Question about music and style...

double_frick

New member
I know there are threads on this; I seem to be search-challenged today. :(

I've been thinking a lot lately and it seems the consensus is for your dance to be considered "belly dance" it needs to be done to "belly dance music"
so you can practice to metal or rock or even pop, etc etc but to perform to a song that is not considered belly dance music and call it belly dance is wrong??

is that true?

it confuses me.
shouldn't what matters be the technique, the style of dance?
 

double_frick

New member
I want to add too:
i know it makes me seem like a silly novice to ask such a question. LOL i don't want to incite any belly-rage at the repeat question AND the outrageousness of the question. <3
peace.
 

ababalond

New member
I know there are threads on this; I seem to be search-challenged today. :(

I've been thinking a lot lately and it seems the consensus is for your dance to be considered "belly dance" it needs to be done to "belly dance music"
so you can practice to metal or rock or even pop, etc etc but to perform to a song that is not considered belly dance music and call it belly dance is wrong??

is that true?

it confuses me.
shouldn't what matters be the technique, the style of dance?

i can't really speak with an authority, however from what i've glimpsed, it is relative to what school of thought your coming from. among sharki styles i wouldn't think so, but in ATS (which some question as to whether this is belly dance or not) and fusions, music choice is rather liberal. typically if ur dancing say modern turkish sharki, you'd choose a modern song like Simarik or Rakkas, maybe. For classical Egyptian sytle Sharki perhaps Leyla, for Baladi maybe Rakset Al Wadiyya or Taht Il Shibbak.

but generally i think it would be like asking would you street dance to sway, or mambo or cha cha cha to lady gaga's bad romance, the music is appropriate to the style of dance. but myself, at home i experiment with belly dance to different songs, from tradtional, to modern BD music to britney and lady gaga. but if i say i doing a Egyptian modern sharki or a baladi, i'd try find the appropriate music, but can't say myself i've not made mistakes in learning.
 
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Amanda (was Aziyade)

Well-known member
It's not an outrageous question :)

I think the answer most people would give you is that bellydance isn't about the movements so much as it is the relationship between the dancer and the music.

Not to put off your question, but I think if you haven't already seen it, you should check out Ranya Renee's dvd set on Egyptian Baladi. She illustrates wonderfully that bellydance isn't about stringing a bunch of movements together.

I've studied with some famous instructors who DO promote the idea that the dance is all about technique, and your goal is a dancer is to "master" the movements. These instructors distance the technique from the music, and while that may be a very "modern" thing, it leaves me very cold, emotionally.

Typically, we recognize the word "bellydance" to be somehow related to a idea of the Middle East or Arabia. Nobody hears the word "bellydance" and thinks Eastern Canada, for instance. Or Italy.

The word inspires imagery and thoughts of Arabia. Because of that, but not JUST because of that, most of us would argue that for it to be called "bellydance" HONESTLY, it has to remain some link to what we would think of as the Middle East or Arabian culture. How much of a link? Well, we argue that amongst ourselves :)

Also, many of us have life experiences that make us understand that this dance is a cultural expression of a people who are very much alive and still expressing :) So sometimes it can seem like an insult when somebody dances in a very western way to a very western song and still wants to call it bellydance.

Does that help? I'm not sure if I'm being very literate this morning...
 

Kashmir

New member
I've been thinking a lot lately and it seems the consensus is for your dance to be considered "belly dance" it needs to be done to "belly dance music"
so you can practice to metal or rock or even pop, etc etc but to perform to a song that is not considered belly dance music and call it belly dance is wrong??

is that true?

it confuses me.
shouldn't what matters be the technique, the style of dance?
What do you mean by "technique"? If you mean hip circles - then when is it belly dance and when is it hula? If you mean hip rocks when is it belly dance and when is it salsa? If you mean isolations when is it belly dance and when is it jazz?

What movements the body does is only a small part of it being "belly dance". What makes it belly dance is how the moves are put together to interpret the music which comes from the Middle East/Maghreb.

A good belly dancer could certainly do a fusion piece by applying belly dance interpretation to a non-Middle Eastern piece of music. But the result would be fusion - not pure belly dance. And a poor belly dancer would just up doing a jazz piece - ie same movement vocab but different result.
 

maria_harlequin

New member
If you see a hula dancer dancing to hip hop music, is it still hula?

If you see a flamenco dancer dancing to traditional Japanese Noh drama music, is it still flamenco?

If you see an Irish step dancer dancing to Greek music is it still step dancing?

Technique of course, is important but the heart and soul of any dance form is the music. It's not different when it comes to belly dancing.
 

Jane

New member
I'd take things a step further and say ideally Baladi dance should be done to Baladi music and Oriental Dance should be done to it's own music. Ditto with Saiidi, Gahwazee, or any of the stylistically related folk dances. Unless you are incorporating those elements into an Oriental piece because the music calls for it.

Music, culture, and musicality make authentic belly dance what it is.
 
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