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Raqs Sharqi and its history

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Heba E. Husseyn
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« on: April 23, 2021, 01:17:13 pm »




Belly dancing is a tawdry and cheap Middle Eastern dance showing women as sex toys.   But do you know what was the original status of this dance and how it gradually found its way into all this repugnance and cheapness?   Briefly put, the discreditable restructuring over time of a culture-oriented, decorous and homely caper called Raqs Sharqi was gradually designed by Western influence of hype and reverie.

The Arabic expression 'raqs sharqi' (رقص شرقي‎) literally means 'dance of the orient.'  It was the name of the medieval (or ancient) Egyptian dance that later, in modern times, came to be known as "belly dancing" with plenty of lewd innovations. 

Originally, as seen in medieval arts, the dance was far more passable and respectable in comparison.  It began in ancient times as a tribal or folklore dance.  The dancers were fully dressed holding the zil cymbals between their thumb and the centre finger, dancing to the tune of a tambourine usually played by an elderly tambourine player of the family.  No awkward shaking of hips and buttocks, just the smooth gliding movements of an artistic dance.  An intrinsic part of the Middle Eastern culture, in medieval times raqs sharqi was a domestic art for both genders and of all ages, enjoyed by every household.  It was hard to imagine any family gathering or a marriage or a birthday party or an anniversary celebrated in an Egyptian home without raqs sharqi.  Egyptian women of respectable households never went to dance schools to learn raqs sharqi.  It was something they learned at home, and the experience with better learning was acquired by performing in family celebrations.  During early times, in the 1400s and 1500s, when this dance was strictly the graceful raqs sharqi, no woman in the Middle East ever danced professionally.   It was simply a mannerly family dance as shown in the art below.



One aspect about this image needs to be clarified.  The author of this art is not known but it's definitely some western orientalist.  That can be said by looking at the incorrect manner in which the neckline of the ladies' dresses have been sketched.   Girls and women in this medieval era never ever wore such plunging necklines.  But western artists keep making this blunder again and again.


By the 1800s, some of those weird movements of the pelvis and torso began appearing that fascinated oriental artists and writers who were already filled with plenty of hyperbole and misguided fantasy about the Middle-East.  Whenever those European artists and authors visiting the Middle East threw parties or planned get-togethers with friends, they tried to hire public dancers who used to be the focal point of their gatherings, often performing dances outdoors or in large courtyards of the homes of their male hosts.  For orientalists, these dancers ("almays, ghwazees and domes") became the source of plenty of fantasy and very little truth which reflected in their paintings and writings. 





But centuries earlier Middle Eastern women interested in dancing were intellectually artistic who trained themselves at home, with zero focus on cheap body movements.

In 1890s there was a world fair in Chicago where a Middle Eastern dancer, her performance titled "little Egypt," danced and delighted the audience, so much, that soon plenty of local American women began imitating her dance in the name of "orientalism."  "Little Egypt" was certainly not raqs sharqi, but probably not as bawdy as the modern belly dancing. 





During the early 1900s when western colonizers / occupiers began flooding the Middle East, was the period when nightclubs began popping up in places like Cairo and Beirut with regular performances of belly dancing that soon began resembling the cabaret style of entertainment.  From that point onward, the medieval and dignified Raqs Sharqi became history, restyled into cheap leisure.

The final nail on the coffin was in the late 1920s or early 30s when the intensely sexist influence of Hollywood permeated into the culture of belly dancing, initiating the colorful two-piece costume encrusted with glittery sequins, high heels, movements of upper torso in addition to more vivid quivering of hips and butts .. all for the purpose of maximum sensual and alluring staging of the show and the specific representation of women as dreamboats and sex symbols, to be valued for their bodies.  

What a tragedy, yet non-visionary feminists can talk endlessly of the notions of misogyny and sexism as synonymous with the Muslim world.



Related link:
Alima not "almey"



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Zainab_M
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« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2021, 01:52:48 pm »



That's a very accurate analysis.  Belly dancing as it shows itself today, is the master of misogyny and sexism, creation of the West in the name of "Arab culture" and then it was merged with the other fantasy called "harem."

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« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2021, 01:54:54 pm »




Exactly ....
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« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2021, 11:15:45 am »



What happened was that from the late 1700s through 1800s and early 1900s when orientalist painters and writers began coming to North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Palestine etc., they came with ambitions as dream collectors to personify the Arabian Nights myths, produce them in canvas or paper through their brush strokes or pens and take them back home to earn money, gain fame and create the razzle-dazzle that comes from works of fantasy.  The dancing girls was one source of such collections.  The orientalists couldn't get the respectable family girls to dance in public places.  So they got these hookers like the domes and so-called ghawazees.  These hookers only knew about the tradition of using the finger zil cymbals while dancing, but they had no idea what the traditional and homely raqs sharqi was.  So, the only commonality was the use of zils but their other dancing steps were completely different from the traditional raqs sharqi.  It continued deviating with time and foreign influence as described by Sister Heba, and eventually the Western influence turned it into raunchy and x-rated belly dancing steeped in vulgarity.  Yet unfortunately belly dancing is dubbed as the "Arab culture."  That's how falsehood masquerades as "truth."   

Prior to 1890s, when the seeds of belly dancing began being sown by orientalists, any one can scan, rake and skim the entire Arab history and will not find anything akin to the recasting called belly dancing.
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« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2021, 11:34:06 am »



Yes, that's precisely the path it took.   

Claiming raqs sharqi to be the same as belly dancing is really offensive. 

Was raqs sharqi also the culture in Persia during the times of Safavids and Qajar?


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« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2021, 11:40:13 am »




  Claiming raqs sharqi to be the same as belly dancing is really offensive. 

 

Exactly ... that sounds very offensive.




Was raqs sharqi also the culture in Persia during the times of Safavids and Qajar?
 

Similar dances using the finger zils were certainly very much the culture during the era of Safavids and Qajars, but Persian dances of had their own titles.   Raqs Sharqi was typically the tradition of North Africa.

E.g. below is an art of dancers performing at a Safavid court.  These dances were similar to raqs sharqi and many of the dancers also played the finger zils.   Traditional costumes were also similar.




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« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2021, 11:43:41 am »



Very interesting ....
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