Middle Eastern Dancing

[Michael P Johnson <mjohnso7@osf1.gmu.edu>]

In response to my query on Period Middle Eastern Dancing, my Lady has 
given me this response....

Lady Kallyssia writes:

The Great Belly Dancing debate has been going on for years.
The best evidence I have seen is as follows:
	-There are about 5 period forms of "belly"dance
	 (I prefer the term MiddelEastern dance): they
	 include Egytian,Persian,Greek,Indian,...
	-The Indian is the only one with any historical
	 costume (this means documentation that I have seen)
	 that has an open stomach, and this is only the 
	 top part of the stomack.
	-In most near Middle Eastern cultures it is illeagal
	 to show your belly button (to get around this, present
	 day "cabera" dances put gems over there navals)
	-It is hard to document most middle-eastern costume,
	 but as to the "bra" top the best evidence I have
	 seen is that it is an interpretation of the Quazi
	 Coat based on a picture from Persia; However, It
	 is not a "bra" top, but a Quazi that has been tucked
	 under the boobs to show the next layer of clothing
	 down, they wore lots of layers.
	-I know of several people here that claim to have
	 documentaion supporting stripping in the streets.
	 But they have yet to provide this information to me,
	 so I can not argue their claims.  If this is true,
	 it is likely related to some sort of religious cerimony
	-One important miss interpretation: a Heram is the female
	 members of a family (mother,sisters,sisters-in-law), not 
	 a man's personal sex caddy.  The head female is married 
	 to the Head Male of the family.  Dancing was done only
	 within the Heram and for the personal enjoyment of the 
	 women, not to entice the men.  In most middle-eastern
	 cultures the men and women are strictly seperated.  Only
	 on religious days is any dancing done outside of the home
	 (i.e. weddings, funerals,...).  And certain moves are
	 resricted in various cultures according to what they
	 considered to be "in appropriate".  
	-The purpose of dancing is to express the feelings.
	 Dances can be sad, frighting, happy, funny.  They
	 tell stories and often involve role-playing.  Many
	 moves have tradional meanings.
I think you will find that there are those of us who consider
ourselves traditional dancers and not "belly dancers".  We
hold ourselves to a higher ideal and are continuously challenging
ourselves to learn new things and to practice and study how
thing were supposed to be done.
Friday night I will talk to you about the start of modern "cabera"
or "belly" dance (the kind commonly associated with strippers) - It 
started in American with a dancer called "Little Egypt" and has
spend back to the middle-east.