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About Oriental Dance
In the Middle East, it is known as Raks Sharki or El Raks al Sharki (Dance from the East), in Turkey as Oryantal Tansi and in Greece as Dance of the Belly or Tsifteteli. The truth is that the term "Bellydance" appears in the 18th century.
It is an authentic dance, combined by sweet, natural and sensual movements and can be danced from all women of different age and size!
It is a dance expressed by the body and soul, through which a woman recovers and evaluates herself. A distinctive characteristic of this dance is the segregation of the body. Therefore, the basin and the breast are moving separately, the head separately from the shoulders and the back separately from the arms.
Looking back on the history of oriental dance, we face a lot of theories.
- Many believe that it began as a dance that prepared the body for love and afterwards to give birth. A dance that a
daughter inherited from her mother and was danced only between women.
- On the other hand, it is presented as a dance of wishing well which was danced in feasts, marriages and births.
A dance that loves and honors the value of life.
- Finally, many are those who confuse the term oriental with the women in harems of the East, giving a negative
meaning in this dance, ignoring the fact that this dance was a way out of the miserable reality of women that
were held captive. A dance that showed the strength and charm of those women.
In modern oriental we meet various types and terms such as Belly Dance, Cabaret Oriental, Tribal Dance, Gothic Oriental, Chakras Oriental, Dervish, e.t.c.
Between these types are rules and many differences in the clothing and movements of each dancer. Of course, in practice the mixing of many different movements is inevitable!
In Egypt we meet most types of oriental dance such as Raqs Sharqi, Saaidi, Beledi, Raks el Asaya, Raks el Semandan.
Finally, we meet exceptional oriental dance in Turkey, Persian Gulf, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia and of course Greece !!