used to trade with the ME by sailing through what is now Russia.

Then there are nations which occupied territories via war. Perhaps the best way is look at countries whose dance style is nothing like ME dance and work inwards.

Kharmine

Mythologies evolve to fit a need.

The fact that what we call "belly dance" today evolved from 1920s Cairo cabarets catering to Westerners, and is a fusion of Eastern dance and music with Western influence, doesn't seem to fit the need of some people for an older, more esoteric myth.

Maybe the truth is perceived as just not glamorous enough, dignified enough, "spiritual" enough for these folks to feel it has a "legitimacy" over its sluttier stepsisters, exotic/pole/burlesque/lap dancing.

But there it is, a mixture a folkloric and stage, modern and ancient, East and West.

By all the practical and verifiable rules of what we have come to generally accept as evidence, we know its actual origins and influences. We can pretty much trace its spread to Turkey and Greek and to the United States, brought by immigrants and imported entertainers from the ME/Turkey/Greece.

So -- other than general ignorance -- why do people still look for other sources, try to claim it as Ancient or Sacred or deny that it is a fusion of traditions or that it has significant Western influence?

Because -- despite a few people trying to paint all counter-evidence as somehow being dubious or tainted or biased -- we still don't see any real, verifiable evidence that "belly dance" has any different origins than the facts show, so far.

We can judge the evidence, ladies & gents, we really can. We can look at those who present it, their sources, their references, what verification is offered, what kind of independent corroboration is out there, how they gathered the evidence, who they cite, their professional and personal qualifications, etc.

Those presenting dubious claims need to come up with some independent corroboration we can look at and test for ourselves. Otherwise, they really ought to just admit they believe what they want to believe.

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Aisha Azar

Dear Khanjar,
It is called Middle Eastern dance because it IS Middle Eastern. This does not mean that there were and are no influences from anywhere else. It does mean that the end result has been established through the cultural filter of the the country or origin, ( Egypt, Lebanon, Morococo, or whatever the country in question might be). Because of the cultural filter, the other influences on the dance take on a uniquely Turkish, or Egyptian ( or wherever) feeling and meaning and even physical characteristics that make it what it is: Middle Eastern dance. The opposite of this can be seen in American Oriental dance, where Middle Eastern concepts in dance have taken on a uniquely American feeling, and have in fact, become a western dance form.
Regards,
A'isha

maylynn

Been away all week at a conference in Germany, but now that I am back, here is the long awaited quote from:
Morris, Desmond. (2004). The naked woman: A study of the female body. Vintage, Random House, London, UK. Pp. 267.

A warning though, it's going to seriously make you mad! This passage is quoted from pp. 181 - 182, in the chapter 'The Belly'.

"Returning from the navel to the belly in general, there remains the question of how the famous female 'belly dance' - the danse du ventre' - originated. It was mentioned earlier that it is now rather primly referred to as a 'traditional folklore dance', but for once it is a tradition whose beginnings have not been 'lost in the mists of time'. Modern puritans might prefer in this case that they had been lost.

There are three main movements in the belly dance: bumps, grinds, and ripples. Bumps are forward jerks of the pelvis. Grinds are rotations of the pelvis. And ripples are muscular undulations of the belly region involving expert muscular control. The first two are easy and commonplace. The third is the province of only the most skilled female performers. All three are active sexual movements. They began in the harem, where the overlord was usually grossly fat, hopelessly unathletic and sexually bored. To stimulate him sexually, his young females would have to squat over his recumbent body, insert his penis and then wriggle their bodies enticingly to bring him to a climax. This wriggling became an expert activity, with special movements of the female pelvis and contractions of the abdominal muscles to massage the great lord's penis. As an act of copulation it has been described as 'fertile masturbation'.

As time passed, the female pelvic movements became developed into a visual display to titillate and excite the master of the harem before copulation itself was attempted. Freed from contact with his sluggish body, the harem women were able to exaggerate the actions and make them more rhythmic. With music added the whole display soon became stylized into what was called the 'muscle dance', and what we refer to as belly dancing.

Some sources have suggested an additional element. They claim that certain of the movements represent not copulation but birth. It is pointed out that in many cultures, before a pregnant woman was turned into a doctor's patient, she did not lie down to give birth, painfully pushing against gravity, but instead adopted a squatting position using gravity to help her deliver her child. She assisted the birth by moving her abdomen in a rolling motion, bearing down hard as she did so. It is this element of parturition that is said to have been incorporated in the belly dance as the centuries passed. It became not merely a dance of mimed copulation by a vigorous young female straddling an indolent, corpulent male, but a symbolic enactment of both conception and birth - the whole reproductive cycle in one performance.

Whether this modified interpretation of the belly dance is correct, or whether it is an attempt to sanitize a purely copulatory dance and bring it into line with other 'folkloric' activities, is hard to say. In any case, the purification process has gone much further in recent years. A belly dancing instruction manual published in the 1980s introduces its subject with the following words: 'In its new role as a healthy physical art form, the emphasis is on its keep fit qualities'. The harem dancing-girl has now become a gym mistress.

Despite the fact that the belly dance is now being promoted as 'an excellent form of therapy for tension and depression', the names that have been assigned to its various movements still give a vivid glimpse of its more erotic origins. They include: the pivoting hip rotation, the travelling pelvic roll, the undulating pelvic tilt, the heel-hip thrust, the backbend shimmy, the hip skip and the camel rock. Clearly, not all has been lost."

Dr. Morris only provides three sources for 'The Belly' chapter, which are as follows:
Flugel, J.C. 1930. The psychology of clothes. Hogarth Press, London.
Hobin, Tina. 1982. Belly dancing. Duckworth, London.
Laver, James. 1969. Modesty in dress. Heinemann, London.

Obviously only one of these sources has anything to do with bd - and although I have not read it, I reckon that it's the 'belly dancing manual' he referred to, and not a source of any of his other claims.

I'm not going to comment on this passage, rather I will leave that in your capable hands! I'll just say that out of the 10 or so books that I have read authored by him, this is the first time I've encountered statements that I've had issues with. However...what a load of, uh, issue!

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Caroline_afifi

I really dont know what to say...
Well that just about explains it

Aniseteph

Active sexual movements? Oh dear, I am doing something seriously wrong somewhere....

khanjar

Maybe the BD body movements are to do with fertility, with not a great deal of imagination one can perhaps see that as an origin, but what one has to also see, is traditional dance throughout the world what are they based upon. Usually war or fertility, the things which were the prime concern of ancient peoples, death and birth, the two absolutes of life.

I just wonder how many of these writers who write articles and books actually partake in what they are writing about, observation is not as good as participation, participation enables understanding beyond speculation.

Views written about in books and papers, are quite often personal perspectives. Anything as a suggestion of the past, should be backed by documentary evidence from a reliable source, other than that, an author might only be projecting their fantasy.

Aisha Azar

Dear Maylynn,
Caroline may not know what to say here, but I do. "EEEEWWWWWW!!!!!"
Thanks for taking the time to print this reprehensible quote. I, too have respect for most of his work, but boy, he sure is off base with this one.
REgards,
A'isha