Oriental Dance started in Baghdad???

[Dev]

[/i]Hello everybody .
I was going through some old topics in tribes.net and found this piece of another confusion about where Oriental Dance started. This is what she wrote


“””Yes, that's right! According to Amani's research, which includes seeing old texts with her OWN EYES, Oriental dance in it's infancy really began in Baghdad at the Royal Courts there. It really makes sense, when you think about it...if you compare Raqs Sharki to other ASIAN dances (Indian, Persian, Chinese, Central Asian), you can see how the movement vocabulary moved west. Egyptian Raqs Sharki "style" is its own creation...it really is a modern dance, because of all the ballet added to it. BUT, the origin of the MOVEMENTS (not the modern style) definitely came from west of Cairo.

The dances in the temples of the land of Canaan turned into the dances of the royal courts, which turned into the nightclubs. In other words, Raqs Sharki came from a long line of dances for the rich. Period. This is why the dancing in nightclubs is completely validated, because this has been going on for a long, long time...

So, what happened? According to Amani, Oriental Dance has been in Lebanon since antiquity, but because of war and famine, everyone doesn't dance there like in Egypt. It took Badi'a Masabni, a Lebanese dancer who married an Egyptian man and moved there, (the teacher of Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioca, etc.) to come to Egypt to train these ladies that created the modern Egyptian style.

This is very controversial info for Egyptians; they say they created Raqs Sharki, but NO, they perfected it, not created it!

What do you think? As an Anthropologist this makes PERFECT SENSE. “””
By Katya


I am not sure how much of it is true about the claim, But makes interesting reading !!

...

 

[Amanda (was Aziyade)]

When it's fashionable in Turkey, the Turks claim the dance originated there. When it's fashionable in Egypt, they claim it. I wouldn't be surprised if Libya didn't stake a claim -- or Tunisia, saying it was an ancient Carthaginian dance that spawned bellydance.

Humans have been dancing since we climbed out of the trees or the ocean or wherever. To say that any specific movement originated in any specific place in antiquity is hubris at best.

I'm of the opinion that it's counter-productive to try and isolate the ancient origins of this dance. We're better off spending our time studying the dance as it is today. Last time I checked, Amani was a dancer and performer, not a historian or a dance ethnologist, so I wouldn't be inclined to give her opinion any more weight than the opinion of any other dancer who responds to the same question in an interview.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Dance/Baghdad

Dear Dipali,
Aziyade is pointing out a whole bunch of truth here, expecially since the "movement vocabulary" is seen in other dances as well as in belly dance. The same "movement vocabulary" can be seen in dances not the least bit even related to belly dance, across the entire world, and interpreted in variousd ways from culture to culture.
Big sigh here..... I just WISH people would move beyond thinking about dance in terms of movement only...... Movement is a tool in dance, not the be all and end all.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Tired Of The Bullshit!

More ignorance and bullshit! Sorry, to put it that way, but that's exactly what this is. I'd like to give a more elevated response, but its late, I'm tired, and fed up with all the rediculous nonsense this dance gets saddled with.

There is no way to pin point the creation of this dance for many reasons. Firstly, no one documented dance until very recently. No one even knows exactly how modern dances like the Tango, which is scarcly over a hundred years old began, much less something which began in antiquity. Secondly, most dance in that part of the world is a social activity, not a professional activity. The performance art is based on the social dance and always has been. It came from the bottom up, not the top down. Thirdly,if you look at the movement vocabulary, it is clear that its something that evolved over time. You can see that there are Asiatic elements in the hand and arm movements, African elements in the hip and torso movements. This is something that happens over time as people migrate from one area and settle in another, bringing their traditions and blending them.

Yes Badia was Lebanese, or Syrian, and made many innovations that resulted in the birth of the current performance art, but it is still based on the local folk traditions. Amani is not a scholar or dance historian. It really annoys me when people try to make themselves look like experts by flaunting their PHDs from MSU, (make shit up). This sort of thing may make good publicity for her, but in the eyes of the larger scholarly and artistic community, it only makes us look rediculous and ignorant!

 

[chryssanthi sahar]

I think in this case we just have the typical Lebanon-Egypt conflict:lol: . There are quite some Lebanese dancers who are not very fond of the Egyptian style and try to put the Lebanese style over it. And generally, Lebanese and Egyptians don't always come along very well with each other, they have quite different mentality. But anyway, I agree with the opinion that it is not relevant where the dance comes originally from, but what the dance is today.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Baghdad, etc.

Dear Chryssanthi,
I believe that the provenance of the dance is every bit as important as what is happening in it now and in the future. We can't simply throw the history of the dance away and expect it to be whatever we want it to be at any given time. It loses meaning in a very significant way when we do that. We can see it in the end result, such as what Sadie and Kaya are now calling "belly dance", for example. This is what happens when we ignore our history.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Tarik Sultan]

I agree that the history is important, but in cases where we honestly don't know something, I think we should just admit that. WE don't know and there isn't any quantifiable way of knowing. Making things up just for the sake of increasing one's publicity rating, (which is what I think this is), is counter productive and damaging.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Baghdad

Dear Tarik,
I don't think anyone suggested making up a history for the dance. I know I certainly did not!
There are things that are known about the dance, however, and I think those things are important and that a provenance is there for the last hundred or so years. It is value and worth added to the dance, and has nothing to do with "made up history". The dance has its time and place pretty delineated in the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th. This is something we DO know! While we also may not know an exact location, we also know it is a dance that has its beginnings in the Middle East/North africa. This gives us a pretty good provenance and historical era to start with, and there is plenty more info to build with if we want our dance history. We may not know everything, but we do know some things. there is no need to make up a history when a real one exists!
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Tarik Sultan]

Dear Tarik,
I don't think anyone suggested making up a history for the dance. I know I certainly did not!
There are things that are known about the dance, however, and I think those things are important and that a provenance is there for the last hundred or so years. It is value and worth added to the dance, and has nothing to do with "made up history". The dance has its time and place pretty delineated in the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th. This is something we DO know! While we also may not know an exact location, we also know it is a dance that has its beginnings in the Middle East/North africa. This gives us a pretty good provenance and historical era to start with, and there is plenty more info to build with if we want our dance history. We may not know everything, but we do know some things. there is no need to make up a history when a real one exists!
Regards,
A'isha

I totally agree with everything you said. What I was venting about is the mentality that does make things up. I think this claim by Amani, (if she really did make it), is an example of the pseudo history that is damaging.

The current performance version is documented, beyond that, there is no way of determining a date of origin. We can make educated guesses about certain things, like the movement vocabulary, (African and Asiatic), but when and how it evolved we will never know and there is nothing wrong withsaying so.

By the same token, there is no evidence to support that the dance was ever anything more than what it is now, a social dance done for fun and celebration. Of course there were religious rituralistic dances in the past, but its not very likely that this dance is connected to those dances as what happened in temples back then was kept hidden from the public and only passed on to innitiates and the priesthood.

 

[chryssanthi sahar]

Dear Aisha.

I probably expressed myself in a way which passed a wrong message. I didn't want to tell, that I am not interested in the history of belly dance. I am generally very interested in all kinds of history and I would surely not make an exception for belly dance, which is my passion and a huge part of my life. I've read almost all available German and also some English books about the origins of belly dance and I know quite some theories. But what I also noticed is, that those theories are quite controversial and at the end not provable. So nobody can tell for sure if this dance started in black Afrika, Asia, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rom, India or wherever else. I find all of those theories very interesting, but at the end what we have now is a dance who we have documented only since some decades (since it appears in the Egyptian and other cinemas) and what we call today belly dance surely doesn't have a lot in common with the ritual birth dances of black Africa or the dances at Ishtar's or Aphrodite's temples etc. It is good to get informed about the history, but the older the history is, the more irrelevant it is for the actual forms of this dance. The newer, documented history is lot more relevant. This is my opinion to the subject.

 

[miss_shimmy]

why?

why does it matter,i see parts of the world in so many dance styles,and love it.i dont realy mind where it started,i am just glad it did.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Baghdad, etc.

Dear Chryssanthi,
Oh, I get your point, now! I apologize for misunderstanding! I would say that if we knew any ancient history of the dance, it would be important. We do not know; I totally agree that we should not be making things up. (My personal opinion is that we do not have any ancient history for the dance because it is a new dance, only a little over a hundred years old! Hard to have a long history when it is a baby.)

Dear Miss Shimmy,
The provenance of the dance matters because because it is resepctful to understand what we are doing, how it differs from other things, how it came about and why, from where it came, etc. People who know all of these things tend to have a more clear notion of why they dance and a more respectful attitude towards its cultural aspects. I think its a worldwide human and natural thing to want to know "Where did I come from?" This applies to the dance on cultural and personal levels as well.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Moon]

I think it's also interesting to know at least something about the history of one of my greatest hobbies , though I also understand not everyone prefers endless discussions about all those different parts of the world that claim bellydance started there.
I like it that my teacher also explains some things about where a particular dance style is from (as long as that's clear ofcourse) and about the music. I really miss that during my ballroom dance classes. Sometimes I wish that teacher would also tell me where a particular dance comes from and on what kind of music it was originally danced. I don't ask it there because I'm affraid the other students won't appreciate it.

 

[chryssanthi sahar]

My personal opinion is that we do not have any ancient history for the dance because it is a new dance, only a little over a hundred years old! Hard to have a long history when it is a baby.

Dear Aisha.

This is exactly what I also wanted to say
It is very difficult to know historical details about dance in general. When I participated the CID congress in Athens, there was a performance of so called "ancient Greek dances", but the whole thing was a joke They were trying to imitate some poses of the ancient Greek vases, but it was so unreal, such a kitsch. We will never know how ancient Greek dances looked like and how the music sounded, because at that time there were no records, tapes, CDs, Videos etc. And it is similar with the belly dance of ancient times, that's why I consider it irrelevant for what we call today belly dance

 

[taheya]

I think it is good to think about the origins of the dance beyond the 100 odd years that we have factual information on. Theories can be gathered from images in paintings and lithographs eg from temples and inside the pyramids etc. Although we do not know for a certainty i think it is good for us to think about the alternatives. This dance did not just begin 100 yrs ago so therefore i think we should consider what happened before this time.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Dance, etc.

Dear Taheya,
If you have information that leads you to believe that belly dance is older than 100 or so years, will you please share it?
Who made the claim?
What evidence did they present?
Can you please cite the evidence in terns of :
Author
Journal, interview, a firsthand research, or whatever the material source
Date, volume # if applicable
Name of article, other citation.
I ask for this information so that I and others can read or hear about it.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[taheya]

Thanks for your comments Aisha, i think the crux of the matter is how we define 'bellydancing'. It is thought the term was originally coined in america as a name given to the style of dance presented at the World Trade Fair and performed by Egyptians, however i dont agree that the dancing itself originated then as well...ie the dancers did not 'invent' that style of dance.

It seems reasonable to me that they were dancing in a style that had evolved over hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Sure, there isnt a complete historical record of this evolution, however there are numerous clues from prehistoric and historic times (mainly pictorial) that are echoed in the 'bellydance' we know today. Ancient egyptian dances by alena Lexova is a book which gives examples of images from temples/pyramids and some of these images are reminiscent of 'bellydance' today.

Similarly, the traditional music we know today may well have evolved over countless generations, but we have no historical record of what ancient 'tunes' actually sounded like. By definition 'folk' music/dance is within the oral tradition of record-keeping, and in almost all cases naturally pre-dates the historical period (ie. people have always been able to speak, but only relatively recently have they learnt to write it down!).

As much as we want historical 'evidence' it has not yet been discovered (and i doubt it ever will). Nonetheless, the evolution of folk dancing began long before the last 100 years, and a certain style of folk dancing evolved to be 'bellydancing' as we know it today.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Belly dance, etc.

Thanks for your comments Aisha, i think the crux of the matter is how we define 'bellydancing'. It is thought the term was originally coined in america as a name given to the style of dance presented at the World Trade Fair and performed by Egyptians, however i dont agree that the dancing itself originated then as well...ie the dancers did not 'invent' that style of dance.

It seems reasonable to me that they were dancing in a style that had evolved over hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Sure, there isnt a complete historical record of this evolution, however there are numerous clues from prehistoric and historic times (mainly pictorial) that are echoed in the 'bellydance' we know today. Ancient egyptian dances by alena Lexova is a book which gives examples of images from temples/pyramids and some of these images are reminiscent of 'bellydance' today.

Similarly, the traditional music we know today may well have evolved over countless generations, but we have no historical record of what ancient 'tunes' actually sounded like. By definition 'folk' music/dance is within the oral tradition of record-keeping, and in almost all cases naturally pre-dates the historical period (ie. people have always been able to speak, but only relatively recently have they learnt to write it down!).

As much as we want historical 'evidence' it has not yet been discovered (and i doubt it ever will). Nonetheless, the evolution of folk dancing began long before the last 100 years, and a certain style of folk dancing evolved to be 'bellydancing' as we know it today.

Dear Taheya,
Actually, there is no evidence that the term belly dance started in the states, but instead was started in the Middle East by French soldiers there, and it was picked up by American soldiers from them, when they saw belly dance. What was at the World's Fair was not belly dance at all, according to the photos and to film and people like Donna Carlton, who wrote "Looking for Little Egypt". ( ISBN # 0-9623998-1-7). The term started after World War I in the Middle East according to Jodette Silhi, a Jordanian woman who danced and sang on the Egyptian circuit.

Of course, everything including dance has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, but "belly dance" refers to specific dances that have evolved recently in specific regions of the world. We can trace the dance in Egypt and it is clear that it evolved from folkloric dances of Egypt, and other influences, in the cities of Egypt just before or about at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Badia Masabni is given credit for taking the dance to the stage. I am not as clear on its evolution in Turkey, but Ms. Masabni was Lebanese, so the same thing might have been happening there. (Tarik, do you know about the Turkish history??)

What prehistoric and historic pictures are you referring to? From my own and other people's researches I have gleaned that it is not possible to tell from anything prehistoric, what the figures were doing re dance. If you have spicific information to refute this, I would love to hear it, because I think it would be wondrous to have the dance be truly ancient. I am just not seeing any evidence. It is also refuted that any of the pyramid art about dancers was anything but too stylized to be related to belly dance. ( Aramco, 1976, can get the issue number if you like, but momentarily I can not remember it off the top of my head and it is not handy, like Carlton's book was!)) The written and art record also shows that much of their dance was gymnastic rather than related to belly dance movement.

Modern Egyptian folk dance is referred to as Shaabi, or " of the people". Belly dance is not a folk dance. It is a new kind of dance. Egyptian, Lebanese, Turkish and other folkloric dance have very specific music, movement, etc, that are not belly dance. It is its own dance, regardless of what it evolved from. Dance is not made from movement alone and each dance has its own spirit and essence, while movement may be shared by many dances, in many countries.

We simply can not say that belly dance is an ancient dance. There is no proof, while there is plenty of proof to show that it is a recent addition to the Middle Eastern/ North African dance repertoire. I am not sure how or why the ancient dance idea developed. There is a lot of misleading mythology out there, is all I can say.........

Regards,
A'isha

REgards,
A'isha

 

[Aniseteph]

... i think the crux of the matter is how we define 'bellydancing'.

Yes! We have been here before....
(now watch me avoid my customary over-use of our little smiley friends. I was going to, but who to choose? Just about any of them, because they ALL cover some aspect of how I feel about this topic....)

 

[taheya]

Hi aisha,
I agree that bellydance is not made of movements alone...it is the spirit, cultural and social influences, fashion too has an influence. However, i think that we cannot categorically say that bellydance is a new dance because of its folkloric background...it has evolved from a folkloric tradition.
The images i was talking about are the ones in the book i mentioned by alena lexova ancient egyptian dances. Certainly in this book you can see images from temples and inside pyramids such as hand and arm postures which are very reminiscent of today's belly dance.
When the term 'bellydance' coined is another hazy arena. Some say french travellers coined the term dance au ventre which was then translated. I have read also that it was coined after the world trade fair in chicago (? 1890s).
What would you call the dance that was performed at the world trade fair? It may not be what we call bellydance today but it could also be argued that neither is the bellydance of the golden era (Tahia Carioca and gang). Im playing devils advocate here! Dance evolves all the time, fashions change. I think we need to start writing more about the dance. Does anyone know of any middle eastern publications on the dance? Seems to be that there are books by westerners yet no middle eastern literature on the dance, unless it has not been translated.