Where is belly dancing from

Just a few names that belly dancers around the world will recognise include:. Also, bazaars in Egypt are great places in which to buy all your belly dance costumes, accessories and belly dance music CDs. Last but not least, Egyptian deluxe hotels are nowadays the places where you can see a lot of great belly dancers perform. Read more tips for travelling to Egypt for belly dance training. Another great place to visit for belly dance lovers is Turkey.

Turkish bellydance style is very different from Egyptian style, but equally interesting. A Turkish male belly dancer is Ozgen, who is based in the UK and greatly appreciated. Lebanese bellydance style is very energetic and there are a lot of great Lebanese belly dancers, such as Amani, Maya Abi Saad and more. Some travel companies and some belly dance teachers organise trips to Morocco.

Belly dance lovers visiting Morocco can combine belly dance lessons with trips to the desert, visits to saunas and cultural tours. Also, a lot of nightclubs in Morocco feature live belly dance shows. You can learn belly dance in Morocco, although this is not really a typical Moroccan dance. In Morocco they have a variety of local dance styles, such as guedra and shikhat , which you can also learn and watch.

Trips involving belly dance are also organised in Tunisia. This country has its own unique style of belly dance and folkloric dance and it is culturally very interesting. An expert of Tunisian belly dance is Leila Haddad, who was born in Tunisia and moved to France when she was eighteen.

In France Leila Haddad pursued her love for dance, rediscovering the ancient art form of belly dance and Tunisian dance. Leila teaches and performs in France, where she presently lives, and holds workshops around the world.

Algerian belly dance is usually associated with the Ouled Nail women. The Ouled Neil is a Berber tribe, based in Algeria, whose women traditionally went around making money from their dance performances and from selling their bodies. Ouled Neil women started travelling very young and, once they had made enough money, they returned to their village in order to get married and start a family.

Their costumes were very rich and included heavy headdresses, lots of jewellery, coins sewed to their costumes and heavy make up. A famous belly dancer, who was born in Algeria and who has travelled the world, is Amel Tafsout. Amel Tafsout is not only an international dancer, but also an anthropologist, a choreographer, a singer and a language instructor. Algeria is also known for its own characteristic belly dance music, called Rai.

Saudi Arabia is one of the countries of origin of what is known today as belly dance. Probably not worth going to for learning how to dance, but it can be nevertheless very interesting culturally. Saudi Arabia has its own dance genre, called Khaleeji. Khaleeji is different from belly dance and the dancer wears a long and wide kaftan called thobe nashal, which is used as a prop as well as a costume.

This type of dance involves a lot of movements of the upper body and a lot of focus on footwork. Although not as popular here as in Egypt or Morocco, Syria still has a popular following and you can see shows and experience this dance form in these parts.

Tsifteteli was brought into Greece by Greek refugees who lived in Turkey and were relocated to Greece in , as part of a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. There is a rhythm called Tsifteteli, which is part of the rebetika music repertoire. Nowadays Tsifteteli music can be heard everywhere in Greece, but it is usually danced socially rather then performed. There is currently a debate over whether tsifteteli should be considered part of the Greek cultural tradition or not.

With its big influx of immigrants, the USA has always been a melting pot of cultures. However, a big part in the spread of belly dance in the US was played by the immigrants coming from various Middle Eastern and Northern African countries. Not just something to create an atmosphere. In Turkey and Egypt and other places in the Middle East belly dancer have traditionally been hired for wedding parties.

Cairo is considered belly dancing capital of the Middle East. Belly dancers are fixtures of weddings, Pyramid road nightclubs and dinner cruises. The women are so good at what they do that Saudis have been observed putting thousands of dollars in a dancer's garters. A law forbids the showing of the naval. The laws is skirted by using a naval jewel or lace stomach. The government Artist Inspection Department employs about two dozen agents to check-out nightclubs and discos to make sure the belly dancing shows don't feature dancing or gyrations considered too suggestive.

Most big Turkish celebrations are not complete without a belly dancer. Custom dictates that a when belly dancer comes and dances on a table, the men sitting around it are supposed to place money in her bikini top and g-string. The school in Istanbul I worked at had a reputation for being very cheap.

Described by some as the oldest dance in the world, belly dancing is said to date back at least to the time of Alexander the Great B. Some say its roots lie in fertility rituals of ancient Egypt and Greece.

Examples of dances similar to belly dancing can be seen in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. Belly dancing was originally done by women for women The undulating belly is said to resemble a woman giving birth. The dancing helped women strengthened the their stomach muscles and served as a form or self-hypnosis. Audiences were shocked and entrepreneurs began making a fortune by hiring out strippers that did their interpretation of the Little Egypt dance as they popped out of cakes. There is a long tradition of male belly dance teachers but few male belly dancers.

One Istanbul club featured a belly dance show. In Cairo, a man who underwent a sex change operation performed for a while before the outcry drove him from the stage.

Belly dancers usually dance to Turkish or Middle Eastern music played on a tape player performed by a band with a drum, clarinet-like instrument, lap harp and Turkish mandolins. Sometimes they sing popular or classical songs with a raunchy edge and drape themselves in veils. Other times they balance candelabras and swords on their heads and invite members of the audience to join them on stage. Professional belly dancers regard themselves as artists.

They bristle at the thought that are little more than stylized strippers. They receive large sums of money for performing at nightclubs and private parties and weddings. Low level dancers work hard to please the crowds and earn money from tips. With her legs held together like a mermaid, she framed her face with diamond-shaped arms and smiled lasciviously at the crowd.

Wearing a sheer burgundy veil with jewels rattling from her chest and hips, she turned away from the audience and dropped suddenly to her back, drawing attention to her stomach with dramatic, isolated pulses.

Describing a belly dancer at a wedding, one writer wrote: she "cavorts with the master of ceremonies, lifting her dress, pushing out her leg, lying on the floor and gyrating, rubbing up against him, playing, controlling the arena. Guests slip banknotes into the dancer's waistband or bra or wave money in the air, that is snatched by the dancer, for an opportunity to share the stage with the dancer, dancing or being made fun of. Most belly dancers use only one name. They are generally expected to have large breasts and a healthy size bottom.

A little plump is better than too thin. Traditional belly-dancing costumes consist of a glittering, sequined halter top and long, gauzy skirt. Sometimes the belly is covered and highlighted with fringe or a a wide embroidered panel. Some dancers have 5, costumes that come in a variety of color, sequin ranges and locations of slits and cuts.

The Egyptian Takia Karyoka is regarded by many as the best belly dancer of all time. The belly dance is not a dance of seduction — nor did it begin that way.

Throughout Middle Eastern history, Oriental dance the proper term for belly dance has been a family dance done at such occasions as weddings, births, and festivals. Men, women, and children in those cultures have always belly danced for fun, not to entertain or arouse an audience. Belly dancing may have originated as a fertility ritual. In Sparta, women danced for Artemis, who was a goddess of the moon and of fertility. Referred to as the Kordax, their dance emphasized the rotation of the hips and stomach.

Hebrews, on the other hand, danced the Shalome — a dance based on a legend whose heroine embodied both motherhood and fruitfulness: the myth of the Seven Veils of Ishtar more on that later.

Many early civilizations believed that women were almost solely responsible for procreation. In some cases, women were feared because they seemed to command the mysteries of nature. Tribes in the South Seas, New Guinea, East Polynesia, Africa, and Greece not only thought that conception would be impossible, but that the human race would die — unless the women performed the fertility dance. Consider the myth of the Seven Veils of Ishtar. This legend began in 4, BC, out of fear that winter might never end.

A Babylonian goddess of love and sensuality, Ishtar represented all women. She was chaste, yet fertile. She was a life-giver and a great nurturer, yet she was known as the mother of darkness and destruction. Ishtar covers her body with seven veiled costumes, and sets off to retrieve her husband. Appropriately dressed, she deceives her way into the underworld, through forty-nine gates. To gain admission at each seventh gate, she dances in a way that emphasizes her abdomen, rolling it in circles.

Each time she does so, she gives up a jewel and a veil. Meanwhile, in her absence, no crops grow, and no festivities take place.

Ishtar makes her way through the gates, determined to reach the forty-ninth — and determined to find her man. Despite the hardships, Ishtar triumphs.