{"id":3428,"date":"2011-11-01T20:42:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T03:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/?p=3428"},"modified":"2018-01-02T17:50:38","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T00:50:38","slug":"sausan-ballet-ification-belly-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/cms\/2011\/11\/01\/sausan-ballet-ification-belly-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ballet-ification of Belly Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Horacio<\/p>\n

by Sausan<\/strong><\/a>
\nposted November 1, 2011<\/span><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s popping up in Belly dance studios across the globe as a relevant class for Belly dancers.\u00a0 The latest instructional Belly dance DVDs refer to it heavily, and its movement vocabulary is used in the teaching of Belly dance technique.\u00a0 It is hailed as the best training for strength, grace, and endurance, but is it appropriate and applicable to what is considered the oldest dance in the world?<\/p>\n

Billed as a \u201cmodified technique\u201d, purportedly tailored to help Belly dancers increase balance, fluidity, strength and grace, Ballet movement and vocabulary is fast becoming the norm in the teaching curriculum of Belly dance.\u00a0 I\u2019m concerned.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

When did Ballet become a requisite for Belly dance, and why is it stated that it should be an essential part of a Belly dancer\u2019s daily regimen?<\/p>\n

If we compare the two dances in all respects, one is as different from the other as night is to day.\u00a0 Each one contradicts the other in movement, technique, cultural origins, music interpretation, applicable body type, and performance venue.\u00a0 Neither looks at all like the other in any aspect, and both come from completely separate backgrounds and time lines.<\/p>\n

So, why does one supposedly have to take a class in ballet to be a great Belly dancer?<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s consider the historical and geographical differences of these two dances:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ballet is said to have emerged in the court culture of the late fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance as a dance interpretation of fencing, while in contrast, Belly dance has been around since the birth of civilization, or at least since the time of the pharaohs — before the Christian era, anyway, and is said to have been centered around issues of human fertility.\u00a0 <\/li>\n
  2. Fencing, from which Ballet was patterned, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.\u00a0 This connotes fights, battles, war and even death.\u00a0 Belly dance is a cultural expression of the of the Middle East and is danced initially without performance or stage properties in a celebration of life.<\/li>\n
  3. Ballet was further developed in the French court from the time of Louis XIV in the 17th century.\u00a0 Belly dance was further made popular in the streets of Cairo and later appeared as performances by women in Egyptian casinos and nightclubs; most notably in those of Chafica Al Cobtiya<\/span> and Badia El Masabni<\/a><\/span>, during mid 19th through the early 20th centuries.\u00a0 <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Sausan\"OK, I\u2019ll admit it…\u00a0 I\u2019m not an authority on Ballet, and I\u2019ve never studied it; and there is a clear reason why I never did.\u00a0 I saw it as rigid, strict, and constrained; a dance that twisted one\u2019s body into unnatural positions, demanded hours of daily disciplinary and arduous stretching, and that commanded a strict diet.\u00a0 The turnout of feet from the day-to-day leg exercises<\/a> comprised of the five basic positions and the resulting deformity of them after years of dancing en pointe<\/em> seemed too torturous and made no sense to me.\u00a0 My interests leaned more toward the indigenous celebratory cultural forms of ethnic dance, which is why I chose Belly dance as my ultimate form of dance study.<\/p>\n

    Belly dance is not Ballet.\u00a0 Belly dance is fluid, pliable, seamless — always moving, and \u201cgushy\u201d.\u00a0 Moreover, it is an ethnic and cultural form of expression born out of the day-to-day life celebrations of Middle Eastern people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    It embraces the young and the old, the slender to zaftig<\/em>, and everything in between.\u00a0 It does not discriminate, except perhaps, in hire-for-pay public performances.\u00a0 Except for hire-for-pay public performances, Ballet is quite the opposite.\u00a0 So, why are we Belly dance instructors applying Ballet terms and labels on Belly dance and introducing a Western concept into this ancient dance form?<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m going to take this idea a step further.\u00a0 Call me \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d if you wish, but according to history, Ballet was made popular by a male in a royal European court.\u00a0 On the other hand, Belly dance (considered primarily to be a female dance and made popular as such in Cairo during the Golden Age of Egypt) did not come out of a royal court but rather from village and city homes and streets of its laypeople — another notable difference worthy of consideration.\u00a0 Why can\u2019t we just leave the dance alone?\u00a0 The only thing associated with it in the way of royal courts is with the late King Farouq <\/span>who enjoyed watching these lovely dancers while frequenting the nightclubs during his reign.\u00a0 \"Aida<\/p>\n

    Why must we infuse this already rich and beautiful dance form with yet another Western influence like Ballet?\u00a0 Haven\u2019t we done enough to it already?\u00a0 We have American Tribal Style, Gothic Industrial Style, Tribal Fusion Style, American Modern Style, American Restaurant style, Classic American style, Gypsy style, Goddess or Spiritual style, Fitness style, Hawaiian Fusion style, Poi Ball style, Fire-Eating style, and the, seemingly, more \u201cculturally oriented\u201d Lebanese, Turkish, and Bollywood styles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Additionally now, Ballet style?\u00a0 What new fad style will be next?\u00a0 Hiphop style?\u00a0 Breakdance style?\u00a0 Mashed-Potato style?\u00a0 Funky Chicken style?\u00a0 Lindy Hop style?\u00a0 Futuristic Martian style?<\/p>\n

    Perhaps (and this is an extreme speculative long-shot) in some remote, small way, it might have been that Belly dance was the inspiration and actual impetus for Ballet (food for thought!). Perhaps it was a deliberate step (no pun intended) to evolve in the opposite direction of Belly dance movement and expression, for indeed, Belly dance is widely believed to be the first dance.\u00a0 If you think about it as it relates to historical context, male is to female as Ballet is to Belly dance.\u00a0 Or, perhaps, it\u2019s just that we in the West feel the need to take what we\u2019ve discovered from another culture and make it our own, infusing it with our contemporary cultural experience and reinventing it numerous times to suit our needs for subsequent marketability when it really doesn\u2019t belong to our western culture in the first place!<\/p>\n

    \"Najia<\/p>\n

    We might (with all due respect) put the initial charge for the Ballet-ification of Belly dance on world-renown Egyptian master dance teacher, Mahmoud Reda<\/a>, who opened his dance school in the mid-twentieth century and taught his version of \u201cethnic dance\u201d to the populous along with his knowledge and experience of Ballet technique.\u00a0 After all, his dance idols were Gene Kelly<\/span> and Fred Astaire<\/span> of whom it is said he wanted to emulate rather than Chafica Al Coptiya or Badia Al Masabni.\u00a0 However, before the teaching influences of Mahmoud Reda, great dancers like Chafica Al Coptiya, and Badia Al Masabni, as well as Taheyia Karioka<\/a><\/span>, Badawiya Moustafa, and so many others danced their hearts out to the acclaim of their eclectic fan base and without any real formal Ballet training.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s because of the lack of this Ballet training that allowed their expression to ring true in their dance, unencumbered by Ballet technique, that carved a place for them in the historical dance annals of Egypt.\u00a0 Introduce Ballet technique via a world-renown and highly revered Egyptian-born dance master like Mahmoud Reda (again, with all due respect given) and all previous accepted points of view suddenly change.<\/p>\n

    Ballet has no place in Belly dance, either in vocabulary or dance technique<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Ballet may be touted as a bona fide<\/em> exercise to increase balance, fluidity, strength and grace, but Belly dance does exactly that and<\/em> more<\/em> in its own unique way!\u00a0 Not only does Belly dance strengthen muscles, teach grace and fluidity, and produce stamina and endurance, it also opens the door to another world — to the history, culture, and expression of the country from which the dance evolved centuries before ballet was ever invented.\u00a0 It teaches us other forms of music with percussion rhythms far more complex than our own.\u00a0 It introduces us to another way of thinking and of moving.\u00a0 It opens our minds and allows us to experience another culture with expressions altogether different from our own.\u00a0 Why would we want to contaminate that with Ballet?<\/p>\n

    Belly dance does not need to be \u201cimproved\u201d or \u201clegitimized\u201d with an infusion of Ballet, it is already a perfect dance by itself.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    Instead, it needs to be studied without the comparison or infusion of other dance types such as Ballet, without Western or European cultural influences, and without the Western or European discrimination or experience.\u00a0 It has its own exclusive vocabulary, its own exclusive technique, and it\u2019s own particular movements.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    Belly dance is unique.\u00a0 Pair it with Ballet, and you have another form of Belly dance fusion imposed by the West in its unending quest to making something \u201cbetter\u201d, lacking the understanding of the underlying nature of it, and the unwillingness to study it completely and apart from any other form of dance, and the apparent inability to experience it as its own unique expressive dance entity.\u00a0 In the U.S.A., as well as the European and Western countries, there\u2019s just too much of that — a style called \u201cBelly Dance Fusion\u201d.\u00a0 Why not study the dance form itself and only by itself, along with all that it has to offer in the way of its elements like the music, culture, and artists?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    Keeping the dance true to its form….\u00a0 Now, that\u2019s something worth considering!<\/p>\n

    \"use<\/p>\n

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