A question regarding the music and the moves

[Ariadne]

I'm sorry I'm late to the conversation. I haven't had the time the last few days to give your question the time it deserves.

This question stems from having read a few different threads regarding performances. The general tone from the responses that I've read is that if you're not dancing to Middle Eastern/Arabic music, then what you're doing is not belly dance.

So now I ask...why is that?

I used to wonder that too. Instead of asking like you did I just kept reading everyone's opinions and their whys and wherefores. For the longest time it was all opinions (plural) until I was researching Tarab and I stumbled across some articles.

Arabic Music: What is Tarab?

Arabic Music: Arabic Orchestras in America and Tarab

Not only did they explain to me what it was in BD that drew me to it they also lead me to research the history of music. I discovered that there was a divide that occurred during the beginning of the last millennia when our European music tradition developed. The music that followed has some fundamental differences in rhythm, notes, and harmony to the older style. Music in the Orient however stayed much truer to its roots in Byzantine music. The use of a quarter note is just one of those differences.

I believe that is why whenever the discussion comes up inevitably someone mentions rhythm.

But as you've said, in ballroom you can't *really* dance a foxtrot to anything, because it has to have the right underlying rhythm.

But you can dance a Foxtrot to other music if it does have the right underlying rhythm. The problem with trying to bellydance to non-*Oriental music though is that it doesn't have the basic underlying foundation that makes Oriental music what it is, it's essential Tarab. With how widely different our music is the chances of finding a non-Oriental piece of music with even a little of that influence, even just the rhythm, is very small.

Then on top of that you have the different styles of bellydance. The traditional styles that are closely tied with an active native dance tradition have the accent that kina so eloquently described. You can watch a good Egyptian dancer move and you know instantly where their basics are from. That movement is moved by the music of Egypt which is also very distinct.

As Shira quoted earlier:

George Ballanchine (famous American Ballet Theater choreographer) said, "Dance is the music made visible."

Music really is the foundation.

And it really is. I think much of the reactions you get of people saying "if you're not dancing to Middle Eastern/Arabic music, then what you're doing is not belly dance" is perhaps a subconscious reaction on their part to the underlying fundamental differences of Oriental music to European music tradition.

As Shira said, "music really is the foundation."


*I am using "Oriental" music to mean the group of music including Egyptian, Turkish, North African, Lebanese etc.

 

[Sophia Maria]

So, do you know the song En Mi Viejo San Juan? If you, like most other Puerto Rican's who have migrated, know the song and it brings you to tears, whether or not the words are there.

That's what it's like for someone who know Enta Omri inside and out, you can hear the words in your head where they would be sung. It's very evocative.

I guess the equivalent for me would be Va Pensiero (Verdi). It's from the opera Nabucco, but it's a lot more than just an opera song if you understand what is being sung. For me, as a descendent of Italian immigrants, this song has a special meaning for me, and can bring me to tears. Even though the Italian part of my family came to the US a good long time ago, the emotion of that song is still felt very strongly. My great-grandmother used to sing it to my father in the cradle, and my father still hums it as he cooks.

Even though I get emotional with that song, I couldn't imagine bellydancing to it, because honestly I think it's hard to separate cultural memory from songs like that. If someone unfamiliar to that culture tries to sing a song (or dance it), I think they have a duty to research their butt off and a)know what they're talking about, and b) try to feel it too.

Edited to add: It is possible to do bellydance to a modern fusion, or generic pop song. But I think it's more of a rich experience if you explore more and see what beauty and dignity you can find in music you may be unfamiliar with. If someone wanted to do an "Italian" song, and they just played an accordion while singing about spaghetti, or they danced to "Dominic the Donkey", I would be let down. Any culture will be more rich than that. If you want to do a dance to "Shik Shak Shok" or Beats Antique, ok...but it would be a far more rich experience to try to dance to Abdel Halim Hafez

Not sure if I expressed this well. Do you see what I'm getting at?

 

[Jane]

The best stuff to use is classical Arabic and Arabic music written and arranged specifically for belly dance. There is more for the dancer to respond to because it's more complex. Simple pop music or folk music is (most of the time) basic, so you end up with a simpler looking and feeling dance. Non-Arabic music is written in a different system than European and does not have the nuances, variety, and ornamentation that a belly dancer can latch onto with movement. It wasn't written for an Arab audience or for belly dancers.

Here comes a weird analogy: It's like a sandwich.

A pop song is a sandwich with bread, cheese, meat.

Arabic belly dance music is a sandwich with rye, sprouts, farmhouse cheddar, smoked turkey, more cheddar, roast beef, red onions, raspberry mustard, and fancy lettuce.

 

[DancingArabian]

I'm now contemplating if I should add a Rosetta Stone kit to my list of wants when school is done.

 

[shiradotnet]

I'm now contemplating if I should add a Rosetta Stone kit to my list of wants when school is done.

I went with Pimsleur as my starting point. Here's a review I wrote of it: Book Review: Pimsleur's Egyptian Arabic by Simon and Schuster

A lot depends on which medium you want to use. Pimsleur is audio CD's, NOT computer software. Rosetta Stone is computer software. So a lot depends on what kind of tool you want to use.

I also wanted to start with the Egyptian dialect of Arabic (which is what Pimsleur teaches). This was because I wanted to learn a conversational dialect ue to the fact that I have traveled to Egypt 9 times and intend to do so again. In contrast, Rosetta Stone is Modern Standard Arabic, which is used by newscasters and in literary Arabic, but not day-to-day conversation.

Each has its merits, it just depends on what you personally want to use as your starting point.

 

[Yame]

Although it may not seem like it sometimes, I'm actually in a slightly (or very?) different camp from the people who say that something can not possibly be belly dance if it's being done to non-belly dance music.

I think it's possible to belly dance to almost any style of music. Yes, even music without any Middle Eastern influence/fusion. I believe belly dance is distinctive enough from other hip and torso-based dances so as to maintain its identity even if it is being done to a different style of music.

But... there are a few caveats

The first caveat is that if you never dance to Middle Eastern music, you will probably never develop an understanding for the subtleties of what makes belly dance belly dance. I think you have to be a very experienced belly dancer in order to be able to pull off dancing to other genres without making it look like something else.

So for example, if a beginner or intermediate student who is just learning belly dance decides to dance to some other genre of music, it probably won't really be belly dance by my definition.

However if Fifi Abdo decided to dance to a Beatles song, using her usual movement vocabulary because that's what's natural to her... then yes, it's still belly dance.

The other caveat is that although the identity of belly dance is still there regardless of the music, the dance does lose some of its essence when it is being done to a different genre, and it loses essence in proportion to how far you stray from Middle Eastern musical genres. If you are dancing to music that has a similar rhythm or instrument it's possible to keep some of the essence, but if the music is nothing like any of the belly dance genres of Middle Eastern music then you might lose most of the essence. It's still possible to maintain the identity of belly dance without most of its essence, hence why I make the distinction.

These caveats are the reasons why I consider it extremely important to dance to Middle Eastern music and learn about if you are to call yourself a belly dancer, even if you dance to other music as well.

 

[Tarik Sultan]

I think you made excellent points using ethnic food and ballroom dance. Thing is when we use the term Belly Dance, what are we really talking about? To me, one has to ultimately realize that the dance originally comes from a specific people and culture and they themselves do not call it belly dance. So right off the bat when you are calling the dance by a different name, you've taken a step away from the culture. So having said that, we must recognize that many people are totally unfamiliar with that culture, so to them, all they see are a set of movements, a particular type of costuming... in other words external elements. To make a comparison with food, it would be like filling a pasteles wrapper with spam. Sure, on the outside it may look like pasteles, but when you bite into it.... its the filling, not just the wrapper that makes a pastele a pastele. But if you don't know that, then you can wrap anything up in a wrapper couldn't you? Same is true of the dance.

If the question is authenticity, then what we really should be asking is is Raks Baladi/Sharki the real thing if its not done to the right music and what other elements make it authentic? Just as with pasteles, its the filling that makes it what it is, with Raks that filling is the soul of the thing. So can you do a set of movements to other music? Sure, but that wouldn't make it authentic. And even if you do those movements to the music, just like with food, if the spices and ingridients aint right then its not authentic, it is "inspiered by".

I'm Jamaican and I remember when pizza shops started selling beef patties... except they filled them with cheese. Might have tasted nice, but it wasn't a "Jamaican" beef patty anymore. So once again, what are we asking about? A set of movements, or an ethnic dance form?

By the way, the reason why you will find overlapp between Salsa and Raks has nothing to do with Spain. It has to do with the fact that Salsa is heavily African based and Raks is an inherantly African dance form. Many of the movements found in both dance forms are found all throughout Africa, its just that various regions have their specific flavor. Just like Puerto Ricans and Jamaicans both cook rice and beans and maduros. Its just that they put their individual spin on it but the basic concept is derived from West african cultures and sometimes you find the exact same thing in both countys, bacalaitos in P.R are exactly the same thing as cod fish fritters in Jamaica.
I'm hungry now...

this is my first post on this board although I've lurked forever and a day...

So, I'll turn this around a bit. I dance salsa as I learned it, as a social dance amongst people who grew up with it. I'm Puerto Rican and we lay claim to it, so I recognize the controversy of which you speak.

And I can tell if the person who is dancing it is Cuban, Colombian, Puerto Rican or Dominican by their movement vocabulary.

When I dance to ME music and I hear a rhythm that matches the salsa rhythm (not surprisingly, there is a large overlap, considering that the ethnic history of Puerto Rico is heavily influenced by the slave trade to the America's and the Spaniards that were ruled by the Moors for 700 years) and my "accent" comes out.

Some dancers speak of an accent when people who did not grow up with the music of the ME learn to dance. How their dance is touched by the music, rhythmic patterns and muscle memory of their movement vocabulary PRIOR to learning ME dance.

My accent happens to be Puerto Rican and I will automatically default to a salsa step when their is rhythm that matches it (think Nour El Ain, by Amr Diab).

Am I then dancing salsa, or am I still dancing ME dance?

Raqia Hassan is a marvelous choreographer and her combinations are such that workshop participants spontaneously applaud them when she demonstrates them to the music. They *fit* the music absolutely beautifully.

There was one step that I could NOT execute to the music in the workshop that I attended, because muscle memory took over and my feet INSISTED on the salsa step.

Much like I have difficulty with the pronunciation of certain words that I *know* have a hard ch sound (e.g. Chicago) which *I* pronounce "shicago".

Sure, I can say it in English, but I don't pronounce it like a native speaker of English would, my accent is Spanish.

Same thing in dance. You CAN perform the dance, but you're taking it away from it's original music where the movements "fit", If you were to perform to a song that that is not ME in origin with different rhythmic patterns, your movements will change to incorporate those rhythmic patterns so that they fit IN HOW YOU CONCEPTUALIZE that movement vocabulary.

I, personally, do not think that ballroom salsa has ANYTHING to do with "real" salsa dancing, which will probably tick off ballroom dancers who spend years lovingly practicing the music and the steps.*

Now for a food analogy, cause I'm both hungry AND thinky, when I go to a restaurant that features food that I've grown up with, I'm am invariably dissapointed. Not because the people at the stove don't love the food and work at creating an authentic experience, but because if they don't know the flavors and spices that appeal to a palate that has spent a lifetime of tasting them, no matter how good their interpretation of the food is, it's not real Puerto Rican food. I don't know if this is universal, but whenever I go to an ethnic restaurant, i check to see if the people of that ethnicity eat there, because I trust that their educated palate is a reference that I will get a more authentic taste of their cuisine.

*Amira Jamal, my first belly dance teacher was teaching at a Fred Estair(sp?) studio. Our belly dance class was right after a salsa class that a Russian ballroom dancer was teaching. I was there late, helping to clear up. There was a man there, who was a bit early for his class, if I remember correctly, he was from Honduras. He was in a heated argument with the ballroom dancer about salsa. His point was that what she was teaching wasn't salsa as people who grew up with it would recognize it. He asked me my ethnicity, I told him, he asked if I wouldn't mind demonstrating with him. We started dancing, and I followed him with no difficulty. She got pretty annoyed, I think his point was that if you were teaching a dance from a certain area, you should *know* how the people of that area did it, so that they would have at least that reference point and be able to identify what you were doing WITH their dance.**

**wow, this got really long. back to lurkdom.

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

Just one correction, Shira -- Balanchine was City Ballet's choreographer, not ABT's. Other than training Baryshnikov, I don't think Mr. B had anything to do with ABT.

 

[Munniko]

I'm now contemplating if I should add a Rosetta Stone kit to my list of wants when school is done.

I prefer using livemocha.com because it is a website that is pretty much equivalent (and free) version of Rosetta Stone.

 

[Ariadne]

Some further thoughts I've had.

There are two factors involved in any bellydance (or really any dance) style, the music and the "accent" or body-language.

With styles from a country where their native music has the right underlying foundation (Oriental music) the two go hand in hand; Egyptian, Turkish, Lebanese, and so forth. As the dance is exported to other countries though it is natural over time that they will also develop their own accent. This will result in new styles that may not work as well with the music from the above countries, the musical expression will be recognizably different.

Over time you will also get artists creating music in the same musical foundation as Oriental music in those countries and just like the body-language their music will naturally have a different accent. In the US we have had a native developed style (several in fact) longer then other countries so maybe we have more music being produced here but we're hardly the only one. (One of my favorite bands is actually based in Japan and I'm waiting with baited breath for their next release.) Is it possible we will see similar development drift in bodylanguage and music in these other countries as we do in the native countries?

None of this changes that there are fundamental differences between European and Oriental music. In order to reconcile those differences when dancing to non-Oriental music it is necessary to infuse movement that has been created for a European style music. It isn't just a necessary conscious choice it is a natural response to the music. The creation of Tribal Fusion from that POV was inevitable. On the flip side Arabic Pop music has itself infused a European music influence. As a result there has been an infusion of European dance moves that correspond to that music there as well when dancing to said music. A few years ago I found an instruction video made by a dancer there for just this purpose. I wonder if someone compared it with Tribal Fusion dance how much overlap they might find in styling?

 

[Zumarrad]

I also think that one of the things that drives deliberate fusion, rather than cultural blending that occurs as a result of interaction, in our dance is perspective.

In the ME homestyle dancing is done in a particular way. Everyone knows what it looks like. It seems to work best with music that brings out that homestyle feeling. The music makes the ME person-who-dances want to dance! And they dance in their homestyle way.

Outside the ME, in my experience it is FAR more common that people take up bellydance classes for all sorts of reasons and fall in love with the *moves*, which are different to our homestyle moves. With exceptions, obviously, it can take longer to develop a love of the music. So dance students, enraptured with the new ways they have learned to move their bodies, naturally want to make this dance more personal. They start trying the movements to music they understand better. If they are challenged for performing like that and find it hard to beat down the old "music/cultural context" factor, they will immediately use the term "fusion" and that's their get-out card.

To many in the west, belly dance is the moves. To most in the ME, belly dance is the way ME music moves you (but the moves are culturally inscribed at such a deep level that they don't have to think hard about how the music will move them...)

 

[Ariadne]

I think you are spot on.

 

[DancingArabian]

If "belly dance" is not the same as the dances in ME countries, but rather a dance INSPIRED by the dances from those countries, that's one thing. I'm inclined to agree with a few of the posters in this thread who pointed out that "belly dance" is its own creature now, apart from what the dances of origin are. You could even see this in things like costuming - I bet what's popular on stage right now is nothing like what's popular in the social circles.

Personally, I think and expect different things from a dancer that labels herself a "belly dancer" versus a "raqs sharqi dancer" or a "beledi dancer". When I think of "belly dance", I expect to see a more theatrical/performance based dance. When I think of someone advertising herself as a beledi dancer (just as an example), I expect a performance that's rigidly adhering to the beledi style. If it's a dancer advertising herself as an "American Tribal belly dancer", that also evokes a different image.

I don't know that I am at the point where I would say someone dancing to a Shakira song, or K-pop, or Beyonce or whatever else with a belly dance movement vocabulary is not belly dancing.

Couldn't belly dance be considered the language used to interpret the song playing in the background?

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Well... Like I said before, we have to define what we mean by Belly Dance. Are we coming from the perspective of cultural authenticity or are we coming from the perspective of Western creativity inspiered by the cultural dance. The two things are related, but they are not identical and that's not a value judgement in any way. I think that for some people there is a certain amount of anxiety over this issue and so they try really hard to brand something as some how culturally authentic when it clearly isn't, nor does it have to be. There has been a divergence, but that doesn't mean its a bad thing at all. Its kind of like when did Christianity brake away from Judaism? Clearly the two are related, but at some point Christianity diverged from being just another Jewish sect to something that was its own thing altogether.

So if we look at the dance from this perspective, its easier to wrap your head around. Christianity does hold the Jewish books of Moses to be sacred, BUT they also developed their own scriptures, The New Testament. So although it has an origin in Judaism, it clearly is NOT Judaism. The dance form that developed in the United States and Europe have their origins in the cultural social and performance dances of the East. Quite often it is done to the music of that region, BUT quite often they are not and there are some genres that never use the music of the cultural regions at all. I think that like Christianity, the belly Dance community is at that point where one foot is in the world of the Jews and one in the world of the Gentiles. Some of us are more at home one or the other end of the spectrum, however we are still close enough in the historical time line to realize the is a connection between the two.

If "belly dance" is not the same as the dances in ME countries, but rather a dance INSPIRED by the dances from those countries, that's one thing. I'm inclined to agree with a few of the posters in this thread who pointed out that "belly dance" is its own creature now, apart from what the dances of origin are. You could even see this in things like costuming - I bet what's popular on stage right now is nothing like what's popular in the social circles.

Personally, I think and expect different things from a dancer that labels herself a "belly dancer" versus a "raqs sharqi dancer" or a "beledi dancer". When I think of "belly dance", I expect to see a more theatrical/performance based dance. When I think of someone advertising herself as a beledi dancer (just as an example), I expect a performance that's rigidly adhering to the beledi style. If it's a dancer advertising herself as an "American Tribal belly dancer", that also evokes a different image.

I don't know that I am at the point where I would say someone dancing to a Shakira song, or K-pop, or Beyonce or whatever else with a belly dance movement vocabulary is not belly dancing.

Couldn't belly dance be considered the language used to interpret the song playing in the background?

 

[Kashmir]

With styles from a country where their native music has the right underlying foundation (Oriental music) the two go hand in hand; Egyptian, Turkish, Lebanese, and so forth. As the dance is exported to other countries though it is natural over time that they will also develop their own accent. This will result in new styles that may not work as well with the music from the above countries, the musical expression will be recognizably different.

Over time you will also get artists creating music in the same musical foundation as Oriental music in those countries and just like the body-language their music will naturally have a different accent.

Good point. But I think there is a difference between the development of new styles of Orientale music and dancing to Hip Hop or Western Pop. One adapts in the style of the original - the other tries to fit belly dance onto a completely different musical style.

 

[Kashmir]

If "belly dance" is not the same as the dances in ME countries, but rather a dance INSPIRED by the dances from those countries, that's one thing.

That is one opinion - but I don't think it is one accepted by most people with a long experience of belly dance.

You could even see this in things like costuming - I bet what's popular on stage right now is nothing like what's popular in the social circles.

No - because there are two threads - performance and social belly dance in the ME. The former is based on the latter - and the latter also takes from the former. But performance belly dance has other requirements - it isn't just about dancing - it is about entertaining. So the dancers don't just have different clothing - they are whiter and more European looking; they have more difficult moves; they have practiced interacting with an audience etc.

Personally, I think and expect different things from a dancer that labels herself a "belly dancer" versus a "raqs sharqi dancer" or a "beledi dancer". When I think of "belly dance", I expect to see a more theatrical/performance based dance. When I think of someone advertising herself as a beledi dancer (just as an example), I expect a performance that's rigidly adhering to the beledi style. If it's a dancer advertising herself as an "American Tribal belly dancer", that also evokes a different image.

No, raqs sharqi is just the performance style of belly dance - aka Orientale or danse orientale. If a "belly dancer" is not doing raqs sharqi - or one of the related folk styles - s/he isn't belly dancing at all.

I don't know that I am at the point where I would say someone dancing to a Shakira song, or K-pop, or Beyonce or whatever else with a belly dance movement vocabulary is not belly dancing.

Couldn't belly dance be considered the language used to interpret the song playing in the background?

With any of those examples, it has moved too far from its roots to be called "belly dance" any more. And I always wonder why people want to call it belly dance. Why can't they just dance?

Wrt language - would it be French if the background language was Hungarian? or Mandarian? or Maori? no, and it isn't "belly dance" either.

 

[Roshanna]

Personally, I think and expect different things from a dancer that labels herself a "belly dancer" versus a "raqs sharqi dancer" or a "beledi dancer". When I think of "belly dance", I expect to see a more theatrical/performance based dance. When I think of someone advertising herself as a beledi dancer (just as an example), I expect a performance that's rigidly adhering to the beledi style. If it's a dancer advertising herself as an "American Tribal belly dancer", that also evokes a different image.

Hmm... My expectation would be that a dancer marketing herself as a bellydancer would be able to perform raqs sharqi, raqs beledi/raqs shaabi, and probably a few regional/folkloric specialty styles, in order to be worth her salt as a bellydancer. I have never seen anyone advertise themselves as only a beledi dancer, or only a raqs sharqi/oriental dancer, because these are smaller facets of the whole. Tribal is... different... some bellydancers advertise tribal as a specialty, and some only do tribal, because tribal is more of a separate dance form, and not a necessity to be a well rounded non-tribal bellydance performer.

 

[Zumarrad]

If "belly dance" is not the same as the dances in ME countries, but rather a dance INSPIRED by the dances from those countries, that's one thing.

Ah, the old "Americans invented belly dance really so we can do what we want with it" schtick. There are a few people who like that viewpoint, and understandably so, because it gives them ownership of the dance. The questionable ethics of that aside, my answer to that one, DancingArabian, is to ask you to put aside *everything* you have ever learned about bellydance, and then ask yourself, quick: what associations did the words "belly dance" have for you before you knew a single movement?

If you thought of Broadway or Hollywood before you thought "exotic" or "eastern", well, things HAVE come a long way where you come from. But most people associate belly dance with something "exotic" - that word actually means foreign - and Oriental, usually Middle Eastern though occasionally also Indian. "Belly dance" remains tied to that set of images regardless of whether we want it to be that way or not. Till that stops, *outside* the dance community, you can't untangle the dance as performed outside its indigenous cultures from its signification.

You could even see this in things like costuming - I bet what's popular on stage right now is nothing like what's popular in the social circles.

Well, how often do you put a tutu on to go to a party? Hardly anyone actually hangs out in theatrical costume when they're not on a stage. They don't have "belly dance haflas" in the ME where everyone puts their Ebay bedleh on and does a choreography. They dance at parties, weddings, normal events.

But I would say that what is popular on stage, costume-wise, in Egypt, might very well reflect to a greater or lesser degree what women are wearing at private parties, on TV shows and in the boudoir. In terms of being influenced by fashion. Dina's whale tail, the camouflage costumes, they were definitely influenced by trends in non-performance garb. And while some fashions in the ME are pretty globalised it is also fair to say that there are some local preferences, and that we see them in costuming. I think, based on what I've seen, that Arabic taste trends towards the, erm, ornate. How often have you seen non-ME belly dancers shrieking at some of the costumes coming out of Egypt? It's a question of taste.

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

I prefer using livemocha.com because it is a website that is pretty much equivalent (and free) version of Rosetta Stone.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this link!!! Wow -- I'd never seen that site before. Maybe now I can FINALLY learn more Spanish than just how to ask for more chips.

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

But I would say that what is popular on stage, costume-wise, in Egypt, might very well reflect to a greater or lesser degree what women are wearing at private parties, on TV shows and in the boudoir. In terms of being influenced by fashion. Dina's whale tail, the camouflage costumes, they were definitely influenced by trends in non-performance garb. And while some fashions in the ME are pretty globalised it is also fair to say that there are some local preferences, and that we see them in costuming. I think, based on what I've seen, that Arabic taste trends towards the, erm, ornate. How often have you seen non-ME belly dancers shrieking at some of the costumes coming out of Egypt? It's a question of taste.

Also regarding costuming, we have the same analogy here with professional singers. The BIG STAR names (the Beyonces and Lady Gagas and Madonnas) have crazy elaborate costumes with Swarovski crystals and lots (or a ridiculously minute amount of) super expensive fabric. But at the base, they're just wearing fancy dresses.

Not-so-big-name singers wear nice dresses. The singer at your local jazz club, or featured soloist with your local philharmonic orchestra is going to be wearing a nice dress. Maybe not $5000 worth of nice, but a nice dress. At the base, it's a fancier version of what you might wear out, or wear to work, or whatever.

Dina is a HUGE star over there. We can't really apply (necessarily) what SHE does to what every dancer does, because there are a lot more not-so-famous dancers than there are famous ones, just like in the US there are a lot more not-so-famous singers than there are famous ones.


Costuming for belly dance is a lot like costuming for professional singers -- and that's really just a jazzed up version of what people wear normally. Or did. Not everybody wears a dress these days, but you see where it comes from, historically. The more successful the dancer/singer, the more jazzed up the dress. OR -- sometimes the bigger the venue, the more expensive the dress.