About belly dance
In the West, Middle Eastern dance has traditionally been lumped together under the nickname “belly dance” and the Hollywood movie stereotype of “I Dream of Jeannie” style gyrating harem girls.
This is a little like dubbing ballet dance "toe dancing", using this phrase to refer to all European dance and depicting it as the lacivious lifting of legs!
In reality dance in the Middle East is of course just as varied as in Europe, with styles differing vastly from country to country and region to region - and few of them bear any resemblance to the Hollywood fantasy.
Danse Orientale
Danse Orientale (or in Arabic Raqs Sharqi) means Dance of the Orient and is a dance style with both classical and contemporary forms that originated primarily in Egypt.
Dating from the colonial period of the early 1900s, Danse Orientale draws on traditional and folk forms of Egyptian dance with an added dash of Western and Latin influence. It is characterised by movements of the torso, often layered together, by isolation techniques and by emotional response to the music.
The result is a captivating dance that is as expressive as flamenco, as elegant as ballet, as sassy as street dance and as sensual and nuanced as Argentine Tango; yet remains truly Egyptian at its heart.
Danse Orientale is now hugely popular all over the world, both as a captivating performance art and as a means of keeping fit while avoiding the gym!
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