History

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. The priestesses were sometimes "sacred prostitutes" where they would perform these dances for clients as they invoked the Goddess. 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. There were even different classes of dancers. The Ghawazee and Gypsy dancers were street performers who were not very educated women. The other class of dancers were the Awalim. An Almeh was a woman who had been trained in the art of dance and music. They often played the oud and even came with a list of songs and poems that they could play and recite for you. You could add an Almeh to your household for a very expensive price. An Ustiz was the person who sold these Awalim. Both classes of dancers had a very different style of dance. For the most part the dance was traditionally done by women for women; the separation of sexes and the veiling of women predates Islam and can be traced back to Byzantine. During the Ottoman reign over Egypt there was a surge in tourism and many soldiers. The Ghawazee dancers of course saw this as a moneymaking opportunity and would follow camps of soldiers to dance for. This embarrassed and angered the ruler of the time who exiled the Ghawazee to Esna, which is in southern Egypt, to solve his problem. During this time, many artists whom we refer to as Orientalist painters visited Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia (among other various Middle Eastern countries). They painted many beautiful pieces depicting dancers and harems. Since these artists were not usually allowed into the harem, their paintings are fantastical and hardly depict real life situations. How many women do you know that lounge around all day with no clothes smoking Shisha? These people had lives too. In the 1880’s, the dance had a boom in Europe, which was called Salome Dancing. This was partly inspired by Mata Hari who claimed to be an eastern dancer but who in fact was pretty much a glorified stripper. In the 1890’s, the worlds fair introduced Middle Eastern dance to the western world. They termed this dance belly dance to entice people to see it. At that time, it was very risqué to talk about a woman's hips because it brought to mind other things and so even belly was a strong word to use but was as much as they could get away with without getting into trouble. The dancers who danced at the worlds fair were not dressed as you would see most Middle Eastern dancers today. They were fully clothed in long dresses with simply a piece of cloth tied about their hips. The modern costumes did not exist until much later. Hollywood was the beginning of this change. As with everything that comes out of Hollywood, costuming became much more glamorous. Old Hollywood films show women for the first time with bare midriffs, a fancy bra like top and an embellished belt around their waist. This style then traveled back to Egypt where they made the final transition to the costume of the day where they lowered the belt to sit at the hips instead of the waist. This showed the moves much better. In the 1920’s, Egypt again followed in America's footsteps when they began making movies with dancers. This was the beginning of choreography in the Middle East, before that dancers would never do the same thing it was pure improvisation. You can see, despite their hard work at trying to do the same thing, that many of the early movies look as tough the dancers are not very good however there are many great dancers among them which you can see if you watch each dancer individually. They only look bad or disorganized because they were unused to the idea of choreography. Some of the biggest dancers have gotten their start at Casino Opera, which has featured dancers such as Samia Gamal, Tahia Carioca, Naima Akef, and many more. In the U.S. dancers started to use the veil as a dance prop, Samia Gamal was the first to introduce this to the Middle East. She actually started using it because her choreographer was trying to find a way to make her arms look more gracefully. Before this time, there is no record of dancers using veils as a dance prop although various Orientalist paintings depict dancers with veils in hand. It is hard to say whether these paintings, like so many Orientalist paintings, were fantastical or real. In the 1950's Folkloric and story dances were starting to die out and were put on a stage to be kept alive. In Cairo, nightclubs began to blossom and produce some of the most famous dancers of all time. Among these dancers were Souhair Zaki, Noha, Aza Zharif, Nagua Fouad, Nadia Hamdi, Fifi Abdou, and Raqia Hassan. Nagua Fouad also contributed to the use of choreography, she was not all that good of a dancer when it came to improvising but, she had a good business sense and hired a choreographer. Egypt began to look, to the Muslim community, as though they did not follow any of the rules of Islam and so Egypt recently has began to become very strict. That has led to a decline in dancing. The once proud center for this art form may soon throw down its hat. However, two new places are becoming the center of dance. One such place is an island off the east coast of Saudi Arabia, called Bahrain, where they are very lenient. It is turning into the Las Vegas of the Middle East. The other place is Lebanon, which is also more lenient to the rules of Islam. In Turkey, the dance is more of a cabaret, where they dress very seductively and are very scantily clad. We influenced not only the use of a veil as a prop but, also the use of swords and snakes. We however are not the first to have influenced the dance. The dance has been influenced for centuries from neighboring countries and Gypsy's. The Gypsy's have made possibly one of the biggest contributions to the dance. The Nawar traveled from India through the Middle East and Europe and eventually stopped in Spain. Even today, you can see the common thread in many different countries. The Ghawazee are a sub-group of the Nawar. If you watch carefully, you can still see similarities in the dances of India and the Middle East. Middle Eastern Dance is also the ancestor of Flamenco. It was introduced there when Andalusia was under the control of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. Many of the common Flamenco moves are still almost the same as MED. The Flamenco and Hula dances are probably the closest dance to MED; the major difference between flamenco and MED like most dances is that flamenco focuses more on the feet and the arms then the middle and the hips. MED felt a boom in the U.S. in the 70's and is making another comeback now thanks to new age philosophies and Artists like Shakira. Although, in the Middle East this centuries old dance is losing favor. Due to the rules of Islam and to the fact that youths there look at the dance as being old. They see it as the dance of their grandparents and become uninterested in it. They look at it much the same way that most American youths look at polka. Because of this, it may just be that we will have to carry the torch for a few centuries.