Oriental Dance as we know it today has been practiced since ancient times throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean regions. It is a dance that has been used to celebrate the female body through its many transitions and phases for at least 10,000 years. In Egypt, for example which is considered to be the Grandmother of the dance by many, we can see many examples in temple hieroglyphs of musicians and dancers performing a wide variety of dance forms, similar in many ways to the Ancient Greeks with acrobatic, imitative, dramatic, lyrical, and ceremonial styles to name a few. Professional dancers performed at festivals, ceremonies, funerals and other occasions, while servant girls would perform before their wealthy or royal masters. As we can see documented from these cultures, dancing was an important part of life and culture.
In the 19th century, Oriental dance received acclaim from the French and British troops stationed in Egypt, who labeled what they were seeing from the local tribes of dancers, (known as the ‘Ghawazee’, ‘Ghagar’ and ‘Awalim’) as “belly dance,” a term that persists to this day, but incorrectly describes the dance as it is the waist and hips that are the foundation of this dance, not the belly. At this time the dance seemed to be ‘re-discovered’ by travelers to the region who became infatuated by what they were seeing from these paid tribal dancers. By the 1930’s, the dance took a more professional turn with the advent of cabarets, undergoing significant changes, with choreographed ‘Sharqi style’ theatrical performances and the birth of the sequined two piece costume known as a ‘badlah’. The dancers were now able to perform a more glamorous show and this was the beginning of an era that saw the dance and dancers achieve international acclaim through many Egyptian musical movies.
Today Oriental dance is used to define a wide variety of styles
from several countries that we can safely say have evolved from ancient times.
Unfortunately, unlike ballet for example, there are no formal standards to
classify which movements are ‘really’ Oriental in nature, which
has resulted in people exploiting the dance and labeling whatever they feel
like to be Oriental dance. The real Oriental dance is very feminine
in nature, it is a dialogue between the music and the dancer, where the dancer’s
body itself is like an instrument interpreting the music with a variety of
movements both soft and strong, but always sensual, fluid and in motion.
The cabaret style is where we find the more revealing costumes, with more
sexual movements that unfortunately have become the accepted norm for Oriental
dance today. Audiences that have no knowledge in the subject may believe that
the cabaret interpretation of Oriental dance is all that exists and this is
how the art form has and is being severely scarred. The real Oriental dance,
to be appreciated in its entirety requires a more theatrical and artistic
approach in appropriate venues with dedicated artists.
Each country around the Middle East has its own variation on the dance with
slight differences in music, costuming and movements, but ultimately the dance
has certain core elements that do not differ, regardless of region or culture.
In Egypt, we can see three main styles, which today for simplicity sake tend
to fall into one category - Raqs Sharqi (‘The dance of the East’):
1. Sha'abi with its rural origins includes
the simple songs and dances of the Fellahin (farming communities) as well
as the complex and sophisticated dance and music of the Said (Upper Egypt).
2. Sharqi form is the descendant of courtly music and dance
traditions refined under the patronage of numerous Islamic courts and wealthy
households during the Golden Age of Islam (c.10th-11th centuries,) and the
early Ottoman period. More recent sources include the purist art music ensembles
and ‘Awalim’ dances of 19th century Egypt, and the modern Egyptian
classical music tradition.
3. Baladi - the most recent form of Raqs Sharqi emerged in
Cairo in the early 20th century. An exciting fusion of Egyptian folk traditions
and western musical instruments, it was and remains a fresh and uniquely Egyptian
mode of expression.
Aside from the temple hieroglyphs, the Orientalist artists have also given us a great view of the dance through their paintings. But perhaps the most fundamental record we have today of the dance is the women of the Middle East that still dance the dance, albeit usually in private homes with female family members and friends for celebrations. In Cairo today, we can see families gathered together on a felucca sailing on the Nile, where each woman, young or old gets up to express herself through the dance. Here the art has continued through oral tradition, being passed down from generation to generation. For these women, the dance is a way of life, not a fashion or a trend. The movements are coming from within, a celebration of womanhood; movements that like the pyramids or the Islamic designs in the mosques are infinite and timeless in their nature.
Although the dance still continues to flourish all over the world, the view of Oriental dance in the Arab world is subject to harsh criticism because it is not accepted by the Islamic religion. In Egypt especially, the number of native dancers is dwindling because it just isn’t acceptable by the family or culture to be a professional dancer. It also doesn’t help the cause when the current dancers are revealing more skin by wearing skimpier costumes and performing movements that are no longer artistic in nature, but rather more daring and revealing. The real stars of the past, such as Samia Gamal, Tahiya Carioca, and Farida Fahmy had such grace and femininity that sadly is very hard to find these days. The lack of acceptance by the culture and government makes it very difficult to predict how the dance will continue to survive in its birthplace, with no formal institutions or heritage foundations to preserve and teach the dance as an art form, the work is left up to a few dedicated individuals.
Sotiria Patsiou
Artistic Director