Belly dance...makeup and hair

[DancingArabian]

Are there styles of makeup usage that go along with the different styles/regions of belly dance? What about hairstyles or ornaments?

I ask because I was looking up some Turkish music on youtube, and the cover art had a really amazing makeup job done:

turkish bellydance music - YouTube

It made me wonder if that was in any way authentic to Turkish dancing, or to any belly dancing.

Then it made me wonder about other styles of belly dance.

I can always find out about the differences in costuming between Turkish and Egyptian, but I haven't found anything on makeup and hair.

 

[Kashmir]

Make up and hair tends to follow non-dance fashions. For instance, looking at old Egyptian videos you can usually getteh decade at least by the hair styles and things like puffy sleeves (matching the power shoulders of the 80s).

With Egyptian you also often get the beledi pale face which looks odd to Western eyes - and sometimes the dreaded glaring eyebrows.

Basically, dancers are dressing/making up to high end fashion that would be admired and looked up to by themselves, their peers, and they would hope, their audience.

 

[Dunyah]

Are there styles of makeup usage that go along with the different styles/regions of belly dance? What about hairstyles or ornaments?

I ask because I was looking up some Turkish music on youtube, and the cover art had a really amazing makeup job done:

turkish bellydance music - YouTube

It made me wonder if that was in any way authentic to Turkish dancing, or to any belly dancing.

Then it made me wonder about other styles of belly dance.

I can always find out about the differences in costuming between Turkish and Egyptian, but I haven't found anything on makeup and hair.

The make up on that Turkish youtube is a total fantasy, nothing like any belly dance make up I've seen. The bindi is from India, but often used by ATS and ITS dancers, the eye make up is just strange, looks kind of Goth to me. This looks like something that Solace might use as a CD cover for his fusion music.

The music sounds Egyptian, maybe a blend of Turkish and Egyptian style. The artist is Yaşar Akpençe, which sounds like a Turkish name. He says "Yallah, Habibi, Yallah" which is Arabic for "let's go, sweetheart, let's go."

Nice music, I like it.

 

[Zorba]

The bindi is from India, but often used by ATS and ITS dancers...

True enough - but I'll add that bindis are often used by Cabaret dancers - at least in my neck of the woods. That was the first environment I ever saw/wore one.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

True enough - but I'll add that bindis are often used by Cabaret dancers - at least in my neck of the woods. That was the first environment I ever saw/wore one.

My best friend from dance class tends to wear bindis for cabaret performances, too, but I save mine for either Bollywood or Ren Faire performances.

For cabaret, I tend to wear the smokey Arabic eyes look, and glitter. Loooooooooooooooots of glitter. So much glitter, in fact, that for days afterward, my husband looks like a fairy farted on him. >.>;;;

 

[Shanazel]

Bindi for cabaret? :shok:

I am aghast. Truly.

 

[Mosaic]

Goodness the makeup looks like she cried & made her eye makeup run, that eye makeup is quite odd, but to my mind very much the type of makeup one would see in fusion or gothic fusion.
~Mosaic

 

[Roshanna]

Goodness the makeup looks like she cried & made her eye makeup run, that eye makeup is quite odd, but to my mind very much the type of makeup one would see in fusion or gothic fusion.
~Mosaic

It looks like Alice Cooper in a bindi:

 

[SeeJaneDance]

Right off, to me, it looks like the makeup in The Crow series (comics and movies). But that's my generation. In that story at least, they took the makeup from a masquerade mask, and if you look at portraits of jesters, it's a pretty common motif (the horizontal wing, with a vertical line bisecting the center of the eye). Without anything to back me up on it, other than a vague understanding of stage makeup, I THINK the original intention was to emphasize the emotion the jester was trying to convey. The horizontal line emphasizes smile lines, the downward vertical line emphasizes sadness, and the upward vertical line emphasizes happiness. And that also explains why Alice Cooper would have picked up a similar motif, emphasizing the downward vertical. Not saying that the same motif couldn't have simultaneously been developed in another culture, but from a Western standpoint, that seems to be what it comes from, more or less. I personally wouldn't use it when dancing for my American peers (an audience in their 30s, give or take), because they'd wonder why I was referencing The Crow, whether that's what it actually is or not. Unless it was a gothic fusion event.

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

Bindi for cabaret? :shok:

I am aghast. Truly.

I would have been kicked out of class for that. For realz.

 

[Jeanne]

It looks like Alice Cooper in a bindi:

Hah! That almost made me spit coffee on my monitor.

 

[Kashmir]

Bindi for cabaret? :shok:

I am aghast. Truly.

No student of mine is allowed on stage with bindis - unless she is doing something like a Bollywood fusion piece.

 

[Jeanne]

No student of mine is allowed on stage with bindis - unless she is doing something like a Bollywood fusion piece.

Yeah, the whole bindi trend is annoying and silly. I used to do classical Indian dance, so when I see bindis on dancers doing Middle Eastern styles, the inappropriateness of it really bugs me.

I recently saw an article somewhere -- Slate, maybe? can't remember -- about bindis being a fashion trend among certain showbiz types, hipsters, etc. All I could think was, "Dear God, no."

 

[Roshanna]

I recently saw an article somewhere -- Slate, maybe? can't remember -- about bindis being a fashion trend among certain showbiz types, hipsters, etc. All I could think was, "Dear God, no."

It seemed to be more of a thing here about 10 years ago - I remember friends ('alternative' types, but that was before hipsters really existed in the UK) wearing bindis when we were at school. Possibly influenced by Gwen Stefani's 90s bindi-wearing phase... I've not seen much of it lately.

I do see them a bit on bellydancers though - some bellydance vendors sell them, they are pretty and sparkly, and dancers can't resist a bit of extra bling, most probably haven't even thought of the cultural connotations, or don't care. I've been guilty myself in the past due to glitterlust + not realising it looked silly for ME dance :redface:

 

[Zumarrad]

They were terribly trendy 10 years ago, including among bellydancers. They seem terribly off to me now!

WRT makeup, I don't actually think there IS such a thing as bellydance makeup. It seems to go generally like this:
Oriental dance/beledi/folklore: whatever is considered glamorous right now, stageified.
Tribal: Stageified glamour of the day with berber tattoos.
Tribal fusion: Drag queen.

 

[Sirène]

I do see them a bit on bellydancers though - some bellydance vendors sell them, they are pretty and sparkly, and dancers can't resist a bit of extra bling, most probably haven't even thought of the cultural connotations, or don't care. I've been guilty myself in the past due to glitterlust + not realising it looked silly for ME dance :redface:

I know that bindis are traditionally part of Hindu culture but my understanding is that even in southeast asia they're now considered 'fashionable'. It might look odd on a ME dancer, but would a bindi cause offense to the audience?

 

[Roshanna]

I know that bindis are traditionally part of Hindu culture but my understanding is that even in southeast asia they're now considered 'fashionable'. It might look odd on a ME dancer, but would a bindi cause offense to the audience?

I sort of assume middle Eastern audience members would probably just think you looked foolish or uninformed, whereas some Indian people might be genuinely unhappy about bindis being worn by non Indian people in order to look exotic and 'other'.

 

[Zumarrad]

When bindis were in fashion here there was a lot of concern about that but someone told us that an actual bindi is really just like lipstick. It's not the same as the mark to show you are married or the markings that Madonna wore that upset everybody, and it no longer has any kind of spiritual significance, if it ever did.

But I would feel weird wearing one now.

 

[Ariadne]

When bindis were in fashion here there was a lot of concern about that but someone told us that an actual bindi is really just like lipstick.

That is what I was told too. Bindi's are basically jewelry for your forehead. It doesn't hurt to try and avoid certain symbolism in them but isn't essential. Now the paint or ash marks, those are off limits.

In other words you are more likely to offend other dancers (who know they come from India and not the ME) then the audience if you wear one in a non-fusion performance.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

When bindis were in fashion here there was a lot of concern about that but someone told us that an actual bindi is really just like lipstick. It's not the same as the mark to show you are married or the markings that Madonna wore that upset everybody, and it no longer has any kind of spiritual significance, if it ever did.

But I would feel weird wearing one now.

I read similar information online when I researched bindis a few years ago. I do sometimes, not all the time, wear them for Ren Faire performances, especially when we do our Bollywood fusion number (then I go all out and wear an Indian petticoat and choli, but I don't wear my sari while dancing because it's so big on me, I would fall flat on my face. -_-). Then after the number I take off the Indian costume and redon my Ren Faire costume (Our Ren Faires are ANYTHING but historically accurate. It's more like an anime convention with a medieval theme). But anyway, even if the younger generation of Indians think of them as a fashion accessory, they still have no place in authentic ME dance. I don't want an ME person to look at me like "-_-."