Indian Dance
An Analysis of the History and Origins of "Belly Dancing"
Indian Dance is described in the West as "belly dancing," but the name "belly dancing" does not do justice to the style of dance which the title conveys. Indian and Middle Eastern dance actually has more of a history to it than what the West views merely as a kind of erotic show. Described as "danse du ventre" by the French in the Victorian Age, the English translation has come to signify the Indian dance, which in Arabic is known as raqs sharqi or raqs baladi -- the former meaning "Dance of the Near East" and the latter meaning "Folk dance." Essentially, what Westerners have identified as "belly dancing" is actually the traditional folk dance of the Middle East and India. This paper will discuss the origins and history of Indian Dance, or "belly dancing," and show how it has come to be understood today.
Dance Myth
One common myth surrounding Indian "belly dancing" is that it grew out of a "birthing ritual" -- but as Marisa Wright states, there is actually little to no evidence for this claim. Rather, the promotion of such an origin actually came about due to the bad reputation that Indian "belly dancing" was receiving in the West at the beginning of the 20th century. In an attempt to justify what was being condemned as a provocative dance, some authors (and dancers) like Armen Ohanian described a "sacred dance" that was being corrupted by "the spirit of the Occident," transforming the "holy dance" into "the horrible danse du ventre, the 'hoochie-koochie'" (Wright). This attempt to legitimize the raqs sharqi worked to a certain extent -- but it did not change the nature of the "belly dance." The dance, as Wright shows, has always been (from the earliest time) a dance for men's entertainment: "All the evidence indicates belly dancing has been used to entertain, and particularly to entertain men, for hundreds of years" (Wright).
History is no less obliging when it comes to setting the record straight. In the Judeo-Christian narrative, there is the story of the Middle Eastern dancer Salome, whose provocative dance so enthralled Herod that he promised to give the girl anything she desired for recompense -- and, so the story goes, that is how John the Baptist lost his head (for she asked for it on a silver platter). Likewise, there are the writings of Martial, the Roman poet of the 1st century AD, who "commented on the female 'erotic ballerinas' who entertained visitors to Ephesus, Turkey, in the days of the Roman empire. They wore diaphanous robes and 'gyrated…to a steady beat'" (Wright). When one considers the actual style of dance that is involved in Indian "belly dancing," these reports should come as no surprise. In fact, the art of Indian dance appears "in Persian miniature paintings of the 12th and 13th centuries" (Wright) and can now be found in European museums: "Women dancing head downwards constantly appear in Persian pictures; several examples may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the same subject often occurs on the valuable pencil-cases formerly made with so much taste and art in Persia" (Jusserand 118).
The fact of "belly dancing" as primarily a form of Indian and Middle Eastern entertainment is indisputable. Nonetheless, some similarities do exist between the dance and "traditional birthing" practices. Wright describes how in the 1960s Carolina Varga Dinicu, a "belly dancer," witnessed a traditional birth in southeast Asia: she recorded "first-hand how the women walked in a circle, executing belly rolls and flutters, with the mother alternately joining the circle or squatting" (Wright). The report that Dinicu produced afterwards made no attempt to locate "belly dancing's" origins in the birthing rite: it was merely acknowledging a similarity: "She makes it clear in her article that only two abdominal moves are used in the ritual," and Wright further points out that such moves make up only a fraction of the moves...
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