History of Belly Dance
The picture on the left is a BK picture. The hand positions are similar to the hand position of the belly dancer when they put their hands up while dancing.
For a intro, please see Belly dancing for painless childbirth. I will write the article for the history, later.
I have taken something from the internet and put them below:
History of Middle Eastern Dance which became to be known as Belly Dance after it was brought to the West
1. From the web-site addressed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_dance
Belly dance (Arabic: رقص شرقي) is a Western term for a traditional Arab dance genre known as raqs sharqi (رقص شرقي; literally "oriental dance") or sometimes raqs baladi (رقص بلدي; literally "dance of country", and so "folk" dance). It is also sometimes called "Middle Eastern Dance" or the "Arabic Dance" in the United States, "danse du ventre"[1], or by the Turkish term Çiftetelli (τσιφτετέλι). …
… Belly dancing was originally from Ancient Babylon in southern Iraq. …
… There is also some evidence that belly dancing is a reworking of movements traditionally utilized to demonstrate or ease childbirth. There are numerous oral historical references, backed by commentary in The Dancer of Shamahka. This particularly relates to a sub-set of dance movements found in modern raqs sharqi. …
2. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol5/middle_eastern.html
From article titled, “Exactly What Is Middle Eastern Dance?”
… Pre-Islam is still within the SCA period…
…Many of the dance moves done today can be found in Egyptian Hieroglyphs and ancient Indian Statuary. I would find it strange if the moves seen pre-period and currently done today suddenly disappeared during period. As well, there are many carvings, illuminations and pottery pieces from period where we see moves that are still being done today. …
… Within the SCA period, the Middle East ranged from Southern Spain to North India.
… Through my studies of Middle Eastern Dance, I have developed certain regions that have a strong bond of culture and dance styles. I divide the Middle East into the following regions: Central Asia, Egypt, Moorish Spain, North Africa, North India, Persia, The Arabian Peninsula and The Turkish Empire. Central Asia and North India were at different times part of both the Persian and the Turkish empires. Yet, they still retain their own individual regional differences.
These are my own regional divisions and even among my household members we argue certain borders! However, we have all found these region divisions to be very useful when doing our research.
More than anything else, culture plays the biggest part in Middle Eastern Dance. The following cultures have played a part in influencing the dance: Arabic, Egyptian, Gypsy, Indian, Persian and Turkish. The women's solo is mostly a blend of Egyptian and Indian dance. However, Arabic, Gypsy, Persian and Turkish have also affected the dance - very specifically in certain regions. The difference between tribal and village cultures has also influenced Middle Eastern Dance.
The largest effect, from our point of view, is the records left about the dance. Certain cultures, like India, Persia and Turkey, left more records of the dance than say the Arabic or North African cultures. Civilized centers have more records than tribal peoples, who are almost impossible to document! Culture is the greatest determiner of whether or not records survive. Not only with records of the period, but also with access to those records in the modern world! …
3. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.bellydanceuk.co.uk/HISTORYPAGE.html
From article titled, “History of Middle Eastern Dance”
Raqs Sharqi (pronounced Roks Sharkee) literally translated means 'dance from the East', and has its roots in Middle Eastern fertility ceremonies - a dance performed by women for women. It was originally taught to girls from an early age in order to strengthen their abdominal muscles in preparation for childbirth. The muscle isolation techniques require practice and control, and the smaller the movement, the greater the control and the more the muscle is exercised. It's a fact that exercise mitigates pain. The women of the Middle East knew this, and so the dance was born through abdominal movements like pelvic rocking and belly roll.
The term 'belly dance' is said to come from the French 'danse du ventre' - dance of the stomach - a phrase coined at the turn of the century after the introduction of Raqs Sharqi at the Chicago Exposition in 1893 by a dancer called 'Little Egypt'. Little Egypt danced in less revealing costumes than those worn today,…
… Baladi, or folk dance, was developed in rural Egypt where the dancers wear full length robes often with their hair covered as well. …
… Classical oriental dance is believed to have emerged as an art form in the courts of the Ottoman Empire. …
4. From the web-site addressed:
http://people.uncw.edu/deagona/raqs/origins.htm
From article titled, “In Search of the Origins of Dance”
… or that this was the dance of the moon goddess Isis, dating back to the time of the pharaohs. …
… very different stories of origins are told: that the dance began as a birth ritual, or a dance by priestesses to the Goddess. …
… It is important to realize that the movements of this dance are done all over the Middle East, North Africa, Southern Europe and India, and that this has apparently been the case for a very long time. "Belly dance" -- an expressive dance which emphasizes complex movements of the torso -- is, quite simply, a folk dance of this area. …
… But even these more sophisticated questions of origins cannot be answered simply. Any simple story is more likely myth than truth.[1][3] …
… Unfortunately, some of the most profound connections of dance and history are the ones we cannot make with any certainty. These are the connections of dance and ritual in the ancient past. Because dance, until recently, was impossible to record, and because most of the world's people have never recorded their history or practices at all, we have no way of knowing what role dance played in prehistoric worship. We do know, from ancient records, that throughout the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean, dance very often was an element of worship, and that at times ritual dances were performed by women, in groups and perhaps, less commonly, as individuals. But specific descriptions are sketchy or nonexistent, and artistic representations do not tell us exactly what the dancers did. Nor can we know what they felt while doing it, or what complex beliefs their dance supported. They would almost certainly be different from what we, from our perspective in modern Western culture, could imagine. …
… We cannot say for certain that anything we would recognize as belly dance was done by ancient priestesses in a sacred context. There is a chance that it was, though most likely, not as we imagine it from the modern world. In any case, regardless of knowledge or proof, ancient sacred dance remains a powerful and moving idea in our own creations of meaning through dance.
5. From the web-site addressed:
http://joyfuldancer.home.comcast.net/~joyfuldancer/writing/history4.htm
From article titled, “The World's Oldest Dance- A History of Bellydance (Revised)” by Karol Henderson Harding
This most ancient Oriental dance developed through the influence of many different areas and continues its long process of development today…
… In the same way that Eastern religions like those of
India tended to emphasize the development of the inner self, Raks Sharki is as much an "inner dance" as it is a performance on the outside. Middle Easterners understand this, and will greatly praise a dancer who can express the emotional side of the dance. …
6. From the web-site addressed:
http://middleeasterndance.homestead.com/history.html
From article titled, “History of Middle Eastern Dance”
Middle Eastern Dance has many origins. It is possible that this dance can be traced back to Mesopotamia where temple engravings depicting dancers have been found. These same types of depictions have been found on temples in Egypt dating back to 1000 B.C. and in Greece. It is believed by many that this dance started as an ancient ritual dance for fertility and childbirth. …
… Some of these moves might still be the same as modern MED (middle eastern dance). Around 0 B.C. there were Greek writings that described Nile dancers as rapidly vibrating. …
7. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/wbds/page_folders/history_page/history.html
… Historical evidence shows Egyptian tomb paintings dating from as far back as the fourteenth century BC that depict partially clad dancers whose callisthenic positions appear to be very similar to those used in belly dancing. Belly Dancing also has been depicted in Persian miniature paintings from the 12th and 13th centuries. …
8. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.worldbellydance.com/history.html
From article titled, “History of Belly Dance and dancing”
…The type and style of dancing which we now call belly dance, can be traced back over 6000 plus years. The early pagan communities often worshipped a matriarchal deity and extolled the magic and fascination of the ability of women to create life. There is a lot of historical evidence which links the ritual of fertility dances at that time, with symbolic re-creations of giving birth, to modern belly dancing. The sharp hip movements, deliberate muscular contractions and spasms, as well as sinewy undulations, demonstrate strong connections to the body's responses during labour and delivery. The dances spread from Mesopotamia to North Africa, Rome, Spain and India. It is thought gypsies travelled and spread belly dance. This blending can be seen in the use of the neck slides introduced from India…
… Belly dance become a form of mainstream public entertainment care of the gipsy tribes who first danced out on the streets and who performed in the theatres. Originally coming from India, the gypsies first travelled west into Afghanistan and Persia. Then some of them migrated North to Turkey and then onto Europe. Others went South until they reached Egypt and other parts of Northern Africa. One of the ways that gypsies supported themselves during their journeys was by providing entertainment for the people of the communities in which they stopped: Belly dancing is especially popular in Turkey and Egypt. …
9. From the web-site addressed
The origin of belly dancing has been an issue that has been long debated by professionals because there is no clear answer to where the origin of belly dancing actually was born. Some professionals such as anthropologists believe that perhaps it was Egypt as there is evidence indicating this by the carvings left that seem to indicate the same movements and pictures that would be similar to belly dancing. Others believe that it originated from the Middle East and even Africa and there is significant evidence left behind by these ancestors that would seem to support that belief. …
… the people in India took the origin of belly dancing and interpreted them as an act of worship. In fact, if you visit India it would be well worth your time to go to Konarak to see the temple wall. It is an Indian shrine that dates back to the 13th century and displays dancing girls that are carved in the stone in a variety of erotic poses. This is even one of the still standing remnants of years ago when the origin of belly dancing were beginning.
As with every art form that is studied for years, the origin of belly dancing also suggest that many dancers were banished from these temples because their dances became far more erotic than they were spiritual …
10. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.bellydance.org/about_bellydance.html
"Many experts say belly dancing is the oldest form of dance, having roots in all ancient cultures from the orient to India to the mid-East. …
11. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.bdancer.com/history/BDhist1.html
… The fertility cult in particular existed in all ancient civilizations. The great Mother Goddess appears under different names such as Mylitta, Isis, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus, Bhagvati, Parvati and Ceres. The function of these goddesses was reproductive, not just in the limited sense of human beings, but in the greater sense of the planet itself. They ensured the cycle of the seasons which regulated the growth of crops. They were responsible for the increase of livestock and the perpetuation of the race. The well being of the city and the countryside depended upon the goodwill of the regional mother goddess. None of these goddesses were celibate because it ran counter to their function. Neither were her priestesses necessarily expected to be celibate. Since the reproductive functions of the goddess were symbolized in the human female's reproductive organs, it must have seemed very natural to give the goddess the gift of a girl's service and virginity.
In Egypt today, it is still the custom for the bride and groom to hire a belly dancer for their wedding, and to take a picture with their hands on the belly dancer's stomach. This is an obvious reference to the dance's relation to ancient fertility cults. ….
7. Conversations on the forum web-site addressed:
http://www.bellydanceforums.net/dance-styles/8515-origins-belly-dance-india.html
“Why is it such a common theory (perhaps not as common as the Mother Goddess/Sparkly Priestesses theory) that belly dancing originated in India? I barely see an ounce of similarity between belly dancing and classical Indian dances. Not the movements, not the rhythm...or am I missing something other theorists are seeing?
Just interested because I dropped by the wikipedia belly dance page today just to see if anything's been changed since I last looked at it and someone added:
Quote:
* It originated in India, traveling to Uzbekistan through the slave trade.
* It has always been in Indian Dance but never given the official title of 'Belly Dancing'
…
… “i think it is the similarity of the hand movements, ….
…i have also heard this theory that the dance picked up on various influences, the african movements from the torso and the hips and the 'indian' movements from the hands and arms, as if oriental dance is a hybridization of several elements.”…
… “I can't help but feel there is a link between BD and the dances of the near regions, India etc. It might be a tenuous link, but I feel there is something. But as we are in our modern age, it seems unless evidence is apparent and interpreted correctly, we cannot think beyond the need for material fact.
Perhaps x many years ago, there were many similar dances in the various kingdoms, but they have through time faded away, or merged into something else, as dominant fashions tend to do.
Because there is lack of evidence, I will not discount a possibility,as I do believe with our human advances, more is yet to be found and past theories re written”. …
…. “Here is the THEORY I have heard:
The "Gypsies" i.e. Sinti and Roma peoples are believed to have come from India (Rajasthan area, I think?) and traveled to the ME. Many believe the Ghawazi are Sinti. Many seem to think the origins of Raks come from Ghawazi dance. There are a series of articles written in the 1970s by Edwina Nearing on the Ghawazi on Gilded Serpent. …”
…
8. From the web-site addressed:
http://worlddance.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_brief_history_of_belly_dancing
From article titled, “A Brief History of Belly Dancing
The World’s Oldest Known Dance Form Is Still Performed Today”
Belly dancing … Its origins date as far back as 6,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Turks each claim the dance as their own. The belly dance was performed to celebrate fertility, birthing and possibly temple and other celebratory occasions as part of the goddess worship rituals of these ancient peoples.
Over time the dance spread from Mesopotamia to North Africa and then on to Rome, Spain and India. Though traditionally the dance was strictly performed only for other women during family and social gatherings, learning these dances was part of every young girl’s cultural upbringing. A girl’s first performance for other women was considered her rite of passage to womanhood. …
… Along with celebrating fertility and goddess worship, the belly dance has a practical side as well. Girls were taught the dance at an early age in order to prepare them for childbirth. The dance’s intricate movements of pelvic rocking and torso rolling strengthen the abdominal muscles aiding a woman during pregnancy, child birth and post-partum recovery. …
9. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.bellydancingvideo.com/what-is-belly-dance.htm
From article titled, “What is Belly Dance and What Should We Really Call It”
… Despite much research, the exact origins of belly dancing are unknown. What is not disputed is that 'belly dance' is very ancient - at least 2,000 years old, but most likely much older than that.
There is a growing body of evidence that the distinguishing moves of belly dance date back to Neolithic times and the Goddess-based cultures that existed then. The belly and the reverence for it as the "cup (or chalice) of life," is evident in cultures in Neolithic Europe, Africa, India, the Near and Middle East, and other areas of the globe. Dance was an important and often sacred part of these cultures, and since their most revered painted and sculptured art works featured symbols of spirals, waves, circles, and other patterns found in belly dance, there seems to be a logical connection to the belly dance that exists today.
In its thousands of years of existence, different variations of "bellydance" have evolved to express the various cultures that have practiced it. … We do not know what belly dance was called in its earliest times. Yet, as different variations and styles of the dance, music, and costuming developed, the basic belly dance movements appear to have remained virtually unchanged up to our present time. …
10. From the web-site addressed:
http://dance.about.com/od/typesofdance/a/Belly_History.htm
From article titled, “History of Belly Dance”
The true history of belly dance is a much debated topic among belly dance enthusiasts, leading to many conflicting theories. Because belly dance consists of a mixture of many different dance styles, it indeed has many different origins. Many experts believe that belly dance is one of the oldest forms of dance.
Belly Dance Origins
Most belly dancers tend to believe in at least one of many theories explaining how belly dancing originated. The most popular theory is that it evolved from a religious dance. Some people believe that it descended from early Egyptian dances, or from the migration of Gypsies from India. Another popular theory is that belly dance began as a traditional birthing practice to help ease the pains of childbirth. …
9. From the web-site addressed:
http://www.living-belly-dance.com/belly-dancing-history.html
From article titled, “Belly Dancing History”
There is much debate about the subject of belly dancing history as the true origins of this dance are unknown, or rather untraceable.
'Middle Eastern dance' (which is strictly what we are talking about in the context of belly dancing history) is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, dance form known to humans, along with the Indian classical and other trance dance forms that date back to ancient times.
It is also known as a contemporary dance, and has acquired the name, “Belly Dance” in the West …
…I believe the best way to describe belly dancing history and the origins of this dance, its particular movements, is by saying it originated with the birth of women. So as long as woman has existed and danced, we have carried some trait of these particular movements, because they are natural to a woman's body and describe a feminine energy.
We see images and hear stories of hip movements, shakes and undulations existing in many cultures and countries of the world, such as in Polynesia and Africa. If you speak to an Egyptian about belly dancing history they will claim that Belly Dance, or, Oriental Dance, as it is called in Egypt, originated in Egypt This claim to be the original spring of belly dancing history is based largely on murals found in tombs and temples.
To me it seems logical to look to the oldest civilisations that we know of to find the origins and in doing so we find evidence of the Roma gypsies from India travelling with and spreading dances from their own country, hence influencing and shaping the dances of the countries they visited.
So we could say that the Middle Eastern dance styles we see today are a combination of Egyptian, Persian, Mesopotamian and Indian/Roma gypsy folk and sacred dances. …
…Considering that the earliest paintings of dance are found in sacred sites such as the temples and tombs of Egypt, Greece and India, it may make sense to say that dance was initially performed in light of spiritual occasions. Belly dancing history could thus even be said to have religious origins. …
…Now when we enquire into belly dancing history as to the origins of 'Belly Dance', the modernisation or westernisation of Middle Eastern Dance, the most common hypothesis is that this name 'belly dance' was given to it by an American translation of the French name for it 'dance du ventre'. …
… The evolution of Belly Dance in the West, has also affected the Dance in the East, and so today we witness modern day Egyptians performing a style of dance that has many influences from Western dance forms, namely Ballet, where floating travelling motions and floating arms combined with costumes covered in fake jewels and sequins, hug the bodies that dance, quite often in heels, to music with orchestral elements to it.
A fusion of East and West influenced largely by Hollywood bringing this dance to the big screen and re-interpreting it in this light, and thus the name 'Raqs Sharqi', today, represents this glamorous 'cabaret' version of the originally earth bound dance. …
11. From the web-site addressed
http://www.bellydancingvideo.com/belly-dance-history.htm
From article titled, “Belly Dance History”
Veiled Dancer - Alexandria, Egypt 3rd-2nd century BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art
How did belly dance originate?
The truth is ... nobody knows how or why the belly dance started as a dance. Modern archeology is continuously using new techniques and technologies to shed more light on our belly dance past. Yet, at this time, no one knows the exact reasons for the original development of belly dance. We do know belly dance has been practiced for thousands of years by many different cultures for many different purposes. The belly dance has been used in Goddess ritual, spiritual practices, childbirth preparation, communal bonding, celebration, entertainment, physical education, and simply for enjoyment.
Where did belly dance originate?
Again, no one knows for sure. There are indications that belly dance was common in pre-Aryan India and ancient Egypt. However, new discoveries also support the theory that belly dance is even older and was practiced in the Goddess cultures of neolithic Europe, Africa, and the East - 6,000, or possibly many more, years ago! …
The names and links for articles by Pari can be found at:
Global Brahma Kumaris - Pari's articles and videos
or at http://www.brahmakumari.net/
BK Pari has been writing books since 2014. These books have also been translated into various languages. For more information on all these books see List of books written by Pari.
Sewa Bilik ; Sewa Bilik di Bandar Sunway; Sewa Bilik di Bukit Jalil ; Sewa Bilik di Pandan Jaya ;
Sewa Bilik di Petaling Jaya ; Sewa Bilik di Puchong Jaya ; Sewa Shop-lot di Plaza Ampang Jaya ;
Room to Let ; Room to Let in Bandar Sunway ; Room to Let in Bukit Jalil ;
