Bullsh*t Radar Overload!

[Dev]

I've just read the following on the website of a UK teacher I hadn't come across before. Please ensure that there are no heavy objects nor hot drinks to hand when reading this:

" Belly dance, also known as Raks Sharki, Baladi, is believed to be as old, or older than the 14th century. Performed all over the world, this dance is increasing in it’s popularity. It is more of an evocative than a provocative dance and is the only dance where the ladies traditionally get paid to dance whilst keeping all their clothes on!!!



It is said that poor ladies in Greece would tie a scarf around their waist and go into the market place and ‘dance for their dowry’s’(coins). They would sew the coins they received to their scarves and bodices for decoration as they had no where safer to keep them, hence the coin hip scarves that we wear today.



The beauty of this dance is that it was created for women by women, The movements complement the female form and does wonders both internally and externally for the beautiful goddesses women are!



The Arab women teach this form of dance to their daughters form an early age to help prepare and strengthen the female reproduction organs during the developing cycles of puberty as well as conception, pregnancy, birth, labour and and menopause. "

Hello forum,

Some of the things that lady mentioned are a bit over stretched and twisted, but what is the difference between her opinion and 80 percent of belly dance enthusiasts out there who think exactly the same. We may be spending a lot of time researching and talking about Belly dance history in the forums , groups etc but for many this is just another business and the things she wrote is just another cheap advertisement. Now something appropriate will be contacting her to check the details a bit closely if possible. Otherwise just let it go , there will be another anyway around the corner.

If that is bullshit then most of the belly dance teachers are bullshitters and in last five years I have met many of them.

 

[Reen.Blom]

Hello forum,

Some of the things that lady mentioned are a bit over stretched and twisted, but what is the difference between her opinion and 80 percent of belly dance enthusiasts out there who think exactly the same. We may be spending a lot of time researching and talking about Belly dance history in the forums , groups etc but for many this is just another business and the things she wrote is just another cheap advertisement. Now something appropriate will be contacting her to check the details a bit closely if possible. Otherwise just let it go , there will be another anyway around the corner.

If that is bullshit then most of the belly dance teachers are bullshitters and in last five years I have met many of them.

Well we do not have to agree to that, do we?

 

[Dev]

Well we do not have to agree to that, do we?

Reen believe me our Belly dance community is largly misinformed . When I first heard about Belly dance my thoughts were it has to be a few thousand years old.

 

[Caroline_afifi]

Oh, ho! You think that's where this person got it from?

I dont recall anything like this so I very much doubt.

This book is by a woman called Lucinda Jarrett. It is about the history of erotic entertainment. The chapter covering Egyptian dance is called 'In Pursuit of an Erotic Image'. It is actually a quite thought provoking.

 

[Kharmine]

I dont recall anything like this so I very much doubt.

This book is by a woman called Lucinda Jarrett. It is about the history of erotic entertainment. The chapter covering Egyptian dance is called 'In Pursuit of an Erotic Image'. It is actually a quite thought provoking.

I suspect stripping (and erotic dance itself) is pretty old, but there are so few details on what that actually looked like that some authors find it too easy to claim it looks like something we moderns can relate to.

What can be verified about the origins of "belly dance" is out there and fairly easily found, but it still gets buried in fluffbunny myths because people are either ignorant or deliberately ignore it.

Which is why the stokers of the myths and distortions need to be called on their claims, early and often. The least they can do is show some evidence that will stand up to reasonable scrutiny.

 

[Caroline_afifi]

I suspect stripping (and erotic dance itself) is pretty old, but there are so few details on what that actually looked like that some authors find it too easy to claim it looks like something we moderns can relate to.

What can be verified about the origins of "belly dance" is out there and fairly easily found, but it still gets buried in fluffbunny myths because people are either ignorant or deliberately ignore it.

Which is why the stokers of the myths and distortions need to be called on their claims, early and often. The least they can do is show some evidence that will stand up to reasonable scrutiny.

I agree.
The book I am speaking of actually only starts with the Chicago Columbian World fair around 1893 and moves from there.
Fatima's dance, a short film made by Thomas Edison, was the first moving image of Oriental dance and the first film in the history of cinema to be cencored.

 

[Andrea Deagon]

I always end up underlining "it is said" in my students' papers, and scrawling, "then who said it?" beside it. It almost always precedes misinformaiton or poorly processed information.

OTOH, relative to this fanciful tale of happy dancing Athenian maidens, there are the historically documented practices of the Ouled Nail women, who did indeed wear jewelry made from the coins they earned dancing. The reason we wear coin belts is because of this custom: Western dancers looking in old magazines for inspiration saw this really cool jewelry and decided to imitate it.

If you are itinerate, as the Ouled Nail were, it makes a lot of sense to wear your money. Many of the Ouled Nail women worked seasonally away from their native village, and returned for part of the year. There weren't any banks. What were they going to do with their money -- where keep it where it wouldn't be stolen? So it was transferred into large, heavy silver jewerly and coin necklaces etc., which they wore.

Yes, there are accounts of Ouled Nail women being murdered for their jewelry. Algeria in the time we have Western accounts, was war-torn and violent.

But wearing your wealth is something that itinerate people often do, as a necessity. It then becomes a marker of your worth, and to some extent, your identity. So they might not have seen any other option than to bear the risk and wear what they had.

Of course, the Ouled Nail weren't performing raqs sharqi, but they were doing a kind of solo-improvised dance involving hip movements, that is part of the baseline phenomenon from which raqs sharqi developed.

 

[PriscillaAdum]

Thanks for clearing this up. I had seen the old pictures of coin jewelry but always assumed that they were made out of old, worn out, no longer used coin pieces ...or left over bits of things and just for decorative purposes. I didn't realize that it was their actual wealth that they wore.

Regarads
Priscilla